Pinch me, I must be dreaming

Trump is telling Congress to raise taxes on the wealthy

I had to check the date when I opened this article in the WaPo:

“Trump tells Congress to raise taxes on the rich in budget bill” (gifted link)

Apparently, in an attempt to raise revenue for his “Big Beautiful Bill”, Trump has told the Republicans in Congress to increase taxes on the wealthy:

President Donald Trump instructed congressional Republicans this week to raise taxes on the wealthiest earners as part of his “big, beautiful bill,” rattling his party’s brittle consensus on economic issues and muddling the GOP’s path toward enacting his campaign promises.

I know he mentioned a couple of times during the run up to the election this in his rallies, but I always figured that was just the tangerine turd-blossom riffing, and telling the rank and file of MAGA that he’s gonna soak the wealthy is popular.

But I always figured that he was just doing his usual bullshit.

Administration officials have discussed several options for doing so, including allowing the top tax rate to revert back to Obama-era levels. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has also floated creating a tax bracket for those earning more than $5 million per year.

The current top tax bracket, which pays a 37 percent rate, applies to those with more than $626,350 in earnings, or $751,600 for married couples filing jointly.

What, back to the Obama levels? Could it be?

But, what about the other sweetheart deal the carried interest exemption for the fuckers who run hedge funds…

Trump is also seeking to close a tax loophole that allows investment fund managers to pay lower tax rates, and another provision that would subject major stadium and arena owners to higher tax bills, the people said.

Holy fucking shit, that is truly astounding. And you have to assume that the Republican congress-critters are shitting themselves.

Oh, and the folks at Blackrock, Citadel and the like. Those fuckers are used to using the carried interest deduction to skate out of any social responsibility for the public goods.

But that list of priorities has a hefty price tag — as much as $11.95 trillion over 10 years, according to the nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget — sparking tension within the GOP ranks between Trump loyalists and fiscal hawks. Some Republican House members from California and the Northeast have also been pushing to raise the cap on state and local taxes — often called SALT — that can be deducted from federal returns, another expensive priority that fiscal conservatives dislike.

Perhaps Trump is finally deciding that he doesn’t want to be the hugest adder to the national debt. But I wouldn’t bank on it.

No, I am not getting my hopes up.

Then, there’s the troll that replaced Sherrod Brown:

“I totally disagree with that,” Sen. Bernie Moreno (R-Ohio) said last week of allowing lower tax rates on the highest earners to expire but extending the rest of the law’s lower rates. “I think the simplest path is always the best path: Keep [the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act] as is and make it permanent; reset the [research and development] and investment tax credits to 100 percent; and then eliminate income taxes on tips, Social Security and overtime. I think that’s the simplest, most effective tax package you could move forward, and anything beyond that I don’t think is passable. We don’t have a revenue problem in this country. We have an expense problem. So why are we even going down that path?”

Didn’t DOGE fail miserably at addressing this so-called “expense” problem?

While I am doubtful that this means as much as a bucket of warm spit, it should lead to a few days of entertaining Republicans trying to splutter their way through.

---