If Repubs Believed in Their Tax Bill, They Wouldn't Hide What's in It

What's been released so far about the GOP tax cut bill is only a discussion draft, with the real House bill set for release next week. What they haven't released are the details that show it to be a looting of the middle class on behalf of the rich business elites.

The tax bill should be called the Trump Family Tax Holiday Act.

Brian Beutler at his new site crooked.com has a piece that's illuminating about the nature of the timing -- and subsequent discussion about -- of the Republican tax plan. If they were rightfully proud of it as good policy, they'd be out bragging about it.

Republicans know what they want their tax policy to do, it turns out, but they also know that they can’t disclose their intentions to voters, because voers will not like what they see. The plan is to increase taxes on millions of working people to finance permanent corporate tax cuts, and the eventual repeal of the estate tax for people like Ivanka Trump. And to shepherd it into law, they are reviving the same Secret-Bill Strategy they adopted unsuccessfully when they attempted to repeal the Affordable Care Act.

What shocks me is that they are repeating all the missteps that they took in attempting to repeal the ACA: write a bad bill, hide its true details, lie about them when they come out, ignore the bad public polling, continue to negotiate in secret, and then try to rush the bill through on a party-line vote before the CBO can properly score it or either side, frankly, can get comfortable with what the bills actually mean. Result? The bills flopped.

Will this one suffer the same fate? So far, it looks that way.

If it does, it will be because it deserves to die:

This is a hastily compiled bill — lacking the thoughtfulness of the Reagan tax reform, for example — and its main purpose is to benefit the wealthy. It would harm many middle-class and low-income families in the short term and the vast majority of families in the long term. Don’t be fooled by anyone who emphasizes the bill’s modest middle-class benefits in its early years. (I explained the bait-and-switch in my column last week.)

The next few weeks will be important. Republican leaders have signaled that they will try to rush through a bill. They know it is already unpopular — as many polls, including a new one this morning from ABC and The Washington Post, show — and it’s likely to become more unpopular as it receives more attention.

You don't need me to find out all the opposition to this stinker. Sift through the usual news and opinion sites to discover the widespread disfavor.

So why are the Republicans even trying this? It seems likely because they can't help but return to their holy-grail-type quest, along with the dread that fills them that the donor class will abandon them ahead of the 2018 elections if they don't feed the moneyed beast.