December 11, 2017

The Missing Treasury Analysis of the Republican Tax Plan Has Finally Been Released

Good news! Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin has promised repeatedly that the Republican tax plan would pay for itself and that he has hundreds of analysts “working around the clock on running scenarios for us.” Naysayers scoffed, wondering where this analysis was. Well scoff no more. He released it today. Here’s the first page:

Wait. Did I say “first page”? What I meant was “whole thing.” That’s right: it’s seven paragraphs long and contains no original analysis at all. It basically says two things:

  • The analysis from the Joint Committee on Taxation is correct.
  • Tax revenue will rise if we assume 2.9 percent economic growth.

Seriously. That’s it. I included the entire plan above so you could check to make sure I’m not exaggerating. There’s literally no analysis at all. The Treasury Inspector General has already promised an investigation into the missing report that hundreds of people were supposedly working on, and after seeing this I really, really want to see what the IG comes up with. The only plausible scenarios are either (a) nobody was ever doing any serious analysis, or (b) they did a serious analysis and the results were too catastrophic to be released.  So instead we got a one-page report cribbing from JCT and explaining that tax revenues will rise if economic growth skyrockets. A tenth grader could have written this.

Welcome to the Trump era, folks.

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A full one-third of our annual fundraising comes in this month alone. That’s risky, because a strong December means our newsroom is on the beat and reporting at full strength—but a weak one means budget cuts and hard choices ahead.

With only days left until December 31, we've raised about half of our $400,000 goal—but we need a huge surge in reader support to close the remaining gap. Whether you've given before or this is your first time, your contribution right now matters.

Managing an independent, nonprofit newsroom is staggeringly hard. There’s no cushion in our budget—no backup revenue, no corporate safety net. We can’t afford to fall short, and we can’t rely on corporations or deep-pocketed interests to fund the fierce, investigative journalism Mother Jones exists to do. That’s why we need you right now. Please chip in to help close the gap.

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