Dem
47
GOP
53
Yes, the BBB contains $170 billion for immigration enforcement. But remember that, fundamentally, Donald Trump sees his presidency as a way to enrich himself and his millionaire and billionaire cronies, many of whom donated to his campaign. Consequently, the 1000-page bill contains many goodies for them. Also, there are special giveaways for senators whose vote needed to be bought.
Some of these goodies are very narrowly targeted. For example, there is a new huge deduction available for business meals—but only for Alaskan fishing boats and processing plants located in the United States north of the 50th parallel (which excludes Washington state, Montana, North Dakota, and Minnesota). Did some Alaska fishing tycoon make a modest donation to Trump's campaign? We don't know.
Or maybe it was a whaling captain (although whales aren't fish). There is a special deal buried in there for certain Alaskan whaling captains to buy weapons. After all, the risk of Russian pirates stealing their whales is a big problem up north.
There is a special carve-out from the minimum tax on big corporations for the oil and gas industry. Sen. James Lankford (R-OK) was still a little miffed at Trump for killing the immigration bill he wrote last year, and wanted compensation for his state. There is also a $2 billion tax break for the all-important rum industry, which is located in Louisiana (because rum is made from fermented sugarcane, most of which grows in Louisiana). Why is the rum industry so important? Trump needed the vote of Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA), and that's pretty important. What amazes us is how cheaply senators—even those with some integrity left—sell their souls.
There is also a $1 billion provision that allows "spaceports" to sell tax-exempt bonds to raise funds, like airports do. It is a wedding present to Jeff Bezos and a severance package to Elon Musk. Not many other people own spaceports in the U.S.
Rep. Mike Kelly (R-PA) was made happy by the inclusion of a $3 billion tax break for real estate investment trusts. No doubt one of his donors has something to do with them.
But some items in the bill had broad support among Republicans. They loved the idea of repealing the federal tax on all firearms except machine guns. We have no idea why machine guns didn't make the cut.
On the other hand, some plans from special-interest groups didn't make the final bill. An $800 million tax break for corporations in the U.S. Virgin Islands, added by the House, was taken out by the Senate. The gym industry wanted gym memberships to count as a medical expense for Health Savings Accounts, but the Senate has its own private gym so members didn't care about gym memberships. A special Earned Income Tax Credit for certain veterans didn't make it either. Such is the nature of sausage-making.
But it also goes against everything the Republican Party stood for in the past. Former Speaker Paul Ryan said: "The tax code is littered with hundreds of preferences and subsidies that pick winners and losers and create complexity. Instead of free-market competition that rewards success, our tax code directs resources to politically favored interests, creating a drag on economic growth and job creation." But who cares about Paul Ryan now? Or reducing the page count of the Internal Revenue Code? Karl Pomerleau, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, said of the bill: "It's certainly a departure from what Republicans were trying to do in 2017 and broadly a departure from what Republicans have been arguing for decades about tax reform."
When a tax provision encourages job creation—e.g., letting companies depreciate new equipment faster so they buy even newer equipment—there is a case for it. But when it merely favors one specific group whose votes a candidate wants (like waitresses in Nevada), it just adds complexity to the tax code and avenues to exploit it for no real economic benefit to the country. (V)