What’s so disturbing to me is the way the GOP has shifted so far to the extreme-right while also staying stuck with their old obsolete policies, unable or unwilling to adapt to the changing circumstances.  The GOP still represents big donors, big corporate interests, dirty money & gerrymandered districts, with seemingly a lack of action & urgency on lifting up the struggling working class.  And they claim the tax cuts will help the middle class but I don’t see how.

 

There’s so much about the GOP tax proposals that don’t seem to make sense, like curtailing education & professional job training at a time when one of our biggest problems with putting people into good jobs is the skills mismatch.  And while some middle-class families will actually pay more, contrary to Trump’s talking points, we also see some real whoppers in his original claim he wouldn’t personally benefit since his taxes would go up.  But now as we see with cutting back the estate tax & carried interest provisions for private equity & real estate firms, the Trump family would be poised to pocket billions more.  Of course, he’s been known to lie about everything else, so why not taxes?

 

In the first link below from Our Future, “What is the true cost of inequality“, the article makes these poignant points:

And by the way, the Trump tax proposal goes the opposite direction of those other nation’s tax plans we should be striving for.  Plus it can be no mystery why America’s wage/wealth gaps are far more distorted/severe than other economies in the modern world.  So when we hear Trump puffing out his chest & along with his pundits claim this is a booming economy, it’s only booming for his corporate buddies & those heavily invested in the stock market.  It’s really a continuation of the Obama economy, with low unemployment & growth creeping along, but roughly half the working class are living paycheck-to-paycheck.  All those left wing political blogs get this, so what’s wrong with the conservative blogs. Why can’t they see the light?

So the first set of links in related articles take us to economic problems highlighting income inequality, retail workers, Social Security & retirement concerns, plus infrastructure.  Moving on down, in the article “Economists dispute GOP tax plan,” out of 42 top economists questioned if Trump’s tax cut would significantly grow the economy, one actually said yes.  It’s sort of parallel thinking to the Cleveland Browns are now in the midst of a 42-game stretch, & yes, they have actually won their one game.  But if they do only win 1 of 42, that doesn’t make them a winner.  The very next link states “37 of 38 economists said the GOP tax plans would grow the debt & the 38th misread the question“.  Also, check out a Huffington article, “Republican tax plan class war us,” it proves something is out of whack with this opening to the article: 

 

So while we do need tax reform, it shouldn’t be done in such a way that deficits grow a lot more than GDP.  And despite the rhetoric that this bill is designed to help the middle class & small business, which definitely should be the goal, the reality inside the fine print indicates otherwise.  And this absurd talking point about our corporate tax rate being the highest in the world is largely irrelevant, since all the loopholes & deductions have made the effective corporate rate roughly around half the listed 35%.  So lowering the rate while making it more revenue neutral would require eliminating deductions like charitable donations non-profits rely on, which means it’s more likely the final form of this bill will cave & instead be a budget buster.  So the GOP may or may not pass something on taxes soon, but they won’t score many brownie points with the public just because they managed to get a bill through.