5th December 2017, 8:37 PM
(This post was last modified: 6th December 2017, 12:09 AM by A Black Falcon.)
So a couple of days ago, Michael Flynn pled guilty to lying to the FBI as a part of the Mueller investigation. He flipped, to turn on people above him and avoid worse charges. This is a major turn for the investigation, as Flynn was National Security Adviser, and there are not many people above him; it's pretty much only Trump and his family. The net is slowly closing.
Then that night, the Senate Republicans responded by... passing a "tax cut" bill that is in fact a massive payout to the ultra-rich and also a way to undermine the welfare state, not really a tax cut bill as we normally understand them. I am not surprised, because while I thought the Republican Party's chances of passing a full health care bill were not good, if there's one thing Republicans love it's cutting taxes, and indeed they are still on track to pass this one. It could still fail if the House and Senate can't agree on a bill they both pass, but it'll probably pass and it's an insanely bad, damaging bill.
That's really bad, and the damage this bill will surely do to America is awful. It says a LOT about their party that their response to proof that Mueller is slowly starting to close in on Trump is THIS, passing this incredibly awful bill.
The good news is, though, that the American people have noticed what this bill is. Two polls released in the past day or so show the tax bill polling at a positive approval rating of 29%, which is insanely low for tax cut anything in America! Ever since the beginning Americans have hated taxes, and it's usually easy to justify tax cut bills. Reagan and George W. Bush both passed huge tax cuts, and those tax cut bills mostly helped the rich and damaged the American economy in ways that in both cases helped cause economic downturns. However, when they passed those bills were widely popular, with approval ratings well over 50%, because they sold them as tax cuts for everyone, not only the rich. The bills included real tax cuts for the middle class, and bigger cuts for the wealthy. This bill, though, fails that test; it is so blatant in how it's only for the rich that the Republican Party has actually managed to make a tax cut bill that the American people do not like! That is truly impressive, even if it says a lot about how badly their party has devolved towards a failure to being able to govern.
So yeah, if this passes it should help the Democrats next November. But because of all the people it will hurt, and the fact that the Republicans will use these cuts to try to tear apart the social safety net (such as it is), I still very much hope that it fails, however unlikely that is.
But yeah, that they passed this ON THE SAME DAY that Flynn flipped publicly and Mueller pushed one step closer to getting Trump says a whole, whole lot about their party: priority number one is tax cuts for their ultrawealthy donor base. Nothing else matters.
Then that night, the Senate Republicans responded by... passing a "tax cut" bill that is in fact a massive payout to the ultra-rich and also a way to undermine the welfare state, not really a tax cut bill as we normally understand them. I am not surprised, because while I thought the Republican Party's chances of passing a full health care bill were not good, if there's one thing Republicans love it's cutting taxes, and indeed they are still on track to pass this one. It could still fail if the House and Senate can't agree on a bill they both pass, but it'll probably pass and it's an insanely bad, damaging bill.
That's really bad, and the damage this bill will surely do to America is awful. It says a LOT about their party that their response to proof that Mueller is slowly starting to close in on Trump is THIS, passing this incredibly awful bill.
The good news is, though, that the American people have noticed what this bill is. Two polls released in the past day or so show the tax bill polling at a positive approval rating of 29%, which is insanely low for tax cut anything in America! Ever since the beginning Americans have hated taxes, and it's usually easy to justify tax cut bills. Reagan and George W. Bush both passed huge tax cuts, and those tax cut bills mostly helped the rich and damaged the American economy in ways that in both cases helped cause economic downturns. However, when they passed those bills were widely popular, with approval ratings well over 50%, because they sold them as tax cuts for everyone, not only the rich. The bills included real tax cuts for the middle class, and bigger cuts for the wealthy. This bill, though, fails that test; it is so blatant in how it's only for the rich that the Republican Party has actually managed to make a tax cut bill that the American people do not like! That is truly impressive, even if it says a lot about how badly their party has devolved towards a failure to being able to govern.
So yeah, if this passes it should help the Democrats next November. But because of all the people it will hurt, and the fact that the Republicans will use these cuts to try to tear apart the social safety net (such as it is), I still very much hope that it fails, however unlikely that is.
But yeah, that they passed this ON THE SAME DAY that Flynn flipped publicly and Mueller pushed one step closer to getting Trump says a whole, whole lot about their party: priority number one is tax cuts for their ultrawealthy donor base. Nothing else matters.