Posted on 12/20/2017 5:27:30 PM PST by Kaslin
Congressional Republicans may not celebrate the passage of the tax bill at the inside-the-Beltway equivalent of the Bada Bing, but Talking Points Memo editor and publisher Josh Marshall nonetheless likens them to some notable patrons of that fictional North Jersey strip club.
"The absolute need to pass something and to pass it fast led to a legislative process which was akin to driving the truck up to the loading bay and just taking everything. Looting. Or perhaps a mob bust-out," wrote Marshall on Tuesday. "One episode of The Sopranos…was based on the 'bust out' idea. A guy got into debt to Tony. So Tony and his crew took over his business, started ordering goods that they’d then fence for cash…When they couldn’t squeeze anything more out of it they burned it down to collect the insurance money. News late last week…that Paul Ryan will likely retire at the end of this Congress completes the tale. Take the money and run."
Marshall remarked that Republicans "could have done right-leaning tax reform -- basically, a revenue-neutral rooting out of distorting or unmerited tax loopholes and exemptions which are matched with a lowering of nominal rates," or "they could have done a straight up big tax cut," but "they didn’t really do either," because policy, and the well-being of America, just aren't how they roll:
The cornerstone of contemporary Republican politics is a posture of reclamation and revenge, people who feel they are on the losing end of history and want to call a stop to what’s happening. This doesn’t lead to a forward-looking politics. On the cultural side of the equation, the voting strength of the GOP, it’s a politics that wants to reclaim things that were lost. On the elite/money side, the inevitable companion of this sort of political pessimism is the desire to cash in while there’s still time.
…The big picture is one of political pessimism and desperation leading to a public policy of generalized looting. That’s the story of this bill. Tax cuts are the driving force of elite Republican politics. The lack of a bill was demoralizing the donor class, driving down contributions. 2018 looks bad but with literally no major legislative accomplishments to show, maybe it gets even worse. So you need to pass something. Where do you get the votes? Sell them. Every man and woman for himself. Everybody take a few appliances out of the store before we burn it down. That’s the story of this bill. It doesn’t even add up in conservative policy terms. It’s really just a heist. Organized looting.
Also on Tuesday, Vox's Matthew Yglesias called the tax bill the "linchpin" of Republicans' "looting agenda" and argued that President Trump and Paul Ryan "have completely dissolved the norm against dishonesty to the point where there are no longer any whistleblowers in the Republican caucus or the world of conservative media. You just say whatever you want, and dole out favors to your friends -- moving at such a rapid pace that the country’s ability to process what’s happening gets overwhelmed."
According to Yglesias
moral and political responsibility for the looting ultimately rests on the shoulders of the GOP members of Congress who decided that the appropriate reaction to Trump’s inauguration was to start smashing and grabbing as much as possible for themselves and their donors rather than uphold their constitutional obligations.
But it really is true that in this case, the fish rots from the head…
Trump’s victory, rather than inspiring a bipartisan movement to check the new president’s worst impulses, caused the party to snap, with as many factions as possible reaching to toss a rock and grab what they can as long as the party lasts.
They will disappear...never to be heard from again.
Looting. Yeah, that’s the ticket.
UPDATE: COMCAST SAYS MAKE THAT FOUR – more companies announce they are investing in employees because of GOP tax cut!
Next we’re going to argue about spending. Let’s see if the Dems demand no increase to the deficit now.
According to a Business Insider, bonus checks and raises are in the works right now for the actual workers at a number of large corporations.
Looking forward to the low comedy that is sure to follow as dems insist hat lower taxes, raises, and bonuses are bad, bad things forced on workers by evil President Trump.
What does that even mean?
Democrats have become adept at saying nothing. Nothing at all. They are zeros and they are sad that they are irrelevant so they just babble now. Lashing out with incoherent inanities hoping maybe something might stick. They are gonna look mighty stupid when America is great again.
Won't somebody put them out of my misery?
Yes, they’re looting America to the point of gifting it a potential doubling of the current Federal Tax receipts, each year.
All this at a cost of about 25 to 33% of a year’s federal tax receipts, and far less over years 2-5.
The mind of a Democrat is a terrible thing to waste.
So much butthurt in so little time.
A joy to behold.
The ink on the bill isn’t even dry yet and literally billion$ are already coming back to the US and to thousands of regular working Americans. No joke. So of course the leftscum are upset. Again, but sadly, no joke.
° Limited deduction for state and local taxes--$0K for income and property combined,
° Loss of extra (doubled) personal exemption for being over 65
° A measly $500 tax credit for dependents other than children under the age of 16 (you'd have to pay a 50% tax rate in order to attain the same reduction as a personal exemption under the old system--and NOBODY has ever paid that rate!)
Of course by then the mid-term elections will have become a distant memory and the 2020's will be too far away.
Nice Christmas coal, GOP!
Nope, just returning money to the tax payers not the rats, their voters and their illegals in NY and NJ and the elites with expensive estates and high NY/NJ property and income taxes.
Watch people flee run from NY and NJ, now that their high taxes are not longer paid by red state Americans via those deductions on the returns from Blue State thugs in NY/NJ!
". . . he tells lies without attending to it, and truths without the world's believing him." - Jefferson
Aren’t the big spending liberal politicians looking the USA?
The bill may not be perfect but it is far better than “Obamacare,” which is the worst joke ever played on we the people. Dumping the “Mandate” virtually ends that partisan law. Medicaid will now be phased out, I hope!
Put Americans to work and end welfare, thereby ending the pitiful poor.
“Republicans Are ‘Looting’ America”......
Demodummies have been raping this country for years and suddenly they “get religion” by accusing repubs? What a joke they are. Stop importing all those illegal voters and maybe we can have a concerned discussion, until then, LIVE WITH IT.
After Obama running up record deficits and enriching everyone from Solyndra to Iran, it takes a lot of dam nerve to criticize Trump trying to return it to the folks it was taken from.
I really do want to know if he tires of being embarrassingly wrong about everything, but I think I already know the answer: being a wrong liberal means never having to say you’re sorry, and having no shame means you never have to feel embarrassed.
- The Federalist May 30, 2014
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