Grinches at work
Richard Fulton
Dr. Seuss’ tale of the grinch who stole Christmas finds the Grinch astounded by the fact that the Whos down in Whoville did not care about the goodies stolen from under their trees, they were just glad that Christmas had come.
The Grinch noted that Christmas for the Whos “came without ribbons; it came without packages, boxes or bows.” It seems the grinches in congress were much more successful.
The Tax Reform bill that the Republican Senate is working on passing as I write (and may have had the vote already as you read) came without hearings, it came without expert testimony or interest input; it came without input from Democrats or non-partisans; it came packaged, boxed and bowed by the Republican majority without any of the usual procedures used to pass important bills.
They are pushing through a bill that the bipartisan Congressional Budget Office says will add $1.5 trillion dollars to the national debt by 2026 and $10.1 trillion over the next ten years of its miserable existence.
How the Republicans, who have shouted and screamed and stomped their feet for decades over the need to lower the national deficit can push through this bill is beyond rational thought.
But there is the rub. Rationality has nothing to do with this bill, or the Republican congress would have taken their time to examine the content as well as the effects of such a far reaching program of tax cuts. Not to mention the effect on multiple millions of people who will lose their health coverage if the bill passes by the dropping of the Affordable Care Act demand that all Americans have health coverage.
Hospitals, especially rural ones we have pointed out several times, will be devastated by the need to care for all those without ability to pay.
Oh, but the trickle down effect will mean that the economy will grow to (eventually) pay for the tax cuts. Yet, most economists do not agree that this will happen. Economists at the University of Chicago did a survey of 42 ideologically diverse economist throughout the country and found that only one said the GOP bill would lead to substantial economic growth.
Input the GOP senators would have gotten if they had held hearings to find substantial information about the effect of their bill. But then they did not want to know the opinions of experts, they only want a political “win” before the end of the year.
The senate bill aids the wealthy and corporations more than the middle class and certainly more than the poor. Tax rates are cut for both, more for the rich, of course, and less for the middle class; but the rich taxes are permanent, for the rest of us they disappear after 2026 when taxes go up.
Last minute deals were being negotiated to get the votes needed. Deficit hawks want some silly provision that will trigger a repeal of some tax cuts if the deficit gets too high. How will that work? Business GOPers want deeper tax cuts for their sponsors.
Rather than end the tax cuts, more than likely Republicans will want to find ways to cut the budget of Medicare and Medicaid to keep their tax breaks.
The devil is always in the details of such large pieces of legislation, especially tax legislation. Deep down in the bill are several specific tax breaks for special interests that get lost in the arguments over the larger issues. Those will come out after passage, of course, too late to fix.
However the tax bill comes out, if it passes most neutral observers think it will hurt most Americans in the pocket book and leave the wealthy 1 perfect quite happy. Too often the grinches win.
Fact of the week: The Las Vegas shooter who killed dozens of people last month got off more than 1,000 rounds.
Richard Fulton is an emeritus professor of political science.
