Thomas Mann of the Brookings Institution and Norman Orenstein of the American Enterprise Institute wrote about the tax bills passed by the Republican Party in the House and Senate, soon to be reconciled and signed into law.
“In the past three days, Republican leaders in the Senate scrambled to corral votes for a tax bill that the Joint Committee on Taxation said would add $1 trillion to the deficit — without holding any meaningful committee hearings. Worse, Republican leaders have been blunt about their motivation: to deliver on their promises to wealthy donors, and down the road, to use the leverage of huge deficits to cut and privatize Medicare and Social Security.
“Congress no longer works the way it’s supposed to…
“Mr. Trump’s election and behavior during his first 10 months in office represent not a break with the past but an extreme acceleration of a process that was long underway in conservative politics. The Republican Party is now rationalizing and enabling Mr. Trump’s autocratic, kleptocratic, dangerous and downright embarrassing behavior in hopes of salvaging key elements of its ideological agenda: cutting taxes for the wealthy (as part of possibly the worst tax bill in American history), hobbling the regulatory regime, gutting core government functions and repealing Obamacare without any reasonable plan to replace it.
“This is a far cry from the aspirations of Republican presidential giants like Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt and Dwight Eisenhower, as well as legions of former Republican senators and representatives who identified critical roles for government and worked tirelessly to make them succeed. It’s an agenda bereft of any serious efforts to remedy the problems that trouble vast segments of the American public, including the disaffected voters who flocked to Mr. Trump.
“The failure of Republican members of Congress to resist the anti-democratic behavior of President Trump — including holding not a single hearing on his and his team’s kleptocracy — is cringe-worthy. A few Republican senators have spoken up, but occasional words have not been matched by any meaningful deeds. Only conservative intellectuals have acknowledged the bankruptcy of the Republican Party.
“We have never suggested that Democrats are angels and Republicans devils. Parties exist to win elections and organize government, and they are shaped by the interests, ideas and donors that constitute their coalitions. Neither party is immune from a pull to the extreme.
“But the imbalance today is striking, and frightening. Our democracy requires vigorous competition between two serious and ideologically distinct parties, both of which operate in the realm of truth, see governing as an essential and ennobling responsibility, and believe that the acceptance of republican institutions and democratic values define what it is to be an American. The Republican Party must reclaim its purpose.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Reblogged this on David R. Taylor-Thoughts on Education.
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Abraham Lincoln is turning in his grave.
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After providing tax relief to the 1%, the Republicans plan to turn their ax on our social safety nets in 2018.
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Yes, they will use the deficit as an excuse to cut entitlements like Social Security and Medicare.
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Obviously all of the above . But the bill is social re engineering top to bottom .
“It’s death to Democrats,” said (Heritage Foundation) conservative economist Stephen Moore, who advised Trump’s campaign on tax policy.
“They go after state and local taxes, which weakens public employee unions. They go after university endowments, and universities have become play pens of the left. And getting rid of the mandate is to eventually dismantle Obamacare,” Moore said in an interview, arguing that it would accelerate “a death spiral” in the health-care law’s marketplaces.”
I didn’t need Moore to tell me this. It was obvious that Heritage et-al gamed it all out . Public worker unions and any Unions that do Public Infra structure work . And of course public schools, a good time for vouchers to lower the costs . Anyone know how to say the Wisconsin Experiment . In Wisconsin it was driven by economic decline . In the rest of the Blue states the tax bill will cause the decline .
So was Kirsten Gillibrand calling for massive Demonstrations on Wall Street yesterday . I am afraid she “had bigger fish to fry”. .
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The GOP has morphed into an outlier rogue party. It really is significantly worse than the Democratic party by several magnitudes of malignancy and despicableness. Not only will the GOP try to eliminate The New Deal and The Great Society programs but as an added “benefit,” it will bring on another Great Depression unless we can get more Democrats in the legislature to undo some of the damage that is being done by the party of Trump. There is no equivalency between the two parties; that doesn’t excuse the Democrats for their failures and gutlessness, it’s just a recognition of the fact that the GOP has gone off the rails into crypto fascism, not to mention open and shameless Trumpism.
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Gone off the rails long ago. The Democratic party killed it in an odd sort of way. The Dixiecrats morphed into the Republican party or vice versa . . As the Democrats took over the role of the traditional Republican party.
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I remember when Clinton was running for his first term, we started hearing about the need for a more conservative element in the Democratic party.
After 8 years of Reagan and 4 of Bush, there was this sense of urgency to get a progressive voice in the White House and the only way to do this, according to the “experts” was to win over the left leaning conservatives.
And so it goes…
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Interesting that AEI mustered that criticism, especially since the AEI helped to create the conditions for the miserable state of affairs they are complaining about.
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Good article, but it failed (as many commenters pointed out) to get at the crux of the problem– bad campaign finance starting w/PACs in ’80’s & bad [’80’s dereg-related] 501(c)3-4 laws, & the nadir — Cit-United decision. Tho these were Rep-led moves, they had plenty of Dem support so were essentially bipartisan– which is water under the bridge anyway, as the result is: any candidate/ legislator is beholden to big $ — & big $ grows geometrically now as a result of policies/ laws its agents have been able to put in place by virtue of having been put in the catbird seat by Reps/ Dems since 1980.
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Reblogged this on BLOGGYWOCKY and commented:
I despair about the future of this country.
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So when are people going to realize that the Republican party no longer gives a s#** what happens to the majority of their constituents? I’m not giving the Democrats a pass, but the Republicans are straight out telling us they are going to screw us.
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