(This is the first of four articles I write on this blog in honor of the 4th of July, although this 2025 trumpian dystopia is going to make it hard to be a pleasant Fourth)
I once noticed how presidential candidate Mitt Romney had "massive tax cuts for the rich" as his "ever-fixed mark," the one campaign pledge he never flipped against. I should have noted how that massive tax cut was a core belief of the modern (Reagan Era) Republican Party, because even after 2012 the goddamn GOP kept pursuing their massive tax cut plans in order to placate their overlords at the Club For Greed and other SuperPACs.
When the Republicans held control of the federal government back in 2017, one of the few agenda items they were able to pull off was that massive tax cut for the rich, alongside shifting the tax burden more onto lower income brackets to "balance" the shifts in revenue. Even then, it didn't work: Deficits went up and the national debt went up. But the Republican congresscritters didn't care because - under the sway of the minority power of the uber-rich billionaires and mega corps - they honestly don't represent their congressional and state interests anymore.
Which is why this week - again in control of the federal government this 2025 - Congress went and passed an even bigger tax cut for the rich at the expense of the rest of America (via Elena Moore, Claudia Grisales, and Deirdre Walsh at NPR):
President Trump's massive spending and tax cut bill is on the way to his desk for a signature. The bill passed Thursday after Republican leaders in the House of Representatives convinced holdouts in their own party to get in line behind the controversial legislation.
House Republicans passed the bill by a vote of 218 to 214, nearly entirely along party lines. All 212 Democrats voted in unison against the bill, and they were joined by two Republicans, Reps. Thomas Massie of Kentucky and Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania. Leaders were forced to work all night to win the votes necessary to pass the bill and meet Trump's demand to sign the bill by July 4.
All so donald trump can hold a photo op signing event on the 4th of July, hijacking the symbolism of independence for "independence from taxes" even though that's not going to happen for most Americans. Our taxes - yes my bracket is affected - are going to go up (via David Morgan at Reuters):
Several independent analyses conclude that the bill now before the Senate would effectively transfer money from poor Americans to the rich.
The Penn Wharton Budget Model, for example, found it would reduce after-tax income by $1,500 for families earning less than $22,000 per year, and boost income by $104,000 for those earning more than $5.2 million. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office reached a similar conclusion...
House Republicans say the bill would provide the typical family with a $1,300 tax cut and that business tax breaks would lead to higher wages for workers.
Which is a lie: All the previous massive tax cuts for businesses NEVER turned into higher wages for employees. Tax cuts for the wealthy never balanced budgets and never improved the middle or lower classes. Those families with $5.2 million annual income don't NEED $104k extra pocket change, but that family (or individual) on $22,000 a year WILL NEED that $1,500 for bills, bills, and staying out of massive debt.
And those massive tax cuts are not what a sizable plurality of this nation are asking for, if this Pew Research 2025 report from Andy Cerda and Andrew Daniller is accurate:
Far more Americans oppose the legislation than favor it. Nearly half (49%) oppose it, while 29% favor it. Another 21% are not sure.
A narrow majority says the legislation would have a negative impact on the country. While 54% say it would have a mostly negative effect on the country in the coming years, 30% say it would have a mostly positive effect. Another 12% think it would not have much of an impact.
About half (51%) expect the bill to increase the budget deficit. Just 18% of Americans say the bill would cut the deficit, and 27% say it would not have much of an effect...
You would think congressional Republicans would be intelligent enough - or at least aware of the polling - to understand their budget bill is going to hurt their support back home. And you'd be right: A number of GOP congresscritters were begging everyone else to stop them (via Bill Scher at Washington Monthly):
Soon after Senator Lisa Murkowski coughed up the 50th vote for the Senate version of the so-called One Big Beautiful Bill, she told reporters what was wrong with it.
“I struggled mightily with the impact on the most vulnerable in this country, when you look to Medicaid and SNAP,” she said, referring to the bill’s deep cuts to health care and food assistance. The Congressional Budget Office projects that the bill’s onerous provisions would directly strip health coverage from 11.8 million people by 2034, and the omission of any extension for Joe Biden-era health-care tax credits would deny coverage for another 5.1 million, for a total of 16.9 million. And according to the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities, “more than 5 million people—about 1 in 8 SNAP participants…would be at risk of losing at least some of their food assistance” because of the Republican “red-tape-laden, ineffective work requirement. ” For its part, the Congressional Budget Office predicts 2 million people will lose SNAP benefits altogether because of the work requirement...
And yet, Murkowski, you fucking voted for it. You had the power and ability to say NO for the benefit of your constituents of Alaska - and the nation - and yet...
Opinions differ regarding the potential consequences of historically high post-World War II federal debt levels, and whatever those consequences are, they won’t be felt by households as immediately and acutely as the loss of Medicaid and SNAP coverage will be felt. Many Republicans agree with Senator Johnson that our debt level should be declining. Yet, they continue to support legislation that piles on more debt by cutting taxes far more deeply than cutting spending, and in the process, rewarding high-income households and punishing low-income households. Johnson is one of them. He told NPR that Trump “satisfied my requirement, which was a commitment to a reasonable, pre-pandemic level of spending and a process to achieve and maintain it.” A hollower commitment would be impossible to make...
The modern Republican Party is caught in a fantasy of their own making: Pushed by deep-pocket campaign funders who want to keep their greed expanding at the expense of everyone else (damn you, Citizens United ruling), pressured by anti-government ideologues who want to starve the federal government and drown it in Grover's bathtub, and convinced that their incumbent - and gerrymandered - status makes them protected from voter outrage; the Far Right keep buying into the lie of trickle-down in order to justify their cruelty and disdain towards the lower classes.
The Republicans - with trump hosting his horrific photo op today - are going to be celebrating a bill they know is destructive and harmful to the national well-being - especially the Medicaid cuts that will force far too many rural hospitals and nursing homes even in deep Republican Red states to close - but they hope won't affect their re-election hopes for 2026 and 2028.
If trump lets us have fair elections any more, that is.
Goddamn these Far Right bastards.
1 comment:
Lies. Tax cuts do not pay for themselves, but they want them anyway, so they sell them with the same old long debunked lie. Now, lies are all they have, because the truth of their policies are so cartoonishly evil that focus groups won't believe that they are serious. Will the rural folks on the cruel end of that stick ever decide that the buggering is just too much, or will they cling to their racism until their last dog is hung?
Kinda hoped I'd never have to get a definitive answer to that one, but I feel like we'll know for sure really soon.
-Doug in Sugar Pine
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