On Wednesday, Senate and House Republicans reached a tentative agreement on a final draft of their (objectively horrible, historically unpopular) tax-cut bill. Congress’s two chambers were unanimous in their support for increasing economic inequality, filling the tax code with enormous loopholes for savvy millionaires to exploit, increasing the number of Americans without health insurance by 13 million, and raising taxes on a broad swath of the upper-middle class in the short-term — and on a majority of non-rich Americans in the long-term.
But Senate Republicans weren’t crazy about the House’s plans to radically increase the cost of a graduate education, exacerbate the affordable-housing crisis, raise taxes on people with lots of student-loan debt, and raise the bankruptcy rate for disabled people with expensive medical conditions.
And so, according to the Wall Street Journal, Republicans agreed to leave the following provisions out of their final tax bill:
•Repeal of the deduction for medical expenses.
•Repeal of the student-loan-interest deduction.
•Repeal of private activity bonds.
•End of the tax-free status of graduate-school tuition waivers.
Looks like American democracy works after all.
