The politics of the tax scam bill are most likely terrible for Republicans, e.g. no major legislation that polled this poorly has ever passed. So why are they passing it? I think Krugman has the right idea:
[F]or some significant number of Republicans we may be seeing what I’d call the “K Street end game.” Suppose you’re a GOP Congresscritter representing an only moderately R district, say in NY or California – and you see growing evidence of a huge Democratic wave next year, with election results so far suggesting something like a 15 point swing. What do you do?Well, you could say, “Gee, I’d better buck the party line and show my independence to win over swing voters.” But how likely is that to work? How many people even know how their representative votes?
Or you could say, “Well, I guess I’ll be looking for a lobbying job/ think tank position/commentator role on Fox News in 2019” – in which case your mission in what remains of your Congressional career is to keep donors and the party machine happy, never mind the voters.
There aren’t enough Fox News gigs to go around for the 50+ Republican Congressmen who get shit-canned by voters next fall, but there’s definitely enough lobbying and think tank sinecures to go around.
Lapassionara
The incentives for Republicans in Congress are perverse.
If they shut down the probes of Russian tampering, we will end up being governed from Moscow.
Bostonian
Congressional salary: 174K per year.
Average lobbyist salary: 179K per year.
Average salary of a lobbyist who used to be a congressman: 300K.
They’re doing what they get paid for.
smintheus
It’s either that or Republicans know that everything on their agenda is unpopular so they desperately need to spend 2018 stirring up mud, which requires large infusions of cash from their biggest donors if they’re to have any chance of gulling the gullible.
hellslittlestangel
Or as William Burroughs succinctly put it: “23 skidoo!”
Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.)
As sad as it is, I think you’ve hit on the answer. They’re lining up their next jobs.
WaterGirl
@Bostonian: What’s that word? Is rhymes with more.
Tilda Swintons Bald Cap
Over at Huffing glue Post
Trump 2020 !
? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?
@Tilda Swintons Bald Cap:
Don’t want to read. Is she going to become a Republican?
Ruviana
@Tilda Swintons Bald Cap: A Bernista? Not gonna get out of the boat.
Tilda Swintons Bald Cap
@? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?: I didn’t read it either. I don’t need to diminish my mental capacity.
MomSense
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.):
That’s exactly what they are doing. Corker wants to be SoS or POTUS. They all have their eye on something.
I’m so angry right now. We are arguing about our government, our we the people, just taking care of the basic needs of our citizens. Health care, education, clean air and water, infrastructure that supports commerce and living – this should all be considered necessary for a modern society. When I think of the debt we are assuming with the GOP tax scam and that this debt isn’t going to do anything to improve or invest in the things that make America competitive (great!), I want to scream.
oldgold
They should name this The Citizens United Tax Bill.
It repays the donor class for past favors and probably assures GOP coffers will be so full in the fall of ‘18 that their craven criminal class of Congressmen will survive.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Tilda Swintons Bald Cap: I got out of the boat. So Diana DeGette is the enemy now? and doesn’t care about DACA? Google tells me her district is 29% Hispanic. That story… doesn’t make a lot of sense.
Ben Cisco (onboard the Defiant)
@MomSense: It’s going to be a long slog back. And we’re dealing with terrorists, make no mistake – we have to be ready every time, they only have to get lucky once. Following the path of of that Huckabucking Post poster is madness and is NOT the mindset of anyone we can consider an ally. Fight on.
tobie
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Is Diana DeGette the author of the piece? Damn. I was betting on Nina Turner, whom someone here called Donuts Turner. Whoever coined this, thanks for the laugh.
cmorenc
It’s easy for folks like us who are even relative lightweights as political junkies-who-pay-attention go to forget that the vast majority of the electorate (especially the vast portion outside the Fox News Bubble) – simply don’t tune in to more than the most superficial outlines of ongoing events in Washington. They are far more absorbed in their favorite TV series or college/pro sports spectacles than to the inner workings of the GOP congress, although Trump stands out as such a glaring sore point that the public is noticing how terribly unfit he is.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@tobie: No, Diana Degette (never named) is the villain of her story and the reason she’s withdrawing to the sidelines. That, and there were too many white women at the women’s march, which is something “the Democrats” did.
tobie
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Thanks. I was confusing loyal Dem and committed liberal Diana Degette with spotlight-monger RoseAnn DeMoro. My bad.
Brachiator
A recent WaPo story on the new tax law gets it, elegantly and simply.
Also, a great and simple chart that lays it out.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2017/12/16/the-essential-tradeoff-in-the-republican-tax-bill-in-one-chart/
LAC
@Tilda Swintons Bald Cap: wait, does the brown monolithic voter meeting coincide with the black monolithic voter meeting this year? We have been trying to better coordinate those meetings this year.
MomSense
@Ben Cisco (onboard the Defiant):
The bernistas seem to lack perspective and the ability to consider how their actions will affect others. Otherwise known as Republican mentality.
Mike J
@MomSense: Berners gone full maga
https://twitter.com/marcushjohnson/status/942067691975782400
MomSense
@Mike J:
Oh my god. Has Saint Bernard said anything about this??
Mary G
I didn’t read it, but an article on Real Clear Politics says that Republicans are struggling to find a candidate for North Dakota. North Dakota!
They know that they are getting slammed next year and are going to K St., maybe Russia, or just counting on the American idiots who only took eight years of Fox News and FTFNYT propaganda to get over Watergate, Iran Contra and the ongoing war in Iraq to get bored of not receiving a pony and vote them back in.
Jeffro
@Mike J: @MomSense: repub dirty tricks most likely
Yutsano
@MomSense: Kind of agree with others in the thread. This smells more like the copulation of rodentia,
Turgidson
It’s pretty simple, especially after they talked such a big game about taxes. They’ll take the unpopularity hit either way now that the ghastly particulars of the bill have mostly been public for weeks. So that’s mostly baked in now. Maybe their numbers tank a little more once some of their voters see their tax bill rise, but there’s not much further they can fall.
So the options are:
A) pass the bill, piss off 60% of the electorate and please only 25%, but guarantee that they’ll have the full financial backing of the Kochsucker network and other cruel, ghoulish billionaires, which at least gives them hope that they will have enough money to bury their “Nancy Pelosi demon spawn from the Democrat Party” in an avalanche of bullshit and eke out a narrow win.
B) fail to pass it and lose the billionaire cheddar, which basically guarantees a crushing loss unless they are lucky enough to draw an opponent who was caught on video killing puppies a week before the election.
MomSense
@Jeffro: @Yutsano:
All the more reason he should say something.
Mike J
@Jeffro: I would not be surprised either way. Judging from twitter there are a lot of people with rose emojis in their names on team “why can’t we use that word”.
Yarrow
@Mike J: Well, at least as far as Twitter accounts with rose emojis, it’s worth considering that they’re possibly Russian trolls and bots. Even if they seem like real people, unless real people actually know them or they’re verified, I’m skeptical.
gene108
When I read about the tax bill, I want to nuke the rich. Literally stick every billionaire and their heirs on an island and detonate a hydrogen bomb. If any are still alive after the first bomb goes off, detonate another one, and so on till they are all dead.
That is how angry I am inside about the state of things, and how powerless I feel to have any impact on making a difference.
Boatboy_srq
@WaterGirl: I was thinking of the one that rhymes with institution. Because they must be pros by now.
Bill Arnold
@Tilda Swintons Bald Cap:
Here’s the link for anyone suffering from weak google-fu:
I’m A Brown Woman Who’s Breaking Up With The Democratic Party
It feels carefully written. I don’t want to categorize it yet. The message is not wrong, but the text pushes emotional buttons.
artem1s
So I’m hearing Ryan is considering retiring and not running again. Maybe even before 2018. Why would he quit when his dream of destroying the New Deal is within reach? It’s not like he’ll have to run for the WH. Mueller is going to hand it to him on a silver platter. 2018 is gonna be a weird year. if we ever make it there
Boussinesque
@gene108: I’m right with you; no matter how hard or smart someone might’ve worked, I can’t see any justification for those wealthy few to retain control of such a large percentage of the wealth of the entire nation, in perpetuity, and I don’t see how we remedy that short of the sort of “solution” you described. I’m not a violent person, but I don’t see how we walk back from this without violence—even if we are able to raise taxes on the wealthy once we have a functioning government again, how do we claw back the hoarded ill-gotten gains, given all the ways the plutocrats have of avoiding taxation?
Fair Economist
Backing up Krugman’s theory, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, who is retiring, voted for the tax deform bills. I think most Republicans in swingy districts realize they are probably out no matter what they do and have no reason to care about political consequences.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
even if that turns out to be true, who the hell wants to be Gerald Ford? he can walk away and let Kevin McCarthy or Marsha Blackburn have their fingerprints on Soc Sec knife, get covered with orange gunk when trump inc blows up, graze in the tall grass for a few years, maintain good relations with the Villagers who adore him, and come back to town in 2024 as the Republican who couldn’t work with trump. Kind of the way Powell benefits from an aura of someone who resigned in disgust from the Bush team, when this is kind of the opposite of what really happened.
Boatboy_srq
@Turgidson: Killing puppies may not be necessary. Look at all the Dem pols/candidates who are facing uncomfortable inquiries about past harassment events: one just dropped out of a race in ND(?) this week because her former employer settled a single case a dozen years ago. Not meaning to diminish harassment (sexual or otherwise), but there are likely a lot of own-goal moments coming this cycle, and better vetting of better candidates is becoming vital.
FlipYrWhig
I think Krugman et al are overthinking it. Republicans do these things because they believe in them. They want to cut taxes for rich people and businesses because they _genuinely_ think that it will supercharge the economy, and then The People will see this wonderful thing they’ve done and reward them for it.
Boatboy_srq
@Bill Arnold: I saw that too. Precious little in the article about any legwork or other organising/agitating/campaigning she did for Dems of colour. She’s disillusiined that the Dems didn’t magically transform into a minority-supportive party just because she joined.
germy
@Mike J:
feebog
The point was made upthread that most people simply do not pay attention to politics. When they do pay attention it is brief and fleeting. Republicans are counting on workers seeing that modest increase in their paycheck due to the “Republican Tax Cut” and vote their pocketbooks. Only when the taxes for 2018 come due in April 2019 will they realize all those deductions they have relied on in the past have vanished and they actually end up owing more than last year.
PPCLI
@Mike J: Did the flyers also say “We belong to the Democrat party and demand trigger warnings on textbooks. Soros Rules! No, really, we belong to the Demonrat party.”
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@FlipYrWhig: Ryan has an imaginary beneficiary of his plan, a single mother living paycheck-to-paycheck
because when you’re living paycheck-to-paycheck and have (at least) one kid, an extra $60 samoleans a month means you can open an IRA!
moops
@FlipYrWhig: I think you assume far too much good faith. They do not really think this will result in a wonderful thing. One or two Randroids think this might unleash some untapped economic pixie magic, but even if the prosperity doesn’t fly out of our butts, they are still consoled by the fact that the right people will be pushed farther down the economic ladder and relative prosperity will happen for the white people with money.
no, they are not sincere when they talk about economic stimulus. Stop giving them that benefit of the doubt. They have done nothing in many years to earn that redeeming interpretation.
Boatboy_srq
@FlipYrWhig: In that case Rethugs are completely ignorant of history, because the reward is too often revolution, massacre or dispossession – and because they’ve enlisted the fascists to help them and that neverends well. They’re buay building Louis XVI’s France or Nikolai II’s Russia or Franz Josef’s Austria-Hungary to read up on what happens next.
Bill Arnold
@gene108:
There are cleaner ways….
(I don’t approve of open-air thermonnuclear explosions. Squeamish, I am.)
Anyway, dramatically lower tax rates for corporate persons[1], and for people who own them, than for (other) real humans is extremely troubling.
[1] Corporate Persons’ Suffrage! Interesting possibilities. e.g. voting age; would a Corporate Person need to be at least 18 years old to vote? Would there need to be a Constitutional Amendment? Could the number of Corporate Persons exceed the number of meat humans, by some ludicrous multiplier? Does a corporate person need to be owned by a meat person or can it be autonomous? Reminded of a (really) dark sci-fi story, Noir by K.W. Jeter. (1998) Also “Vacuum Flowers” by Michael Swanwick. (1987; haven’t read it recently to see how it has aged.) And there are other dystopian treatments of corporate rights gone awry.
germy
Boatboy_srq
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: He does realise that Cindy is earning 2X+ minimum wage, and probably has a student loan she will now never be able to pay off, right?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Boatboy_srq: seems to me more like confusion about that whole “getting legislation passed is hard” thing, and it’s even harder when you’re in the legislative minority (and a personal beef with Diana DeGette and/or her staff and/or the state party).
A belief shared, for different reasons, by the Village and Bernistas that “the Democrats” should be able to make good things happen and stop bad things from happening. Voters, and Republicans, are an abstraction. Politico has a headline today about the Dems “failure” to stop the tax bill, and I saw a similar headline in a similar outlet (CNN? NYT?) a couple days ago. Bernie-ism meets Broderism.
PPCLI
And she damned well better, because when the gradual tax increases that will pay for the corporate cuts kick in, she’s going to need to come up with those extra taxes somehow.
David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch
@Jeffro: It’s probably dirty tricks.
But it only has currency because sore loser Bernie and his goons blamed blacks for his defeat, saying black voters in the south “distort” the primary process.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Boatboy_srq: credit card debt, medical bills, it’s really hard to get by without a car in most of the country, and cars need maintenance. Sometimes break down!
rk
@Bill Arnold:
As a brown woman I’ll happily categorize it as nonsense. Why is she moaning about democrats calling white mass shooters “loan wolves” and not terrorists? Democrats have been pointing this out for a very long time.They’re always shouting that the shooters should be called terrorists. She needs to take it up with the media or republicans who coddle white mass shooters. She sounds like someone who was slighted by a white democratic woman and so now all democrats are to be blamed. She complains that democratic reproductive advocacy zeros in on “wealthy white women”. That’s pretty unbelievable! Wealthy white women are not using planned parenthood which democrats constantly champion. Plus she wants the democrats to do something about income inequality for latina and black women, do something on DACA and make a move on reparations for slavery.
I think she forgot to ask for a unicorn.
Someone needs to remind her that democrats are not in power and had a woman on the ticket who was heartily supported by women of color and did not win the majority of white female vote. Plus if she had been elected would have been doing something about income inequality and DACA would not even be an issue.
I despise people like this woman even more than Trump supporters.
PPCLI
@David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch: That, unfortunately, is not exclusive to the Bernistas. As I recall, in the 2008 primary, Bill cast shade on Obama’s win in South Carolina by pointedly observing that Jesse Jackson had won there twice. (“Jesse Jackson won South Carolina in ’84 and ’88. Jackson ran a good campaign. And Obama ran a good campaign here.” to be precise.)
Corner Stone
@FlipYrWhig: C;mon, man. The R’s do not believe in *anything*. They don’t believe in deficit reduction, limited govt, tax cuts create jobs or Jesus coming back for them.
There is one dead simple reason they are doing this. They expect to be rewarded by people with a lot more money than they have.
FlipYrWhig
@Corner Stone: I really don’t think so. I think this is their political theology. They want to cut taxes because they believe, if they believe in anything, that cutting taxes is always good and always works. If it seems like it isn’t good or doesn’t work, the solution is more tax cuts. That and that somewhere a black person is tragically getting something for free are they only things they believe in.
(((CassandraLeo)))
@Corner Stone: Obligatory Big Lebowski scene
germy
Millard Filmore
@Boussinesque:
The same way it was clawed back in previous generations: High taxes, along with the dispersion of that wealth among many heirs, and especially when they waste that wealth on riotous living. Staying absurdly wealthy takes WORK!
David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch
@PPCLI: Bill got clobbered for that. The backlash hit him like a ton of bricks. Sadly, Bernie got a free pass because the media didn’t take him seriously and because they hated Hillary (enemy of my enemy is my friend).
Boatboy_srq
@feebog: The two biggest problems with “tax reform” are a) it’s rarely benefited the oi polloi and b) the GOTea has successfully sold the idea that [Social Security contribution] + [Medicare contribution] + 1 cent is both reasonable and patriotic. Nobody wants to pay more, but anyone who pays less falls in the 47%. If the Dems expect voters whose wallets drive Their polling to drive a cycle we need an entire rethink on taxation, and wealth-shaming via the estate tax isn’t going to cut it (although an income tax threshold of $40k for individuals and $85K for fsmilies might).
chris
This should go over well, CNN says the alimony deduction is gone. Among divorced people I have known those who have to fork out every month tended to their anger with great care.
FlipYrWhig
@PPCLI: That was one of the most nakedly opportunistic of all the Team Obama online foofaraws. It’s really not ZOMG SO RACIST!!1one! to point out that black candidates do well with black electorates.
Sanders and his flunkies were trying to do something else, which was to say that Southern primaries shouldn’t be viewed as meaningful because the white people there were unrepresentatively conservative. Except then when they occasionally won a primary or caucus in a disproportionately conservative state, like Idaho or Oklahoma, then they would crow about how it indicated how Bernie was so wonderful he could even appeal to conservatives.
chris
@gene108: You’re too kind. I would put them on the island, give each one a well made spoon and leave them there.
David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch
@chris:
so for middle class, working class, and poor people with children, parents will pay more taxes and have less for their kids.
Pro life. Family values.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
and Newt Gingrich joins the resistance in 3…. 2…
Sab
@chris: This is going to get some women killed.
Boatboy_srq
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Everything else is dischargeable in bankruptcy. Brutal, yes, but accurate. Student debt as it is is nuts, and DeVos seems compelled to make student debt collectible from the borrowers’ grandkids.
Plus Cindy’s making twice what the average Teahadi thinks single moms deserve, donchano.
Mnemosyne
@Sab:
That was my first thought as well.
Patricia Kayden
@Tilda Swintons Bald Cap: While I’m sympathetic to the author’s position, threatening to leave the Democratic party isn’t the answer. Stay and force the change you want to see. Embarrass Democratic politicians who give short thrift to the needs of Black and Brown men/women. Fight to be heard and demand that Democrats do better by its minority base.
Anyways, bye to the author and we move on. We can’t be sidelined by folks who don’t understand how politics works. Leaving the Democratic party to sit out future elections is stupid and most of us Black folks won’t be following the author’s lead. That would be a victory for the other side.
Dorothy A. Winsor (formerly Iowa Old Lady)
@David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch: How did the alimony deduction work? I assume the one paying it deducted it. What about the one getting it? Was that taxed as income?
J R in WV
@gene108:
Well, yes, we probably all feel like that. But using special weapons for such a localized problem would be environmentally unsound. Using more common techniques, like an broad-ax and a burly socialist to behead first the heirs and then the family leaders would add fertilizer to the soil. And eliminate the ultra wealthy.
lamh36
lamh36
Corner Stone
@FlipYrWhig: The only thing they have ever displayed belief in is that if there is a pool of money, they need to grab it. They do not have an ideology nor a theology. The elected ones I mean. They preach that to the R rubes because it’s what they have grown up hearing. But they don’t give a shit. Look at Cheney saying “deficits don’t matter”. Look at this tax scam now stealing something like $2T from public services and the poor. Tax cuts are just a delivery system from poor to rich. From public to private. They don’t believe they are good nor bad, just necessary so they can get more money in the “right” pockets.
Patricia Kayden
@germy: Given what Mueller has already done, I doubt I’ll have any problems respecting his findings. He appears to be moving in the right direction and that’s obviously why Conservatives are losing their minds and trying to convince Trump to find a way to fire him.
moops
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: It only applies to divorces starting after this year.
All the old divorced jerks in DC get to keep their deduction. All the youngs are screwed. Our corporations require more blood.
p.a.
The very fact of this tax bill’s unpopularity proves how bad it is: to penetrate the public consciousness to such an extent despite the generally innumerate, corporate-supine press is the tell. Now, let’s see what happens when the budget craters and
entitlementssocial insurance is in the crosshairs.Corner Stone
@lamh36: Another D going down. So to speak.
Boatboy_srq
@Sab: They shoulda stood by their men in that case…
/s
But you know this is how the Reichwing will spin that eventuality. Cue the slvt-shaming…
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Rick Wilson and other people were saying that the ramp up in “fire Meuller’ agitation was a sign that team trump had received scary news. I wonder if this was it
and I hope Yglesias is right
ETA: @moops: Oh I’m sure Marianne got a substantial one-time settlement in return for an even more substantial NDA. Just snarkin’
Ruckus
@David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch:
They are pro life and do have family values. The life isn’t your life and nor is the family, never forget IGMFY. That’s commandment number 2, right after number 1, Always project your worst traits and peccadilloes on your enemy. That’s why they like the second amendment, they think it dovetails nicely and helps enforce their second commandment.
Brachiator
@Dorothy A. Winsor (formerly Iowa Old Lady):
Both alimony as income and alimony as a deduction are gone in the new tax law.
Patricia Kayden
@Mike J: The majority of Blacks didn’t vote for Senator Sanders so whether those flyers are real or not is irrelevant at this point. I doubt they’ll vote for him in 2020 either if he decides to run. I certainly will not. I hope we can move on by 2020 to some quality (Obama-like) candidates by then.
Dorothy A. Winsor (formerly Iowa Old Lady)
The scary thing about the last couple of months is that the Rs and Trump seem to be acting more and more openly with no fear of consequences. The tax bill is unpopular but they don’t care. It feels like there’s no way to put the brakes on.
TenguPhule
@chris:
Slacker. 1 rusty spork. And a film drone to watch hilarity ensue.
TenguPhule
@germy: Gaslighting at its finest.
Dorothy A. Winsor (formerly Iowa Old Lady)
@Brachiator: So that transfers the burden entirely to the payer. What is that supposed to accomplish in terms of tax revenue?
Bobby Thomson
They’re voting for it because their voters will vote for them no matter what, even if they are corrupt, even if they molest children, even if they steal from those same voters.
Seriously, this isn’t complicated.
TenguPhule
@Dorothy A. Winsor (formerly Iowa Old Lady): We were warned that when they said they were fascists to believe them the first time.
And you don’t negotiate with fascists.
germy
@lamh36: This part from the article you linked to:
Made me glad.
p.a.
Something pleasant: Alabama election map.
James E Powell
Republicans are counting on typical low turnout for the midterms, Democrats in Disarray, press/media cooperation, and Trump creating so much distraction that no one will recall the tax bill or how they felt about it or even whether it was Republicans or Democrats who did it.
Their history, and ours, suggests they have little to be worried about.
David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch
@Dorothy A. Winsor (formerly Iowa Old Lady): Parent #1 would deduct the payment (say $12,000). Parent #2 would declare the $12,000 payment received.
When you divide the income among two person they fall into a lower tax bracket. But when you keep the income in one person, the income climbs into a higher bracket.
That will be gone. Parent #2 will keep less money in the family unit.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@germy: hmm…. I wonder if any ousted, belittled, big-footed, still ambitious and vindictive ex-chairs of the transition team with a grudge against the Kushners has any friends in Meuller team?
germy
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
We shall see.
Mnemosyne
@Patricia Kayden:
It also seems weird to make this decision in the wake of the election in Alabama where Black women flexed their muscle, dragged Doug Jones over the finish line, and have been widely acknowledged by the DNC and in the media as the decisive factor in his victory. Now is the time to capitalize on that success and start making demands, not run away.
Dorothy A. Winsor (formerly Iowa Old Lady)
@David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch: Oh. I guess you have to pay for the private jet deduction somehow.
Patricia Kayden
@James E Powell: Not necessarily. I heard scoffing about Black voter turnout from Ari Fleischer and other Conservatives but they turned out to be wrong. Many on our side are going to be heavily incentivized to come out and vote in droves next November. It won’t be an ordinary mid-year election because Trump isn’t an ordinary president. Look at what happened in Virginia where Democratic voters almost flipped the state legislature.
Corner Stone
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Big-footed, or big bellied?
David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch
@James E Powell: history says the opposite. In the last 90 years every party holding the WH loses seats during the midterms. There have only been 3 exceptions: 1934 (the height of the Great Depression); 1962 (midterms held only days after the Cuban Missile Crisis); 2002 (the country reeling from 9/11).
KS in MA
@Bill Arnold: Sounds like she got her ideas from Cornel West.
mike in dc
Passing shitty bills and backing the Mueller firing. That seems like a 100+ seat loss scenario, actually.
(((CassandraLeo)))
@James E Powell: in addition to what @Patricia Kayden says, I would concur with @David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch that history actually suggests not that Democrats don’t show up at midterms but that the party that controls the presidency doesn’t show up. 2006 was a Democratic wave, and the only reason 1998 and 2002 were exceptions were the Republican overreach to Clinton’s not-actually-perjury about a blowjob and 9/11 respectively. The 10+-point swings to us this year (as many as 34-point swings in deep-red states like Oklahoma) bode well for next year. We shouldn’t be complacent, but the energy is definitely on our side; the shitgibbon’s supporters are demoralised and have few tangible accomplishments to point to (as much as Cleek’s Law remains an ironclad rule, it’s proving not to be enough to get his supporters out to the polls). Moreover, by now, he’s lost basically everyone who voted for him as a roll of the dice; all he has left are the hard-core RWNJs, and there aren’t enough of those in most of the country to win elections, even with gerrymandering.
lamh36
eclare
@Dorothy A. Winsor (formerly Iowa Old Lady): Payer more than likely pays a higher marginal rate than the recipient.
moops
@Dorothy A. Winsor (formerly Iowa Old Lady):
We currently deduct at the higher tax bracket of the alimony payer, and pay taxes at the lower bracket of the receiver.
Wiping both out is a net transfer of money to the government. It makes the biggest impact on couples with the largest bracket differential.
chris
@TenguPhule: One rusty spork? Nah, I’m a leftie who believes in a level playing field.
germy
Interesting thread:
Brachiator
@FlipYrWhig:
Nope. Republicans have sunk so low that they will bash sick poor kids as freeloaders sucking off the government teat.
As I’ve noted before, this law goes out of its way to give the ultra rich and corporations every credit, break and deduction possible. And it deliberately chokes back on easy things that could help the working poor and the middle class.
Meanwhile you had Trump arguing for a repeal of the estate tax by claiming that being able to leave your estate to your kids free of tax was just a way to show how much you love them.
Elsewhere, the GOP leadership hammers home the idea that the poor are parasites who lay claim to the money of beleaguered rich people who can barely get by with hundreds of millions of dollars.
Finally, the Treasury Secretary just flat out lies about the economic benefit of the tax law while GOP members of Congress dismiss the almost unanimous objections of economists as fake news from liberal elitist biased eggheads.
The Republicans don’t know whether any of this tax law mess will work. And they don’t care. They DO care that their wealthy patrons will be able to hoard more loot.
General welfare be damned.
eclare
@Brachiator: They are cruel. Fini.
FlipYrWhig
@Brachiator: I mean, they’re despicable people from top to bottom, and obviously fucking both morally and factually wrong about Trickle Down in all its forms, but AFAICT they do really believe in it.
mike in dc
@(((CassandraLeo))):
The record for Republican losses in the House in a midterm appears to be 1922. 77 seats. A worthy benchmark to aim to surpass!
Brachiator
@David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch:
Your take on this is a bit odd. I don’t see a divorced couple as a family unit.
lamh36
I’m sure I posted this days ago…but sometimes we need a reason to smile…
rikyrah
@Bill Arnold:
Sounds like part of the pony and unicorn crowd. We are literally at the Hunger Games – American version.
I don’t have time for this kind of foolishness
Dave
@Patricia Kayden: Or more precisely of that low midterm turnout is a problem for Democrats when they hold the presidency. Last I checked they don’t and last time I checked Trump isn’t a milquetoast “oh that guy kinda sucks” president. Are there guarantees? Of course not but “Democrats don’t turn out for midterms” isn’t a real insight it leaves out way to many pertinent points.
rikyrah
@Patricia Kayden:
Thank you. We simply don’t have time for this foolishness.
lamh36
trollhattan
@Dave:
I’ll settle for a do-over of 2006. Trump’s unpopularity will make year-six Dubya seem like kittens and chocolate ice cream by comparison.
eclare
@Dave: Alabama has given me hope that if we focus on turnout and voting rights, and NOT appealing to the Trump voters as the village insists, we can win.
Brachiator
@FlipYrWhig:
Their deliberate attacks on poor and nonwhite people suggests that you are wrong here. Add to this the cruelty of immigration policy that would deport people from Honduras and Haiti who are here as temporary residents. Instead of finding ways to welcome them here, the government acts as though these people are taking up resources that belong only to real Americans. This is a consistent theme of the Trump administration, resentment and disdain.
In the past you might be able to suggest that Trickle Down was a religion, a faith that they had about the free market. But they don’t even try to sell this anymore.
And you might look to what the Kochs and the Mercers have said. They seem to believe in the trickle of blood theory, that a welfare state makes people weak, and that America might be made great again if people are forced to fight like dogs for economic scraps.
lamh36
Is this guy believable?
eclare
@FlipYrWhig: Disagree with you there. Yes, you have have your Louie “asparagus” Gohmert in government, but you can’t tell me that Bob Corker (my senator) believes in trickle down. He is a lot of things, but idiot is not one of them. He, and the others, know exactly what they are doing, which is even worse.
Corner Stone
@lamh36: No. He is not.
Redshift
@feebog: I don’t think most people pay that close attention to their taxes either. Because income and other factors cause variation between years, most denizens of the conservative bubble will believe it when they are told they got a tax cut.
It really sucks that most politicians of all stripes are terrified of raising taxes not because most people would notice on their own and be angry come election time, but because it’s the issue where conservative propaganda is most effective.
rikyrah
The Hill
✔
@thehill
JUST IN: Mueller has thousands of Trump transition emails: report http://hill.cm/MzoQadx
3:37 PM – Dec 16, 2017
Schlemazel
From your lips to His noodly appendages, Doug. I was hoping for 40-42 at most given the advantages they have baked into the system. 50 Congress seats could produce 6 Senate seats and a chance to stop the bleeding at least domestically. If we ever get out international standing back it will be a generation, maybe 2.
Redshift
@lamh36: I think he’s believable in the sense that there are definitely rumors about that going around Washington. I don’t think he has any better information than anyone else about whether it’s true, though.
Mnemosyne
@lamh36:
I’m hoping that 2018 will be an opportunity to quietly clean house on the Demcoratic side by encouraging harassers not to run for re-election or for new office, rather than trying to defend them after they get elected.
lamh36
WHAT DA FUQ!!!!
This mothaphucka needs to be dropped kicked in the face!
THIS is why I can’t fall asleep on planes or anywhere else where there are folks I don’t know and trust!!!
(((CassandraLeo)))
@Redshift: Fox News viewers are no doubt hopeless, but I can confirm as an employee of a well-known TV ratings firm that FXNC’s ratings have dropped precipitously this year, and the people still watching it are almost exclusively 55+. This is actually a reason Jones’ victory in Alabama wasn’t as unexpected for me as it seems to have been for others, though it was still something of an upset: even in Alabama, FXNC’s audience has very obviously declined precipitously. (Before the results came in on 12/12, I figured there were roughly 50% odds of a Jones victory.)
It’s also worth noting that we’re getting to the point where people born in the mid-eighties to early nineties are becoming a reliable voting bloc, and they are heavily Democratic. There are no signs of this changing with the 18-25 demographic, either, but they’re not old enough to be consistent voters yet.
Republicans have gone all-in on their most extreme tendencies, possibly hoping that there are enough people in the FXNC bubble to save their careers or else figuring that their seats are toast so they may as well line up for a sinecure with a wingnut lobbying firm. If they believe the former, most of them are mistaken. As I outlined above, the in party usually faces losses in midterms even under favourable circumstances. The GOP is lining up for a slaughter. This is the second most unpopular bill in the history of polling, behind only Obamacare repeal. If they’re hoping the Wingnut Wurlitzer reaches enough people to save them from an electoral massacre, then they’re as delusional as their base is.
Patricia Kayden
@Mnemosyne: I really wish that Huffington Post and other progressive websites would stop giving space to folks like that. This isn’t the time for foolish naval gazers. We have to win Congress next year to (a) impeach Trump and (b) stop the right wing agenda.
Focus people!!
Schlemazel
@rikyrah:
exactly!
We simply don’t have time for this foolishness.
should be tattooed on the forearm of every Democrat and the forehead of every lefty of the Bernie/Stein ilk. I have seen evil Republicans in my life but I have never felt the battle was really life or death until Dump came along.
Gretchen
@Brachiator: Both members of a divorced couple have the same kids. Any money that come out of either pocket is less money to spend on the kids.
Redshift
@Brachiator: I would put trickle-down in the category of things they don’t disbelieve, but it’s something they accept as fact because it’s a selling point, not that they strongly believe it. I think the vast majority of them fervently believe that taking money from government and giving it to rich people will do good things for the country. Since they also have no empathy for anyone outside their immediate circle (as demonstrated by the periodic conversion experiences where a conservative suddenly sees the light on a particular issue when it affects their family), under that definition of “the country,” they could even be right. I think the vast majority of them also believe that tax cuts will produce massive growth, while simultaneously having little understanding of what “growth” actually is, other than being certain that it will be better for everyone they care about than anything government might do.
mike in dc
@lamh36: Firing Mueller when everyone has time off from work to protest and the congress critters are in their districts able to catch the constituent shitstorm? Sounds like a great idea.
I wonder if Mueller’s attorneys will tell Trump’s attorneys something during the meeting next week that will result in them frantically waving off the #firemueller folks. Personally I think they’re going to request an interview with the president. Because it makes no fucking sense to “wrap up” an obstruction investigation without interviewing the suspected obstructor.
Another Scott
@(((CassandraLeo))): Thanks for the report.
Another datapoint, from BlueVirginia:
I’ve seen no sign at all that Democrats and Democratic-leaning voters are going to do anything other than everything in their power to vote the Teabaggers and the Trumpists out of office at the earliest opportunity. It has been clear to me since that cold DC January day of the Women’s March.
Cheers,
Scott.
eemom
@FlipYrWhig:
Um, who are you, and what have you done with the formerly sane commenter known as FlipYrWhig?
They believe in NOTHING. They are pure whores. They are doing this because Koch et al SAID do it, or your gravy train is cut off. JHC on a triscuit.
eemom
@Redshift:
omg. Et tu, Brute?
I cannot BELIEVE anybody in their right mind would give these monsters this kind of credit.
(((CassandraLeo)))
@eemom: Republicans aren’t whores. Sex workers perform a valuable public service, often at great personal risk. Republicans’ actions benefit no one but people who already have more money than they’ll ever know how to spend.
@Another Scott: De nada.
Corner Stone
@(((CassandraLeo))):
Ummm…they perform a personal service, sometimes to the public. If you know of something I do not, please share.
(((CassandraLeo)))
@mike in dc: I’m still puzzled by people who think Trump can fire Mueller. He can’t. Sessions theoretically can, but he’s recused himself and doesn’t show any signs of being willing to change that – my guess is Mueller has communicated to him that if he violates his recusal, he’ll have the book thrown at him. Rosenstein can, but he has given Mueller his full support. Trump can try to Saturday Night Massacre them, but Congress has all but stated that would be a declaration of war, and in this case they may actually be telling the truth. Institutional loyalty in the Senate could well prove more powerful than loyalty to a president who has shown none to Republicans in Congress, and whom most of them don’t even seem to like.
And then, of course, there’s the matter of a dead man’s switch. Mueller is far too canny an operator not to have plans in place in the event of his dismissal. My guess is Schneiderman issues dozens of indictments if Mueller is fired, and we’ll start hearing a lot of details from Mueller’s investigation that have thus far been kept under wraps. I’m sure he’s also thought of dozens of other things that I, not being a lawyer, haven’t.
In short, firing Mueller could turn into an Obi-Wan moment. You know, “If you strike me down, I shall become more powerful than you can possibly imagine.”
(((CassandraLeo)))
@Corner Stone: Reducing the number of sexually frustrated people out there certainly qualifies as a net public good to me. YMMV, I suppose.
Corner Stone
@(((CassandraLeo))): People keep saying Trump can’t. He can’t do this he can’t do that. Who is going to stop him? Lil Marco? Liddle Corker? Ben Clownshoe Sasse?
Trump can’t stay in charge of his businesses and be President. Trump can’t hire his daughter and Son In Law. Trump can’t hollow out the State Dept and keep all those positions unfilled. Trump can’t appoint 12 judges to US Courts of Appeals position, no matter their background.
(((CassandraLeo)))
@Corner Stone: Trump can “fire” Mueller, but from my understanding it would have the same legal authority as it would if he “fired” Meryl Streep or Rosie O’Donnell. AFAIK, he doesn’t have the legal authority to fire a special prosecutor. IIRC, this was one of the legal protections instituted after Watergate, though I’ve never fully understood the details (again, not a lawyer).
Dave
@Corner Stone: He can for Rosenstein and on down the chain until he finds someone willing to fire Mueller. He doesn’t actually have thr authority to fire Mueller it would mean as much as if I fired him. And I an most assuredly not a lawyer but my understanding is they have to fire Mueller for cause which if they don’t have, they don’t, he can contest and probably continue to show up for work until that’s been litigated.
Corner Stone
@Dave:
Hmmm, who shows up everyday to head and run the CFPB? Oh yeah, it’s Mulvaney.
The Muslim Ban was derailed until it wasn’t. The Russia sanctions passed 98-2 have never been implemented. Someone show me where anyone has stopped Trump. He doesn’t have the “authority”? Seems to me he could appoint Moore’s horse Sassy as Consul to the Senate and then order her to fire Mueller and no one would stop him.
FlipYrWhig
@Brachiator:
I don’t understand how this is a refutation to anything about their belief in trickle-down economics. They believe that giving money to rich people eventually circulates through and ends up in the pockets of deserving poor people (and not the undeserving kind). This is because in their creed rich people make poor people work, while the government lets them just be lazy. Giving money to poor people so that poor people can have money is “welfare,” which they abhor. So in their view going about things this way is a tough-love kind of help for those who need it that screws those who don’t, or who won’t work for it. They think they’re rewarding the virtuous of all incomes and punishing the vicious of low income. They believe many stupid things, this one quite strongly.
JustRuss
@Corner Stone: I get your point, but Mueller’s different. If Trump tries to fire Mueller he can literally say “You’re not the boss of me”, and it’s true. Congress doesn’t have to stop Trump, it’s on Trump on to get Sessions or Rosenstein to do his dirty work, and so far they’ve refused. I suppose he could try to bypass them, but that gets into breaking the chain of command, which could actually have consequences. The deep state cares about that shit.
FlipYrWhig
@eemom: That’s an additional benefit: serving (or servicing) their donors. Maybe for some of them that’s all it’s based on. But from top to bottom in the Republican Party, they also actually believe this shit because they’ve been steeping in it like a teabag (ahem) for so long. They believe that when rich people have money they put it to work, and when poor people work for their money they become good, and when poor people get money for free they become bad. So their economic policy is always, and under all conditions, giving more money to rich people, because it is a tenet of their faith.
Ruckus
@Corner Stone:
Mueller is not the same as those other things you mention. The president does not have all encompassing power. He just doesn’t. Mueller does not work for the president is the basic premise here. Neither do the majority of federal employees. He can not just fire every employee of the federal government. That protects those jobs from being political. How would the government function at all if every new president fired everyone and even attempted to start over? And Sassy could not take the oath of office. She wouldn’t have the power any more than drumpf does. There just is no legal way for him to fire Mueller in any reasonable way, or even unreasonable way. And besides the inability to fire him there is that his job is civil service, cause would have to be shown. That alone is a major stumbling block.
Ruckus
@FlipYrWhig:
I have come around to the view that the only tenet of their faith that the vast majority of at least the republican political class holds is either I Got Mine Fuck You or I’m Getting Mine Fuck You. Roy Moore is of course an opposite example, he’s a raving racist lunatic moron fuckstick. Yes I bet he does believe in tinkle down economics. As well as IGMFY. And every other lunatic idea that has been put forth by republicans for the last 40+ yrs.
Corner Stone
Faith in institutions and norms among the people here continues to amaze me. If Trump was in a game of Musical Chairs he would knock someone out of their chair and sit down and no one would say anything except, “You can’t do that!”. But guess what? He’d be going to the next round.
eemom
@FlipYrWhig:
I don’t agree. That’s like saying they “actually believe” the earth is flat, or that climate change isn’t real. The evidence that “trickle down” is a lie is just as overwhelming. Including but not limited to the glaringly obvious face that corporations are sitting on gazillions in cash NOW that they are not “investing” in job creation or otherwise.
FlipYrWhig
@eemom:
I certainly agree but since their view has the structure of a religious belief, evidence doesn’t dissuade it.
Brachiator
@FlipYrWhig:
This is simply not true, and you keep ignoring the proof given by Republicans themselves.
Even David Brooks on some recent PBS show with Shields fessed up. The tax cuts are by the donor class and for the benefit of the donor class. One of them noted that there was no promise extracted to increase jobs or wages and that the $2 trillion offshore will simply be funneled to shareholders.
There is some fig leaf of a pretense about Trickle Down, but no one takes it seriously. Another news cast noted that the Treasury Secretary promised a report about how the tax cut would stimulate the economy. What was released was a one page half ass summary.
Even Trump is now talking more about money in pocket tax cuts and not future job growth.
And again, Republicans and their familiars are more openly expressing contempt for anyone who is not already rich.
But clearly you want to believe that there is some deeply held belief in trickle down despite all the evidence.
FlipYrWhig
@Brachiator: why is there some incompatibility between contempt for the not-rich and belief in trickle-down? Two sides of the same coin.
eemom
@FlipYrWhig:
I really, REALLY don’t understand why you are bending over backwards to attribute some element of non-evil to these people.
(((CassandraLeo)))
@Corner Stone: Mueller is simply not the same as any of the other examples you’ve given here. Trump has as much authority to fire Mueller as he does to fire Alec Baldwin from SNL. Either one would be well within their ability to keep showing up the day after Trump “fired” them, and he would have absolutely no recourse to stop them. A more pertinent example might be Schneiderman in NY – Trump has no authority over him, either. The president’s authority isn’t absolute. A special prosecutor is one case where he has no direct authority whatsoever. His only hope of removing Mueller is a Saturday Night Massacre type scenario, and even that is unlikely to succeed, because unless Mueller were fired for cause, it would be subject to court challenge, and this would be such a cut and dry case of obstruction of justice that I don’t think even a complete hack like Gorsuch or Roberts could invent a rationalisation for it.
Alex
This is why term limits are such a bad idea. Imagine if instead of a few members likely to lose their seats in a wave midterm, every single member of Congress knew that their only job security in a couple of years is as a lobbyist/commentator. We have term limits in our state legislature, and it removes accountability to voters and any concern for the long-term effects of policy. I know term limits sound appealing to people fed up with Congress, but it’s much better to just vote them out.