Chait writes: "Of all the horrors Donald Trump has (and has yet to) inflict upon the republic, a huge tax cut for the rich was the most inevitable. But it is also the most easily reversible."
Wipe that smile off your face, Mitch McConnell. (photo: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
ALSO SEE: Tax Bill Could Fuel Push for
Medicare, Social Security Cuts
The Trump Tax Cuts for the Rich Must, and Will, Be Repealed
04 December 17
f all the horrors Donald Trump has (and has yet to) inflict upon the republic, a huge tax cut for the rich was the most inevitable. But it is also the most easily reversible. Lifetime court appointments, carbon pollution, the degrading of democratic norms — all of these will prove difficult or impossible to undo, and leave costs deep into the future. The Trump tax cuts will not.
Indeed, the passage of the Trump tax cuts will help lay the groundwork for their undoing by increasing the chances Democrats regain control of Congress. The moment Trump won his election last November, he immediately forfeited his most potent advantages: He no longer had the deeply unpopular Hillary Clinton as his opponent, and he lost the advantage of Democratic complacency (which tends to build up over time when their party holds the White House.) An anti-Republican wave of some size was always inevitable. But Trump compounded the problem by surrendering another potent advantage: his brand as an economic populist loathed by the financial elite and planning to raise taxes on rich people like himself.
Probably nothing has done more to erode Trump’s public standing than the consistently plutocratic cast of his domestic policy. The tax cut is the second-most-unpopular major piece of legislation in recorded history, behind only Trump’s other major domestic initiative, the health-care-repeal bill:
Democrats have nothing to fear from making repeal of the Trump tax cuts for the rich a defining party plank. On the contrary, they have a great deal to gain. The bill is a cash grab by the wealthy, driven by the demands of the Republican donor base, and stuffed with targeted favors for insiders with lobbyists. Many more are sure to surface. The more they talk about it, the more Democrats can drive home the message that Trump’s economic populism was a fraud.
In the 2020 campaign, Democrats are inevitably going to propose new social spending. Reporters are inevitably going to ask them how they plan to pay for it. Republicans have given them an easy answer: Repeal the Trump tax cuts for the rich.
The architects of the Trump tax cuts have dreamed of reshaping the tax code in a permanent way. Permanence means more than the technical absence of an expiration date. It has stood for the party’s ambition to leverage the Trump administration and their control of government into something deeper. “Once in a generation or so, there is an opportunity to do something transformational — something that will have a truly lasting impact long after we are gone,” Paul Ryan declared earlier this year. “That moment is here and we are going to meet it. Ladies and gentlemen, we are going to fix this nation’s tax code once and for all.”
Their “fix” is a cash grab. It is “permanent” only until Democrats regain control of government. And thanks to the Trump tax cuts, that day will come sooner.
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If Trump weren't there the same bill would be shoved down our throats, and when he's gone we'll still have McConnell and Ryan et al. I worry the left will go back to sleep when Trump's gone, though I too am tired of his antics.
It is IMPERATIVE that voters make ETHICS their top priority when choosing whom to elect. In fact, voters should NOT listen to what a politician says, unless, it can be combined with a proven track record of progressive actions and ideals. Using this methodology, there are very few seated representatives and senators who should remain in office; they should be replaced with new faces that can pass the ethics test.
- here's what robbee wants bernie and dem senators to do - refuse to raise the debt limit until -
1. tax reform does not change any income tax brackets or the corporate or estate taxes
it seems to me that income and wealth taxes are gushing income and wealth to the 1%
if dems are serious about their objections to the tax bill, that it accelerates the flow of wealth to the top, and away from workers in and below the middle class, dems should force conservatives, including those who promise not to raise national debt, saying we can't afford it, to admit that raising national debt is not a deal-breaker, or else derail tax deform
whaddaya say, bernie?
To make that happen we must not only vote Democratic but work Democratic. Everybody reading RSN has a local Democratic party, and that's where newcomers to the process should start.
Hey -- it might not hurt to think about running for office: town council, school board, county commission are all great starting plces. In any case, it's time to get beyond online complaining.
Sen. Orrin Hatch, on the Senate floor debating the GOP tax plan, which gives billions to the rich, about CHIP, the program for children's insurance whose funding they allowed to expire two months ago: "I have a rough time wanting to spend bilions and billions and trillions of dollars to help people who won't help themselves, who won't lift a finger and expect the federal government to do everything .. The liberal philosophy has created millions of people that way."
I guess now we know how the GOP sleeps at night. They are filled with contempt for the unrich, even children. Isn't this how slave owners used to think about their 'property' -- that they didn't deserve an education, couldn't be trusted with money? While consumer spending, two-thirds of the economy, is less important than pushing papers around.
We have to demand that Democrats, when returned to power, repeal all provisions of this GOP tax bill, written by sociopaths.
Had the progressive community responded with full voting support for the Dem campaign when it was critically needed, the GOP would have not gotten such a monstrosity of a tax bill past a Dem presidential veto.
And undoing the GOP tax bill may not be so easy, as the GOP can be relied upon to filibuster any repeal effort, and may even change the reconciliation rules in advance of ceding power to a Dem majority.
I voted you up by mistake. Subtract two.
Great point.
Yes - Trump is clearly sewing his own seeds of self-immolation (please continue, Donald). The greater his insanity (except for war) the more easily people will see through his small and corrupt mind and reject him and his kind in short order. Let's hope so anyway
I call "Bull Shit." The public has been far to the left of almost every single congressional Dem for decades. It's time for the Dems to give voters candidates that actually represent their values and wishes. The only solution is to elect progressive Dems EVERYWHERE, including (in the Senate) Feinstein's seat, Heitkamp's seat, Manchin's seat, Donnelly's seat, McCaskill's seat, Klobuchar's seat, Bennett's seat, Cantwell's seat, etc.
Don't WAIT to be GIVEN good candidates. Run yourself and BE a good candidate!
Someday this Demo party will rot from the head down. Then a new progressive/dem ocratic socialist party can emerge and enact real tax reform.
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