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Bloomberg Tax: Bipartisan Breakthrough Gives “Orphans” New Life

March 7, 2018 No Comments

My Bracewell colleague Vivian Ouyang and I penned an analysis piece in today’s Bloomberg/BNA Daily Tax Report:

Congress last month reached a sweeping two-year budget deal, breaking a months-long legislative logjam and providing a vehicle for a laundry list of non-controversial items that had been captive to the broader standoff over immigration. In addition to establishing higher spending caps for 2018 and 2019 and funding the government for six weeks while a long-term omnibus bill is written, the package included everything from a year-long debt ceiling increase to $89 billion in disaster aid. But it was the tax title that provided the most suspense, as the fate of the so called “orphaned” renewable technologies remained up in the air until the release of the legislative text. In the end, Congress passed, and the President signed into law, a multi-year extension and phase-out of the investment tax credit (ITC) for geothermal heat pumps, fuel cells, small wind, hybrid solar, and combined heat and power systems, while providing a one-year retroactive reprieve for more than 30 other lapsed “extender” provisions.

You can read the full piece here.

A version of this piece originally ran as part of the Bracewell Tax Report, a biweekly publication of brief, timely updates on recent developments in the tax world. To subscribe, click here.

Previous editions of the BTR:

Week of February 26

Liam & Vivian topic: Prepaid Power Contracts

Week of February 12

Liam & Vivian topic: Bipartisan Budget Breakthrough Gives Orphans New Life

Week of January 31

Liam & Vivian topic: After Tax Bill Two-Step, Orphan Hopes Rest on Extenders

Week of January 15

Liam & Vivian topic: Renewable Energy & 100% Bonus Depreciation

Week of January 2

Liam & Vivian topic: TCJA Provisions Affecting the Renewable Energy and Power Industry

Radio

Deciphering Trump Tweets on BBC

March 2, 2018 No Comments

I once again joined BBC‘s Anthony Zurcher along with Susan Glasser of POLITICO and Charlie Spiering from Breitbart News to decipher President Trump’s tweets for our friends across the pond.

Link here via BBC World Service, or listen to the full segment below.

Anthony Zurcher, BBC North America reporter and his guests in Washington DC discuss the President Trump’s reactions to the Florida school shooting and calls for gun control, as well as the latest developments in the investigation into Russia’s involvement in the 2016 US election.

Podcasts

The Lobby Shop Episide #41: Trade Wars: “Easy To Win”?

March 2, 2018 No Comments

Josh, Liam, and Paul react to the tumultuous past 24 hours of on-again-off-again steel and aluminum tariff announcements from the Administration. We break down the context and history of the proposed tariffs and the President’s tweeted claims that trade wars are “easy to win.”

Quotes

The Atlantic: Democrats’ Biggest Threat in 2018

March 1, 2018 No Comments

I spoke with Ron Brownstein of The Atlantic about GOP tax cuts and the midterm elections:

The comparable risk for Democrats this year is that they will be caught in an endless succession of Trump-centered battles—both cultural (guns, immigration) and personal (Russia, White House chaos)—and fail to effectively challenge the GOP claim that its tax-cut plan is benefiting average families. Republicans expect that if voters believe the party is putting more money in their pockets, even many people recoiling from Trump’s performance will still vote to maintain GOP control of Congress.

That’s why so many Republican strategists believe that talking up the tax plan is the key to avoiding a worse-case scenario this fall. “For Republicans, it’s absolutely the most important thing,” said Liam Donovan, a GOP lobbyist close to the party’s congressional-campaign strategists. “There are other things they can’t control—this is something they can.”

Republicans have largely succeeded in convincing the American people that the new tax law is good for the economy in the abstract. But the extent to which it will be an electoral winner–or meaningful mitigator–depends on voters appreciating the direct impact on their paycheck and their families. In that regard they still need to close the sale.

You can read the full piece here.

Podcasts

The Lobby Shop Episode #39: What’s in Our Wallet? Balancing a National Budget

February 16, 2018 No Comments

From the passage of the 2018 budget deal to the President’s FY19 budget proposal announcement, there has been a lot of talk in Washington about federal money and where it should go. Josh and Liam sit down with two lobbyists who have significant experience in this complicated area of government, Ed Krenik and John Lee, to discuss the political context for these events, how they differ, and what they mean for policy going forward.