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NYT Report Reveals Truth About President Donald Trump Tax Cuts | The Last Word | MSNBC - YouTube
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I for one cannot thank you enough for
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this reporting because as someone who
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worked in the Senate Finance Committee
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where we would write these tax laws we
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knew we were sending them over to
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another world that we couldn't control
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which is that rules and regulations
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world and it seems more out of control
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than ever right I mean what we had here
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in 2017 was we had a very significant
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tax cuts package that came out of
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Congress and signed into law by
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President Trump but the law was written
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incredibly quickly and incredibly poorly
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and so from there it has to go to the
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Treasury to write a series of
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regulations to help administer the new
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law and what happened as part of this
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law is it was a combination of more than
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five trillion dollars in tax cuts and
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four trillion dollars in new taxes and
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the most significant new taxes on
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companies was about a quarter of a
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trillion dollars on multinationals that
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were supposed to help dissuade them from
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pushing profits and attacks havens
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overseas and what happened is as soon as
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that bill was signed into law several
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dozen of these companies realized that
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this was not some they were eager to do
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a lot of them were not expecting it in
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part because the law was done so quickly
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there were no hearings on this at all
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took place over seven weeks and so we've
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basically had over the last two years is
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Treasury kind of pretty much
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I wouldn't say under cover of darkness
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but in a process that the public really
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has very visit very little visibility
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into has written a series of very
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significant regulations that have had
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the effect of basically rolling back the
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quarter of a trillion dollars in new
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taxes on multinationals to the tune of
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tens of billions and possibly hundreds
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of billions of dollars in tax reductions
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if that all makes sense yeah and this
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regulation process is I guess what we
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could call a semi-public process in the
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sense that there are public
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notifications that this process is
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underway we're writing the regulation 4x
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law you are theoretically invited to
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comment on this but it's only people
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with high-priced lobbyists who even know
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that that's happening and know how to
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comment on it yeah I mean this is kind
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of a couple stages in this process for
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the first year there isn't really even
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anything in the public in other words
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for the first year of the regulatory
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process this is basically all private
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communications going on between
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lobbyists and staffers of the Treasury
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Department and officials there and
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there's really no public disclosure of
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any of that if who's having the meetings
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and what they're seeking and then a kind
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of year into the process the Treasury
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Department issues a series of proposed
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regulations and at that point it becomes
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public and then there are dozens if not
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hundreds of common letters that become
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public about this but you know those are
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things that are really understood I mean
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if you look at some of the letters I'm
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and they're literally you know written
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almost in Esperanto I mean you real
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these are things we understood by
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literally a few hundred tax attorneys in
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America and so now we've got us after a
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very very complicated two-year process
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we are now seeing how these new taxes
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are shaking out and part of the issue
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here is that because the law was so
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poorly written Treasury Department had
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incredible an of latitude or decided
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that it should exercise a lot of
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latitude to try to make a law that
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didn't make a lot of sense in places
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make some sense and in doing so they're
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really only hearing from one side you
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know there's no one out there lobbying
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the Treasury Department to make the
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taxes more stringent 99.99% of their
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meetings are with representatives for
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companies that are seeking the taxes to
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be to be cut and they all each company
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makes the case that oh you don't
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understand how my company works yes this
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that might be okay for some other kind
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of company but this particular company
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if you tax us this way it will crush us
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this way you know what you're making
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that argument yeah or that but the
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intention of Congress was not to tax
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these types of transactions these types
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of transactions are meant to avoid or
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dodge taxes these are transactions we
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have to do in the course of our regular
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business they have nothing to do with
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dodging taxes and there may be some
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legitimacy to those arguments that maybe
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they're unfair maybe they were poorly
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conceived but it isn't necessarily in
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the authority of the Treasury Department
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to decide that Congress has written a
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law that maybe is unfair or maybe
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doesn't make a lot of sense and in the
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case of some of the things we wrote
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about for instance an exemption
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that secretary minuchin signed off on
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that essentially exempted giant foreign
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banks like Credit Suisse and Barclays
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from one of the major new taxes there
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there isn't really there's a lot of
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discussion about whether Treasury had
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the authority to do that and staffers at
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Treasury did raise these objections to
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the officials at Treasury that were in
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charge of this and the other ultimately
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rings in the day yeah the bottom line as
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it were is that as as much as we thought
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the track the Trump tax cuts cost the
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Treasury it cost much more the deficit
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is much higher and now CBO is projecting
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new numbers for where the deficit is
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going and the deficit in the debt are
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going way up higher than they projected
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even when they saw what the Congress
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intended the tax cuts to be yeah I mean
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there's two things to say about that for
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one thing the deficit doesn't have to go
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higher the alternative is the government
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can just cut spending they can continue
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to cut spending at the EPA and at OSHA
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and the Department of Education and NASA
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and take your pick they can cut spending
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and then you don't have to worry about
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the deficit getting higher the other
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issue here is that remember the reason
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the Republicans were able to get the law
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passed so quickly as they did it through
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this process called reconciliation which
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basically they promised that the deficit
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is only going to be above a certain
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amount and then they're gonna Ram the
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law through and the Democrats don't have
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the ability to filibuster or stop the
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the bill from becoming law but what has
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happened is that number the number they
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essentially promised is really no longer
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real number right because the Treasury
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through the regulatory process has
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effectively added hundreds of billions
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of dollars potentially to that deficit
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yeah and Eddie is your articles so
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masterfully points out if they had used
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what has become the real number they
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couldn't have used reconciliation they
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would have needed 60 votes the bill
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never would have passed Jesse Drucker
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this is invaluable work thank you very
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much doing it and joining us tonight
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really appreciate it thanks for checking
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out our youtube channel subscribe by
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clicking on the button below for more
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