Links for 04/21/17

Links for 04/21/17: At Chicago Catholic, Fr. James Keenan, S.J., recounts a recent meeting a group of moral theologians had with Pope Francis. "We left stunned and speechless," after the meeting, Keenan reports...

MGB:_Francis knows the issues (after all, he is a Jesuit). He is not the bumpkin some right wingers like to believe he is (especially the Luddites).

Repealing state and local tax deductions is appropriate if you are launching a VAT for most taxpayers and lower rates with few deductions for the remaining payers. This option is usually brought up in health reform where the Federal government would take over Medicaid entirely (or at least for the elderly, which is the highest potential cost driver). This White House has little expertise in real tax policy.

Making a deal with the devils in the House Freedom Caucus will give Ryan a win in the House and doom the bill in the Senate. It would bee a first 100 days wonder. Of course the Democrats won’t negotiate unless the GOP abandons the cut in non-wage income taxes and the Medicaid modifications. The problem is, for Ryan those are non-negotiable. Unless the Speaker agrees to keep his hands off Medicaid and replaces the non-wage income taxes with a more general value added tax or net business receipts tax as part of larger reform, reform is dead save for small bipartisan incremental tweeks to fix the law.