Blog Credo

The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.

H.L. Mencken

Monday, November 27, 2017

The Week Of Whip Counts

The Kick America In The Nuts Act of 2017 could come to a vote as soon as this week.  Turns out this bill will immisserate the poor even more than we thought.  Somewhere, Paul Ryan just became semi-erect.

Since it is a truly atrocious bill - a Democratic attack ad in legislative form - all 48 Democrats are opposed.  That means three Republicans need to flip to stop this from happening.  So who should we keep an eye on?

First there are the "Moderates."  Susan Collins is a likely no vote.  Lisa Murkowski remains in play.  In their avarice to slash taxes on the rich, the Republicans have also found a way to cripple Obamacare's premium structures.  However, that could put Murkowski in the "No" column.

Second, we have the "Senatorial Mandarins."  John McCain has been railing against the destruction of Senatorial norms, including "regular order."  This bill didn't go through regular order, so he might give it a literal thumbs down.  The Mandarins also overlap with the next group: The Deficit Hawks.

The Deficit Hawks are the most interesting group.  For the most part, the GOP doesn't give two shits about deficits, when it comes to cutting taxes on rich people.  They care about them only when it comes time for Democrats to enact social spending.  However, this bill is a fiscal nightmare, to the degree that some quite conservative members have a problem with it. Koch entity Ron Johnson is currently opposed, and Jerry Moran of Kansas has expressed real doubts, since his state has seen the traumatic effects of rampant tax cutting.  Kansas is a complete disaster because of precisely the sort of bill the GOP is proposing. Steve Daines or Montana has registered his disapproval. Who knows where Rand Paul stands, but presumably it's not next to a riding mower.

Finally, we have the Retirees.  McCain likely fits into this group, but so do Jeff Flake and Bob Corker, who share concerns with the Mandarins and the Deficit Hawks.  This really is a shitty bill, and if those two really cared about the legacy of this Congress, passing a completely terrible bill just to say that you've passed SOMETHING, might be too much for them.

Of course, if they make the plan palatable to Murkowski, Moran, Daines and Corker, with McCain and Collins voting against it and Pence breaking the tie, that still means it has to be reconciled with the House, and if it doesn't punish the poor enough, you could lose votes there, too.

The solution, of course, is to pass a much narrower band of tax cuts that mostly go to the working and middle classes, bypasses the poor and then gifts money to corporations through a corporate tax cut.  The estate tax and pass through corporations don't get any cuts, and you don't cut taxes on the 1% by much at all.  That bill - while also damaging to the country's fiscal situation - would by much more popular and easier to pass.

The Republican party has almost come to believe Trump's insane Twitter boasts.  They think Mr. 47% of the popular vote and their gerrymandered districts constitute some mandate to do something drastic.

The great punchline of 2017 is that Trump voters are motivated by "economic anxiety" when they are really motivated by racial and status anxiety.  However, the bill that the GOP is proposing could be used as a cudgel by Democrats in 2018 and 2020.  It's amazing that they want to go through with it.

UPDATE: Add James Lankford to the Deficit Hawks.  I'm skeptical that they will actually hold the line, but...anything that gets the Good Guys to 51.

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