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http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a13943293/republican-tax-plan-cbo-hurt-poor/Operation 'Please Get a Win' Is Underway
And it's not going so well.
By Charles P. Pierce
Nov 27, 2017
The Congressional Budget Office is back to harsh the holiday mellow of Speaker Paul Ryan, the zombie-eyed granny-starver from the state of Wisconsin, and his fellow travelers in both houses of the national legislature. Against the shortest possible odds, as it wends its way through a process controlled almost entirely by Republicans, the proposed tax plan is getting worse, not better, and harsher on the middle and lower classes, not more equitable, and more profitable for the people who buy Ryan his $300-a-bottle vino, not less.
I may have to retire to my chambers briefly to recover from the shock, lest I faint dead away. From those commie bastids at Forbes:
Confronted by the CBOs estimate, Orrin Hatch, Republican of Utah and true son of the soil, told a group of reporters that included Alice Ollstein from Joshs joint, I dont think theyre right. Well, OK.
A somewhat overlooked factor in the creation of what is the most singularly unpopular piece of legislation since the last time the Congress tried to blow up the Affordable Care Act is that the Republican majorities are so desperate to pass something before each of their members is greeted by three spirits on Christmas Eve, theyre throwing things willy-nilly into the bill in order to wrangle the more recalcitrant among their number to vote to pass it. So they have to put something in to please Ron Johnson, and something else to please Susan Collins, and trying to do both is no way to craft legislation that more than half the country already believes is a scheme to shove even more of the countrys wealth upwards. I know the legislative process can be frustrating and messy, but this is like watching someone bailing out the Titanic with a garden rake.
Meanwhile, the passage of the bill remains far from a sure thing. Steve Daines, Republican of Montana, still says he cant vote for it and, over the weekend, James Lankford, Republican of Oklahoma, told the apparently omnipresent Ms. Ollstein that he is no better than a weak maybe, and, fascinatingly, also telling her that the catastrophic failures of Republican economics in Kansas and in his home state are giving him pause. From TPM:
Glorioski, is Arthur Laffers magic napkin losing its mojo with these people? That would be a Christmas miracle of the first order.
Not for nothing but, if it passes, this tax bill also will devastate higher education, especially at the graduate level, and it will turn churches into dark-money generators, and thats to say nothing of what will happen down the road to seniors, and the disabled, and people who are simply struggling to get by. But if Ron Johnson can be made happy, and if the president* can Get A Win, and Paul Ryan can stay on someones tab, then we can all bask in the warm glow of the holidays, I guess.
spanone
(135,781 posts)Achilleaze
(15,543 posts)"The groups hit hardest the ones providing a reduction to federal deficits are the poorest..."
ewagner
(18,964 posts)...that point where the facade of policy is stripped off to show the basic, underlying greed and corruption of the Republican Party.
When the Congressman from Oklahoma calls out the GOP philosophy that turned Kansas into a nightmare, then you know the leadership has gone too far.
It has been plainly obvious to me my entire adult life, since the early 90s, that the only purpose of the R party is to screw the bloody hell out of the 95% of the country.
And, what we have seen in drastic form over that time is that they went from their well rehearsed talking points to pretty it all up in the 90s to where we are today that they aren't even trying to bullshit around it.
AND, we still have the same dynamics with the voters in this country - our 1/3 bashing our heads of the wall, their 1/3 blissfully going along with whatever cluster fuck they are pushing and the "middle" 1/3 in a hopeless state of PTSD in a corner sucking their thumbs because "they both suck!"
world wide wally
(21,735 posts)to put a check on his power by handing him a defeat on taxes.
Now you will see the truth about who they really are. Don't be fooled by their words when they speak out against his ignorance next time.
FakeNoose
(32,568 posts)Are they all toadies of the special interests, or does it just seem that way?
L. Coyote
(51,129 posts)Operation, catch up to real time. Isn't it 2017 already?