Jennifer Rubin: Business groups cool to tax plan

President Donald Trump, who rejoices over stock market gains, must be a bit down in the dumps. The tax bill landed with a thud on Wall Street. The Wall Street Journal reports:

“House Republicans unveiled their plan Thursday to permanently cut the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 20 percent, compress the number of individual income tax brackets, and repeal the estate tax by 2024. U.S. stock indexes, the dollar and Treasury yields turned lower after the release but pared some of those losses throughout the day. ‘Clearly the market is a little disappointed in it,’ said Brad Bechtel, a strategist at Jefferies Group.”

And that’s sort of the nub of the problem: The bill makes the code more complicated, gives big breaks to the rich and widens the debt but doesn’t pack that much of a punch.

For example, the Journal notes that the repatriation provision was disappointing. (“The dollar also fell as investors analyzed the plan to introduce a tax of as much as 12 percent on the foreign profits many U.S. multinationals have stockpiled overseas. That rate is more than Republicans had been considering and could lessen the incentive for repatriation, which is expected to boost the greenback by increasing demand for dollars.”)

Likewise, ending expensing after five years doesn’t do much for businesses that have to plan years in advance. The conservative Tax Foundation previously found that “a temporary, limited expensing provision would increase GDP by at most 0.78 percent after five years, fading to only 0.18 percent by the end of the budget window, with the remaining gains lost soon thereafter. By contrast, permanent full expensing of all capital investments would permanently boost GDP by as much as 4.3 percent.”

Then there is the debt issue. Crain’s quotes a market analyst as saying, “Maybe people think there’s not enough things to raise revenue in there, which is going to be bad for the deficit which is bad for the dollar.” That analyst has some allies on Capitol Hill. Sen. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., in a speech Thursday sounded a warning:

“We cannot simply assume that we can cut all taxes and realize additional revenue. It’s important that tax reform comes as well. We’ve been hearing a lot about cuts, cuts, cuts. If we are going to do cuts, cuts, cuts, we have got to do wholesale reform. With the national debt exceeding $20 trillion, we’ve got to take this seriously. Rate reductions have to be accompanied by real reform. We cannot simply rely on rosy economic assumptions, rosy growth rates, to fill in the gap.”

And, finally, there are the small-business provisions, which went over poorly. That must come as a shock to Republicans who were pitching this as a great deal for small business. CNBC reports:

“The National Federation of Independent Business said Thursday they opposed the tax plan proposed by Republicans in the House of Representatives. ‘This bill leaves too many small businesses behind,’ CEO Juanita Duggan said in a statement. ‘We are concerned that the pass-through provision does not help most small businesses. Small business is the engine of the economy. We believe that tax reform should provide substantial relief to all small businesses, so they can reinvest their money, grow, and create jobs.’

“Meanwhile Todd McCracken, CEO of the National Small Business Association, said in a phone call with CNBC that he was still unsure if his organization would support the bill. The groups have both been pushing hard for tax reform.”

To sum up, the people who are supposed to be thrilled about the bill aren’t thrilled. The amount of debt created for the limited amount of growth it is expected to deliver seems to some to be a bad trade. When support is weak and opposition – from the housing industry, charitable groups (who worry the standard deduction will produce fewer itemizers), those concerned about income inequality and blue states – is very focused, you have a legislative problem.

Republicans have their hands full.