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vineyardmikelast Friday at 8:08 PM1 replyview on HN

This law was written in 2017 not 2022.

The 2017 tax cuts were big cuts, but the way the government budget process works, they want to minimize the “appearance” of deficit spending across a decade window. To do this, added a cliff in 2023 that would raise the taxes on tech companies to help offset the cost of their cuts. Side effect is that the next administration gets shitty economic news. Dec 2022 and January 2023 had lots of crazy layoffs, right on schedule.

The reason it was tech companies specifically is that they’re super wealthy and could (ostensibly) afford it. If you’ll notice, the law exempted software development in oil and gas companies. It doesn’t hurt that tech companies and employees leaned strongly democrat in 2017. The conspiracy theorist in me thinks the tech companies accepted the 2022 hiring mania knowing layoffs were eminent.


Replies

wunusedlast Friday at 9:29 PM

> Side effect is that the next administration gets shitty economic news.

Doesn't this analysis assume that the 2017 administration expected to lose the 2020 election?

I'm genuinely curious. What would have happened if Donald Trump had won the 2020 election? Do you think that the 2022 changes would still have come into effect, or do you think there would have been an effort to change them?

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