New: Even before the rise of AI, the case for raising the corporate tax rate was compelling. Now, I think it’s overwhelming. news.bloomberglaw.com/business-and...

Raise the Corporate Tax Rate to Stem AI-Related Economic Inequity

Opinion: AI’s economic impacts may include more inequity and job dislocations and losses. A higher corporate rate would raise substantial revenue from the wealthy without stifling innovation or growth...

news.bloomberglaw.com

Senators Warren and Moreno recently proposed a plan to lift the Social Security wage cap to help avoid benefit cuts and reduce its financing gap. This is a serious bipartisan proposal and fixing Social Security will likely require bipartisan compromise. www.nytimes.com/2026/06/23/o...

Opinion | Bernie Moreno and Elizabeth Warren: Our Plan to Save Social Security

To save the program, we need to eliminate the payroll tax cap.

nytimes.com

House Republicans proposed another reckless cut in the IRS budget. The proposed 9% cut would take the IRS budget to 44% below its 2010 level. This gutting of the IRS is a betrayal of honest taxpayers. It should be rejected out of hand

The Van Hollen-Beyer et al tax cut bill was released today so just re-upping our prior thread and adding a few tweets with numbers now that more details are available:

The latest Democratic affordability proposal–this one from Senator Van Hollen– was previewed in the Washington Post by @jeffstein.bsky.social this morning. While we don’t have all the details, it seems like a case of good intentions but some problematic results www.washingtonpost.com/business/202...

Sen. Booker’s centerpiece proposal is a very costly expansion of the standard deduction that flows high up the income scale, but also includes critical provisions for supporting low-income families w/ kids and people working for very low pay, as well as sound offsets. x.com/DavidABergst...

David Bergstein on X: "NEW from NBC: Booker wants to make first $75,00 tax free @SenBooker: “Americans are working harder and harder, and they’re making less and less relative to their parents and grandparents...So we need big ideas that could redeem the dream of America.” https://t.co/3pKLM9JvON" / X

NEW from NBC: Booker wants to make first $75,00 tax free @SenBooker: “Americans are working harder and harder, and they’re making less and less relative to their parents and grandparents...So we need big ideas that could redeem the dream of America.” https://t.co/3pKLM9JvON

x.com

The latest Democratic affordability proposal–this one from Senator Van Hollen– was previewed in the Washington Post by @jeffstein.bsky.social this morning. While we don’t have all the details, it seems like a case of good intentions but some problematic results www.washingtonpost.com/business/202...

Democrat’s plan would eliminate federal income taxes for half of U.S. workers

Sen. Chris Van Hollen’s tax relief plan could benefit tens of millions of middle-class workers, with a focus on those making at or below a living wage.

washingtonpost.com

Peoples’ excitement regarding their tax refunds might be less positive than some Republicans expect or hope, and for good reason. The tax change will be smaller than the 2017 Trump tax cuts and will only make up for about half the tariff hit for many.

Congress agreed over the weekend to cut the IRS's base budget by a reported $1 billion. This would be a serious policy mistake at a time when the IRS remains severely depleted. Honest taxpayers deserve better.

New Paper: CBO finds $1 invested in federal non-defense R & D yields $11.50 over 30 yrs, i.e. wow Meanwhile, the Trump Admin proposes a 21% cut in non-defense R & D funding– while targeting top universities– posing a threat to future living standards www.cbpp.org/research/fed...

Administration’s Proposed Cuts to Non-Defense R&D Pose Long-Term Risk to Rising Living Standards | Center on Budget and Policy Priorities

New, high-quality research quantifying the powerful impact of federal non-defense research and development shows why the dramatic cuts to non-defense R&D funding proposed by the Trump Administration w...

cbpp.org

Alarming news this morning that Social Security head Frank Bisignano has been named “CEO” of IRS, a move that raises 3 major concerns: www.wsj.com/politics/pol...

Bessent Picks Social Security Chief Frank Bisignano as IRS CEO

The Social Security head will do double duty at the tax agency while Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent retains his formal title as acting IRS commissioner.

wsj.com

The Administration acknowledged that it will stop the survey that measures food insecurity, just as tariffs push up food prices and the deep cuts to food assistance enacted in July start to take effect. Congress must intervene to save these vital data. www.wsj.com/economy/trum...

Exclusive | Trump Administration Cancels Annual Hunger Survey

The government has been measuring food insecurity since the mid-1990s but now says the report has become “overly politicized.”

wsj.com

Via @jeffstein.bsky.social @washingtonpost.com anti-tax interests want the Trump IRS to give an unlawful tax cut to wealthy people by executive fiat. Just the tip of one of two big icebergs of tax cuts for special interests coming for the tax system. www.washingtonpost.com/business/202...

Conservatives are asking Trump for another big tax cut

Fresh off passage of the “One Big Beautiful Bill,” some anti-tax advocates hope to push the administration to change how taxable capital gains are calculated.

washingtonpost.com

This suggests that Republicans may add yet another deeply harmful health care cut to the Senate bill – a cut that would take health coverage away from even more people, shift massive, unaffordable costs to states, & could even lead some states to end their #Medicaid expansion.

Daniel Payne@danielpayne.bsky.social · last yr.

Scoop: Senate Republicans are considering a new provision that would further cut Medicaid funding in the OBBB www.statnews.com/2025/06/23/g...

Meanwhile, House Republicans are doing nothing about the Trump tariffs & going out of their way to deny any of their Child Tax Credit increase to 17 million kids, many of whose parents likely shop at Walmart- families they voted to help last year, but not now when it counts- why?

MeidasTouch@meidastouch.com · last yr.

🚨 WALMART RAISING PRICES DUE TO TARIFFS “We will do our best to keep our prices as low as possible but given the magnitude of the tariffs, even at the reduced levels announced this week, we aren’t able to absorb all the pressure given the reality of narrow retail margins,” Walmart CEO says.

The IRS has the fewest auditors who have expertise to audit sophisticated tax returns — since the 1950s

Amy Hanauer@amyhanauer.bsky.social · last yr.

Why do Republicans want to gut the IRS? One reason: donors save big. 7 corporations collectively kept $1.4 billion in tax breaks that they'd admitted would likely be found illegal if investigated. But statute of limitations ran out so they kept 'em. With a gutted IRS, this gets worse.

For those who care about the Child Tax Credit - this from my colleague Kris Cox is a must read:

Kris Cox@krisycox.bsky.social · last yr.

House W&M bill does nothing for the ~17M kids currently left out of the $2,000 max credit b/c their families’ earnings are too low. Temp. raising the max to $2,500 gives them $0 or zilch, but delivers an additional $500-per-kid to higher-income families. www.cbpp.org/blog/policym...

The House Ways and Means tax bill released today is skewed in favor of rich people, is even more costly than the original 2017 law, and fails to deliver for working-class families and small businesses. A thread 🧵

in the gop tax plan, the top 0.1% gets more than all the households in the bottom half of america combined

Bobby Kogan@bbkogan.bsky.social · last yr.

here's the same thing, but showing percentiles it's a huge tax cut for the top 5% and way less for everyone else

To get an idea of Republican tax bill on the Child Tax Credit: Picture a couple with 2 kids living in a fancy suburb, making $400k. A thousand $ more for them. For the kids of the people who cut their grass, deliver their packages, watch their kids, clean their house: Nothing

🚨 🚨 🚨 The emerging House R tax bill appears highly skewed to the wealthy, w/ several regressive expansions of 2017 tax cuts & full of costly timing gimmicks, while, despite the working-class rhetoric, failing to deliver for millions of working class families

House Republican plan would harm 4.5 million U.S. citizen children by stripping away their access to the Child Tax Credit if either of their parents file taxes w/o an SSN: cmsny.org/publications...

New Estimates of the Number of United States Citizen and Legal Permanent Resident Children Who May Lose Eligibility for the Child Tax Credit - The Center for Migration Studies of New York (CMS)

This fact sheet provides new estimates of the number of American citizen and legal permanent resident children who could lose eligibility for the federal Child Tax Credit if proposals currently consid...

cmsny.org

See our state-by-state data on where these kids live: www.cbpp.org/blog/policym...

Policymakers Should Expand the Child Tax Credit for the 17 Million Children Currently Left Out of the Full Credit | Center on Budget and Policy Priorities

Congressional Republicans may soon release a budget resolution that will set the terms of the tax debate, and which is expected to extend the 2017 tax law, including its changes to the Child Tax...

cbpp.org

#CTC changes in the House tax bill leave behind the 17M children who currently get less than the full $2k credit. The bill increases the max to $2,500 for 4 yrs (then drops back to $2k), which gives these 17M a $0 increase but showers higher-income families w/ 2 kids w/ an extra $1,000.

TL;DR: Trump's own pick to run Social Security thinks having COBOL code underlying SSA's systems is just fine. But DOGE is "risking benefits and systems collapse" to quickly rip it all out--for no apparent reason. www.wired.com/story/doge-r...

DOGE Plans to Rebuild SSA Codebase in Months, Risking Benefits and System Collapse

Social Security systems contain tens of millions of lines of code written in COBOL, an archaic programming language. Safely rewriting that code would take years—DOGE wants it done in months.

wired.com

DOGE plans to move Social Security systems "entirely off [COBOL] in a matter of months, potentially putting the integrity of the system—and the benefits on which 10s of Ms of Americans rely—at risk." Is this needed? Let's hear what Trump's nom to head SSA just said: www.wired.com/story/doge-r...

DOGE Plans to Rebuild SSA Codebase in Months, Risking Benefits and System Collapse

Social Security systems contain tens of millions of lines of code written in COBOL, an archaic programming language. Safely rewriting that code would take years—DOGE wants it done in months.

wired.com

This new policy will drive 3M+ more people into Social Security offices. Another policy this week will add 4M+. 7M more Social Security appts + cutting 7K SSA staff = longer waits for everyone popular.info/p/exclusive-...

EXCLUSIVE: Secret policy shift could overwhelm Social Security offices with millions of people

On Wednesday, the Social Security Administration (SSA) enacted a new policy that could impose massive demands on the agency's overburdened network of field offices, according to an internal SSA messag...

popular.info

The Social Security Administration (SSA) is reportedly going to stop allowing people without Social Security numbers (SSNs) to serve as "representative payees" for beneficiaries who need help managing their benefits. This risks benefit interruption for thousands. www.govexec.com/management/2...

SSA weighs axing payments to 170,000 beneficiaries

The move to cease making payments to people without Social Security numbers would imperil the benefits of thousands of immigrants’ children with disabilities.

govexec.com

W/ House Rs meeting on tax bill: we’re likely to hear tips, tips, tips. Don’t be distracted & don’t be fooled This is bad policy that Rs seem determined to enact but doesn’t move the needle for working-class people & doesn’t change what Rs are doing: massive tax cuts for the rich

CMS's proposed #ACA marketplace rule would mean fewer people with health coverage, more red tape, higher costs, less time to enroll, plus decreased access for certain groups. People currently struggling to afford the basics would once again lose out. Some highlights (lowlights?) - a 🧵:

With House Republicans meeting to flesh out their tax bill, it feels like an important time for a thread on what a better tax bill would look like.