Richard B. Levine/Levine Roberts/Newscom via ZUMA
The GOP’s shiny new tax law has a glitch:
The new tax law would have let White Castle and other companies deduct their renovation costs immediately, rather than over many years, providing an incentive to do such work….Instead, as written, White Castle and other companies must depreciate building-renovation costs over 39 years—a less favorable rule than existed before Congress changed the law.
Well, that’s no problem. Congress will just pass a minor technical correction and everything will be fine. Right?
The process of fixing this flaw and other technical problems in the law is moving slowly, weighed down in part by lingering partisan bitterness over the crafting of the tax law, which passed without a single Democratic vote. Democrats, who recall Republicans’ reluctance to help make technical changes to the Affordable Care Act, aren’t necessarily eager to quickly correct flaws that stemmed in part from the speedy tax-bill-writing process they criticized in 2017.
“Reluctance.” Yeah, that’s the word.
In any case, goose, meet gander. This is the government that corporate America has happily gone along with and could put an end to anytime they really felt like it. But they don’t feel like it. Dysfunction, rage, and vicious racism are all OK as long as they get some tax cuts and regulatory relief now and again. This is the world they created.
