House Republicans finally released their secret tax plan last week with great fanfare and a flurry of misleading statements about how great it will be for the middleclass.  They call it the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA).  This reminded me of a joke by one of my fishing buddies years ago.  He claimed he intended to publish a magazine entitled “Guns and Pickups.”  That title, he said, made it a guaranteed success with most people he knew.

The 429 pages of the TCJA will be voraciously analyzed by numerous tax experts.  To be sure, this is complicated stuff.  But the bill has already been scored by the Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT), a nonpartisan group of experts whose purpose is to provide assistance on tax legislation for members of both parties in the Senate and the House.  The JCT estimates that this legislation will add $1,487 billion to the deficit over the next 10 years.

Although some Republican Senators are paying lip service to the national debt of $20 trillion and vowing not to “add a penny to the deficits,” I haven’t heard one of them discuss the actual deficit facts – and they are brutal.  The Congressional Budget Office projects that deficits over the next decade will be around $10 trillion under current law, raising the national debt to $30 trillion.  So Republicans want to add almost $1.5 trillion to that?  Really?

The right-leaning Tax Foundation and the left leaning Tax Policy Center will have significantly different estimates of the deficits created by the TCJA.  But I’m inclined to rely on the JCT nonpartisan results.  This is what those numbers and my somewhat crude analysis tell me about the proposed tax cuts for individuals.

Consolidating the tax rates into four levels of 12, 25, 35 and 39.6 percent, establishing a 25 percent rate on so-called “pass though” income from non-corporate business activities, repealing the alternative minimum tax, and repealing the estate tax after 2023 mostly benefit wealthy individuals.  These provisions would reduce federal revenues by $2,404 billion over 10 years.

Doubling the standard deduction and increasing personal and child tax credits mostly benefit middleclass and lower income taxpayers and would reduce federal revenues by $1,553 billion.

To offset part of the lost revenue, Republicans want to repeal the personal exemption of $4,050 per person.  This provides $1,568 billion in added revenues but it eliminates a tax benefit that helps many middleclass and lower income folks with families more than the increased standard deduction.  Plus, the tax credits go away after 2023, causing some lower income folks to pay more in taxes than under current law.

To offset more lost revenue the TCJA repeals most itemized deductions, which recoups $1,253 billion of it.  But some of these deductions benefit upper middleclass and even middleclass taxpayers, particularly those who live in high tax states or those who have large medical expenses.   Sure, the wealthy lose deductions too, but the current law already phases out up to 80 percent of itemized deductions for them.

Republicans keep trying to put some middleclass lipstick on this pig but it’s still — well, pork for the wealthy.

House Speaker Paul Ryan, the seemingly nice guy family man from Wisconsin, claims a middleclass family of four earning $59,000 a year would pay $1,182 less in taxes in 2018 than they would this year.  But since the tax credit benefits in the TCJA phase out by 2024, this family would end up paying more in taxes according to David Kamin, a tax professor at New York University.

The TCJA and the GOP legislation to repeal and replace Obamacare were hatched in the same way.  Congressional Republicans established their nefarious goals and then cobbled together the legislation in secret to achieve them.  Like the Obamacare replacement, they want to pass a bill without Democratic votes so they won’t have to compromise.  Republicans are loath to agree with Democrats on much of anything, particularly taxes and health care.

So while President Trump is sabotaging Obamacare and driving up the cost of premiums, several conservative, billionaire-funded organizations are spending millions on TV ads to sell his budget busting tax plan to middleclass Americans.  According to the Washington Post’s Dana Milbank some of these ads claim that the average family will receive a benefit of more than $1,200 per year.  Hell, that’s not even enough to cover the rising premiums for one month on their health care plan.

Republicans are REALLY DESPERATE to pass a tax cut for their wealthy backers.  Imagine a Republican congressperson’s mother standing in the way of getting this legislation done. She would be mowed down like a stalk of wheat in front of a fast-moving combine.

Polls show that the majority of Americans oppose the House tax plan and six out of ten think it favors the rich.  Senate Republicans aren’t enthusiastic about it either and plan to draft their own proposal.  Isn’t that the way the Obamacare replacement started?

And looming in the legislative headlights is the December 8 deadline for funding the government and increasing the debt limit.   Will the three stooges of government — Trump and the House and Senate Republican’s — get their act together to accomplish this and tax cuts too?  Who knows?  Their slapstick comedy show would be funny if the issues weren’t so serious.

Ominous signals were emanating from the Republican leadership in Washington last week as they pushed to curtail the House and Senate investigations into Russian meddling in last year’s presidential election.  Although the Senate Intelligence Committee investigation appeared to start on a bipartisan footing, it may now end early next year with conflicting Republican majority and Democratic minority reports that leave many questions unanswered.

These congressional investigations differ from those being conducted by special counsel Robert Mueller.  Congress should uncover the full story of Russian cyberattacks and provide a comprehensive report to the public.  Mueller’s inquiry is strictly to determine if crimes were committed.  Consequently, we may not learn much about the Trump campaign’s involvement with Russians from Mueller unless someone in the campaign committed a crime in the process.  The recent indictments of Paul Manafort and Rick Gates do not involve the Trump campaign.

But there is another crucial question to be answered about Russian cyberattacks.  Is the government taking adequate measures to prevent future foreign government interference in our elections?   U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions was asked this question during an October 18 hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee.  He simply answered, “We’re not.”

I believe past presidents and congressional leaders of both parties would have demanded immediate action to protect our election process.  But President Trump and congressional Republicans have political reasons to sweep this issue under the rug — at the expense of national security.  I think this is a shameful violation of their oath to protect and defend the Constitution.

But affronts to the Constitution by Trump and his Republican enablers seem to be the trend.

Trump appointed Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach as co-chair of the President’s Advisory Commission on Election Integrity.  Kobach is one of the chief architects of state laws to disenfranchise minority voters and purge them from voter rolls.  Kobach’s mission is to show that Trump would have won the popular vote last year but for widespread illegal voting but I think he is also gathering information for more voter suppression.

What could be more fundamentally damaging to the Constitution than to discredit the media and threaten freedom of the press?  Republicans have long targeted the media as “liberal” and biased.  But Trump has taken these attacks to much higher level.  He calls unfavorable reports “fake news’ and the media “the enemy of the American people.”  Trump wants stronger libel laws that would make it easier to sue news reporters and he suggested that NBC should lose its license to broadcast because he didn’t like what they were reporting.   NBC is not licensed as such, but the threat is still very alarming.

Sadly, Trump must be achieving some success with these attacks.  According to a recent POLITICO/Morning Consult poll, 76 percent of Republicans and 44 percent of independents believe the media fabricates stories about Trump and his administration.  Does this mean the majority of these individuals will reject clear evidence that Trump colluded with the Russians or that he obstructed justice?   Will public doubt enable a Republican-controlled Congress to reject articles of  impeachment aginst Trump no matter what his crimes?

The Constitution is all about the rule of law.  But Trump attacks judges that displease him and brands Clinton and others as crooks with no evidence that they committed a crime.  What type of jurists will he choose for the hundreds of federal judges he will appoint?  Trump’s former chief advisor Steve Bannon will no doubt help him find judges who are clones of former Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy Moore.

Moore recently secured the Alabama Republican nomination to run for the U.S. Senate in an upcoming special election despite the fact that he was twice removed from the Alabama Supreme Court for violating judicial ethics.  Moore has refused to take a stand on whether homosexual Americans should be executed and he has claimed that duly elected Muslims should not be allowed to serve in Congress.

Yet Moore received enthusiastic endorsements from Sens. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), Mike Lee (R-Utah) and Rand Paul (R-Ky.), who lauded Moore’s integrity and his commitment to the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.  Retiring Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Az.) may be the only Republican senator who has spoken out against Moore’s opinions saying “that’s not our party, that is not us.”  But Flake will be out of the Senate in 2019 and Moore will likely be in.

Even normally level-headed Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) endorsed Moore saying he will be “a tireless advocate led by principle rather than politics.”  Senators like Cornyn are either putting party before country or they fear attacks from Trump’s rabid supporters like Bannon and Fox News’ Sean Hannity.  Either way endorsements or tacit approval of a radical like Roy Moore should tell us volumes about where the GOP is headed.

I believe Trump, along with his supporters in Congress and the right-wing media, is pushing this country toward a critical crossroads.  Will this nation adopt the bigotry and white nationalism that they are advocating?  Will Trump further subvert the First Amendment and voting rights with the help of Bannon and far-right zealots like Roy Moore?

How many will follow as Trump and the Republican Party recklessly diverges from the path that the Founders established?  For now, voters have a choice.  The direction they take will make all the difference for our democracy.

The real challenge in blogging these days is to provide helpful commentary on what’s going on in Washington.  It’s like someone – I wonder who? – placed all parts of the major issues in a cannon and blasted them into the sky.  Are we moving toward war with North Korea?  Will the insurance markets collapse as President Trump undermines Obamacare?  Will the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) dissolve?  Will the Iran nuclear agreement unravel as Trump tries to weaken it?  The pieces will continue to fall over the coming months and no one can be sure how or where they will land.

One thing is for sure; Trump’s first priority seems to be pleasing his base.  One recent poll found that a majority of Republicans favor a preemptive strike against North Korea.  Don’t they realize there are thousands of artillery pieces and rocket launchers pointing south along the 38th parallel? Massive destructive forces are within easy range of Seoul, South Korea with its population of almost 10 million people.  Even if Kim Jung-un is unable to launch a nuclear tipped rocket the carnage that would follow this U.S. act of war is unthinkable.

No doubt many of Trump’s supporters hate the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare), if for no other reason than its name.  But research by the Associated Press shows that 70 percent of those who benefit from insurance discounts on deductibles and co-pays that the federal government subsidizes are in states that helped elect Trump.  Of the top 10 states that benefit the most, nine voted for Trump. No matter, Trump carelessly refuses to fund the subsidies.

These folks will continue to receive this support because insurers are required by law to provide it.  But without the offset of federal payments the companies that don’t exit the markets will be forced to raise premiums for other insureds, potentially making coverage for them too expensive.  Trump has punted this thorny problem to Congress, perhaps to spitefully punish congressional Republicans for failing to repeal and replace Obamacare.  .

NAFTA is considered to be a bad deal by many workers in the rust belt who voted for Trump.  But if you talk with farmers in the heartland where Trump scored big with the voters you might hear a different story.  Farming economies depend on exports and American farmers are among the most efficient in the world.  Reports indicate that many Mexican corn farmers were put out of business by NAFTA.

Plus NAFTA has helped the U.S. manufacturing sector be more competitive with Asian and European competitors.  Actually it is surprising that more free-trade Republicans haven’t pushed back on Trump’s initiatives to renegotiate trade agreements and his rejection of the Trans Pacific Partnership.  Perhaps they prefer to avoid his wrath.

We can’t speculate on how Trump’s action to decertify the Iran nuclear deal will play out.  Like his decision on Obamacare subsidies, Trump has tossed the contentious Iran issue into the hands of the Republican-controlled Congress.  Congress must now decide if sanctions are to be imposed.

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson was left to clean up some of Trump’s mess.   On CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday he was asked if he agrees with Defense Secretary James Mattis’ who prefers that Congress not immediately impose sanctions on Iran.  Tillerson said “I do agree with that, and I think the president does as well.”  I am no fan of Tillerson, but if he and Mattis resign or are fired the country will be in much deeper trouble.

With less than 28 legislative days left in 2017, however, Congress already has more than it can handle.  I seriously doubt if it will take any action to renew sanctions on Iran.  The big question concerns the payment of Obamacare insurance subsidies.  With so many Republican voters likely to be damaged by Trump’s refusal to pay subsidies, will Congress intervene?  Who knows?

Meanwhile congressional Republicans are desperate to pass some type of tax cut.  They believe their control of Congress depends on it.  Senate Republicans are to vote this week on a budget resolution designed to facilitate passage of tax legislation without Democratic votes.  They have scuttled a rule that would delay voting on a bill until 28 hours after its official budget impact has been completed.  In other words, don’t worry about how the tax bill affects the budget, just get it done.

In order to speed the progress on tax legislation, the deficit-hawkish House Freedom Caucus is no longer demanding the $200 billion in mandatory spending cuts that were included in the House budget resolution. Consequently it seems likely that the final budget resolution to be voted on by both the House and the Senate will simply authorize a tax plan that could add $1.5 trillion to the deficits over the next decade.  Still, there is no assurance that both chambers will get it done.

I don’t believe that there has been a time during my adult life when the country has been so adrift and rudderless.  Trump is not a leader; he is a divider and destroyer — a wrecking ball without morals, conscience or integrity.  I see him as the modern day equivalent of Nero who fiddled while Rome burned — except it is the credibility, the values and the ethics of the United State of America that are being destroyed — while he plays golf.

Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Ia.) has been in Congress 43 years, 37 of those in the U.S. Senate.  When asked about the Graham-Cassidy bill to repeal and replace Obamacare he said: “You know, I could maybe give you 10 reasons why this bill shouldn’t be considered.  But Republicans campaigned on this so often that you have a responsibility to carry out what you said in the campaign.”  Really?  A campaign promise outweighs people dying for lack of health care?

Republicans obstructed President Obama every way they could, creating crisis after crisis on critical issues like funding the government and raising the debt limit.  They unfairly blamed him for the deficits, which they claimed were the nation’s number one problem.  Members of the House Freedom Caucus and other conservatives even voted for a catastrophic default on the nation’s debt over this issue.

Now the GOP is enthusiastically promoting an irresponsible, budget-busting tax cut for corporations and the wealthy.  But deficits no longer seem to matter to Republicans, including the Freedom Caucus.  They promised tax cuts and now they must deliver regardless of the consequences.

What could be more outrageous than Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Senate Republicans crafting major legislation on health care and taxes with limited hearings and little input from experts, Democrats or the public.  GOP policies don’t hold up in the light of day so legislation is fashioned in secret and presented for a vote with limited time for review.  This is a terrible precedent that weakens our traditional democratic processes.

Candidate Trump talked like a populist, the voice of working Americans.  He was going to challenge the establishment and “drain the swamp.”  But he and his billionaire cabinet members operate most comfortably in the swamp.

President Trump is lining his pockets by promoting his properties as THE places to have contact with him and influence the government.  The Trump hotel in Washington, DC has become a magnet for those seeking favors from his administration.

Fabulously wealthy Sec. of Treasury Steve Mnuchin requested government jets for his honeymoon to Europe.  Former Rep. Tom Price (R-Ga.) — already under a cloud for insider trading in stocks he influenced with legislation – used his position as Health and Human Services secretary to fly on chartered and government jets for both domestic and foreign trips.  The taxpayer’s bill was estimated at around $1 million.

Price has resigned but he’s not the only cabinet official charging the taxpayers for their excessive, luxury accommodations.  Environmental Protection Agency head Scott Pruitt reportedly spent $25,000 for a secure, soundproof communications booth in his office.  (This made me think of bumbling detective Maxwell Smart’s “cone of silence” in the TV program “Get Smart.)  Pruitt must be concerned that someone will overhear his conversations with oil industry buddies and discover the terrible things he is trying to do to the environment.  He too flies on chartered or government jets when commercial travel would suffice.

Pruitt also has an unprecedented 18-person, 24/7 security detail at the cost to taxpayers of over $800,000 for just three months.  He must be paranoid – or perhaps he’s afraid of the American public.  When they discover how his decisions are exposing them to increased industrial pollution, they might get really angry.

But there are numerous other reasons for public anger.  Strong evidence shows that Russia conducted a cyber-attack to influence the 2016 presidential election; but Trump and congressional Republicans can’t be bothered with taking defensive actions.  I don’t hear them demanding a strong technical barrier to defend against Russian hacking.  Russia is trying to destroy our free society, our democratic processes and our faith in the government but the Trump administration and Congress do not appear to be doing much to prevent it.

Another outrage was the primary in Alabama to select a candidate to fill Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ seat in the Senate.  Republicans selected Roy Moore, an evangelical, homophobic radical.  Most Senate Republicans just shrugged, but not Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.).  He called it like it should be called: Referring to Moore’s unbelievable insistence that Muslim Americans shouldn’t be allowed to serve in Congress, Flake said, “I think that when we disagree with something so fundamental like that, we ought to stand up and say, that’s not right, that’s not our party, that is not us.”  I’m sorry Jeff, that may not be you — but that is your party.

For years Republicans have demonized the media and the federal government.  As a result, their base and millions of other Americans are losing faith in the basic institutions of our democratic republic.  Many people don’t know who to trust.  No country can progress — let alone prosper — when this happens.  And Trump compounds the problem with his pathological lying.

The examples are too numerous to chronical, but perhaps the biggest outrage is how Trump is dividing our nation — how he is being enabled by many Republicans in Congress — and how millions of Americans don’t seem to care or think it’s ok.

I believe it will take a long time for the nation to recover from McConnell, Trump and the ideologically driven right-wing.  Hopefully a clear majority of voters will put a stop to some of their outrages in the 2018 elections.

Footnote:

Last Sunday our son-in-law Ed and I completed a 2,700-mile drive across most of this great country from the east, through the heartland where I was born and on to the west coast.  I was reminded that very few people live in this vast expanse of land.  We spent hours traveling across flat, endless prairies, passed farmlands with few houses and through fields of corn and wheat that stretched out beyond the horizon on both sides of the road.  We met many great folks along the way but in a small, windy Wyoming town we experienced some particularly friendly, helpful clerks in a combination gas station, general store and pizza parlor.  I kept wondering why these good people would help elect a slick, lying, New York City real estate developer like Donald Trump.  They no doubt knew Trump is a jerk; but perhaps they thought he would be their jerk.  I think they were wrong.

The pressure for tax reform is building.  Conservative organizations are spending millions on TV ads directed at the middleclass who likely won’t get much tax relief from the GOP plan.  President Trump has promoted tax reform at two campaign-style rallies and numerous similar rallies are planned.  CEOs of large corporations are claiming that reducing the 35 percent corporate tax rate is critical for economic growth even though many of them paid single digit federal tax rates last year.

There will be so many proposals flying around that I wanted to provide some information that might help readers understand how tax reform will go down and what it might mean for federal deficits.

First, what is the process to do tax reform?  Republicans want to use budget reconciliation to pass tax legislation without Democratic votes.  This requires that both chambers of the Republican-controlled Congress first approve a concurrent budget resolution for fiscal year 2018 that includes instructions for passing tax reform.  But GOP House members can’t agree on the budget numbers so this critical step has not yet been taken.

What is tax reform?  Well, it is a major overhaul of the existing tax code that includes fundamental changes to rates, deductions and credits for individuals and corporations.  Republicans are also keen to eliminate the estate tax and the alternative minimum tax that apply mainly to the wealthy.

What is revenue-neutral tax reform and why is it necessary?  Revenue-neutral means that the new law collects the same revenue as the existing law.  Under the complex reconciliation rules, legislation that increases the deficits beyond the 10-year budget period must expire in 10 years.  Theoretically revenue-neutral legislation doesn’t increase deficits so it becomes permanent.  That is what GOP leaders want to achieve.

Why is revenue-neutral tax reform so difficult?  Sen. Orin Hatch (R-Utah) explained it with just a few words: “Everything on the (tax) books has a constituency, and that’s one of the problems.”

True, it’s like robbing Peter to pay Paul.  If taxes are lowered for one group of taxpayers they must be raised for some other group to maintain the same revenue stream.  The trick is to increase taxes on those who would be least likely to have powerful supporters.  Typically, Republicans do this by imposing some form of regressive excise taxes on middleclass and lower income folks.

What will tax reform or tax cuts mean for the federal deficits?  In January the Congressional Budget Office published its baseline for federal revenues and spending through 2027.  Under the law existing at the end of 2016 federal deficits were projected to reach $1 trillion in 2023 and keep increasing through 2027.  The aging population is partially to blame.

Even with revenue-neutral tax reform deficits would still be horrific for the last half of the coming decade.  Simply cutting the existing tax rates would exacerbate these deficits significantly unless huge reductions in federal spending are made.

What are some of the tax proposals Republicans have floated?  Speaker Ryan wanted a regressive border adjustment tax on imports that would increase the cost of consumer goods and raise $1 trillion in revenues.   That tax was shot down by conservative donor Koch Industries and retail heavyweights like Walmart.

Trump wants the top corporate rate lowered to 15 percent.  Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.), the third ranking Senate Republican, estimated that getting the rate down from 35 to 20 percent as House Republicans proposed would cost about $100 billion per point.  In other words, Thune believes reducing the corporate rate to 20 percent would cut revenues by $1.5 trillion over 10 years.  I don’t think Trump’s 15 percent rate is even being considered.

Ryan had another proposal that would allow businesses to rapidly write off the full cost of capital expenditures in the year purchased.  In theory that would encourage businesses to buy lots of equipment.  The cost of these purchases could be deducted from taxable income, which would lower their taxes.  That’s not a bad way to spur the economy and it has worked on a much more limited scale in the current tax code.

But powerful corporate interests like Koch believe this provision would shave $2 trillion from federal coffers over a decade so they oppose it.  They want lower corporate rates that allow them to do what they want with the extra cash.

Ryan is now advocating the elimination the deduction for state and local taxes to offset the cost of lower tax rates.  This would hurt residents of Democratic states like New York and California where taxes are high.  One of the most popular and revenue costly deductions — home mortgage interest — may also be on the chopping block.

It is difficult to determine what the final Republican plan will be or if it will be signed into law this year.  Goldman Sachs recently lowered its expectations of an economically meaningful tax package to 40 percent.

Like the effort to repeal and replace Obamacare, tax reform will probably boil down to Republicans battling Republicans.  This time, however, they will likely get something done – even if it’s far less than their constituents want.

Recently I found an article about states with the highest number of citizens with preexisting conditions.   It was based on statistics from the Kaiser Family Foundation, a well-respected research group.  Since one of the most popular provisions of the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) requires insurers to cover those with existing health problems, I wondered which states should get the greatest benefit from this law?

I was not surprised to find that 14 of the 15 states with the highest percentage of preexisting health conditions are controlled by Republicans.  West Virginia has the highest percentage at 36; Kentucky is tied for third highest with Alabama at 33 percent.  All three of these states voted heavily for Donald Trump who campaigned on a promise to repeal Obamacare.

Why wasn’t I surprised?  Well, of the top 10 states that are the most dependent on federal government money nine out of 10 are Republican controlled.   These are the states with the lowest median family incomes, the worst economies and the highest percentage of food stamp beneficiaries. To top it off, a recent 24/7 Wall Street article found that Republicans control 12 of the 15 states with the highest percentage of residents receiving disability assistance.  Kentucky had the fourth highest with over 223,000 residents receiving benefits.

Perhaps that was one reason former Kentucky Democratic Gov. Steve Beshear expanded Medicaid coverage and set up Kynect, the state Obamacare exchange. His efforts helped Kentucky achieve one of the largest drops in the uninsured rate of any state.   This result had to create thousands of health care jobs, bring down health insurance costs for all Kentucky policy holders and provide needed support for cash-strapped hospitals and health care providers.

But Beshear’s accomplishments didn’t matter to the voters.  In 2014 Kentuckians elected Tea Party Republican Matt Bevin as governor.  He vowed to cancel the Medicaid expansion and announced plans to dismantle Kynect.  I find it difficult to understand this type of masochism that causes people to vote for Republican politicians who run on platforms that promise to hurt them.  Whatever the reason, it can’t their economic self-interest.

The GOP began to take control of more state governments after the 2010 election, the same year Republicans won control of the U.S. House.  Although the Great Recession resulted from eight years of President George W. Bush’s administration somehow Republicans must have convinced their supporters that the recession was President Obama’s fault.  But I think the 2010 vote was also in part a reaction to the election of a black man as president in 2008.

Numerous articles have been written about why the GOP has dominated in the more rural areas of the country and why Donald Trump prevailed over Hillary Clinton last November.  Of course, there is no single factor that caused these phenomena.

Certainly, it was easy for Trump to craft messages that appealed to the voters.  He simply promised to do whatever pleased the crowd he was addressing.  While many of his claims were false or virtually impossible to accomplish, they must have been effective.

Still, the 2016 presidential campaign doesn’t explain Republican dominance in the south and west that began well before Trump was even a candidate.  In fact, President Ronald Reagan may have gotten this trend started with his appeal to religious groups.

Later Republicans decided to make abortion their issue and they included God, country and Christian values in their messaging.  They also curried favor with the National Rifle Association by strongly opposing gun control.  These issues are always popular with evangelicals and residents of states with large populations of hunters.

Residents in the more rural areas of the country are sometimes referred to as “fiercely independent,” particularly regarding federal government programs that they fear will control their lives.  Republicans capitalized on these concerns by claiming that Obamacare was a government takeover of the health care system.  They hammered on this theme for seven years.

Democrats tend to focus on diversity and inclusiveness, which they believe are fundamental American values.  This causes some voters to think Democrats favor minorities.  And it is a fact that white people are losing their majority status in the U.S. This statistic is very troubling to many of them.  Republicans policies and rhetoric have tended to favor the white race and their anti-immigration policies speak loudly to the fears of these folks.

Republican politicians paint Democrats as elitist, pro-abortion, pro-LGBT, pro-immigration, pro-minority, pro-gun control and pro big government.  This messaging draws in a wide variety of one-issue voters all over the country.

Republicans always give the major tax breaks to the rich; they oppose unions that bargain for higher wages; they refuse to raise the minimum wage; and they vowed to repeal Obamacare, a law that lowered the number of uninsured nationwide dramatically.  These are core economic issues for the majority of Americans.  Still around 2,600 counties that are mostly in less affluent rural areas voted to elect Trump, while around 500 counties that are mostly in the more prosperous urban areas voted for Clinton.

I wish I could more fully explain why many Republicans vote against their self-interests.  The reasons are complicated and hard for many of us to understand.  But Democrats will have to figure this out if they are to take back control of state governments and regain the majority in Congress.

For the past two weeks my wife and I have been packing up and moving out of our home of 21 years.  There simply wasn’t time to give careful thought to a blog.  More gaps in my blogging will probably occur over the next several months but the issues will always be on my mind. The following thoughts have been on my mind for some time.

Congress is on vacation until September so there are no legislative battles raging on Capitol Hill.  Still President Trump is providing amble subject matter for the media.  I don’t intend to go into all of that and duplicate what others have covered so well.  My purpose today is to voice some concerns about the bad presidents that have been set by Republicans over several decades, particularly the past eight years.

The roots were probably in the presidency of Ronald Reagan.  It was during the 1980s that big government was branded as the problem or even the enemy.  This period spawned the Americans for Tax Reform and its president Grover Norquist.  Libertarian Norquist hated big government so he hatched an ingenious plan to limit the federal bureaucracy.  He convinced Republican politicians to sign a pledge to never raise taxes on anything, ever.  Most Republicans in Congress have signed this pledge.  It effectively prevents compromises on federal budgets.

Grover sought to deprive the government of tax revenue so deficits would get out of control and Congress would be forced to drastically cut spending.  He wanted to “starve the beast.”  The tax cutting and supply-side economics that Norquist and the Reagan administration espoused survive to this day, creating the income inequality that caused many voters to be taken in by Trump’s lies during the 2016 presidential campaign.

Next came Rep. Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) who concentrated power as speaker of the House and helped cause the longest partial government shutdown ever during President Bill Clinton’s presidency.  Gingrich mercilessly pursued the Clinton’s during the 1990s and that persecution followed Hillary Clinton through the years and continues to this day.  Trump supporters enthusiastically shout, “Lock her up.”  Third world countries persecute political opponents, not the United States.

But I think no politician has fostered more bad precedents than the current majority leader of the Senate, Mitch McConnell.   With ruthless filibusters, he hamstrung the democratic processes from 2007 until he finally became the majority leader in 2015.  Then he continued to block President Obama’s administrative and judicial appointments and legislative agenda until Trump was inaugurated in January.  McConnell’s absolute refusal to even hold hearings on Obama’s nominee to the Supreme Court will live in Senate infamy and will come back to haunt.

Now, in part because McConnell’s obstruction was so effective, we have President Donald Trump.  His lies are simply a continuation of the credibility gap between American voters and their government that I believe started under Reagan.

Members of Congress have constantly lied to suit their political purposes.  Many are more concerned about pleasing their wealthy backers than serving their constituents.  A prime example is what Republicans have continuously said about Obamacare since the law was enacted in 2010.  It would destroy jobs; death panels would decide who lives and who dies; it would be a government take over the healthcare system.  The horror stories they told are too numerous to document.  More recently Speaker of the House Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), Trump and McConnell have been lying about the viability of Obamacare, claiming it is about to collapse.

Well, Obamacare is far from perfect but Republicans have been unable to convert their lies into legislation to repeal or even replace it.  Unemployment has continuously decreased during the past four years, the number of citizens without health care insurance is at record low levels and Obamacare is still providing health care coverage for millions in most markets despite GOP efforts to kill it.

The bad precedents that Republicans have set over the years will not be easily erased.  The veracity of political candidates is ceasing to be an important consideration in their qualifications.  Future representatives and senators will justify their actions based on McConnell’s conduct of Senate business and obstruction and Gingrich’s government shutdown tactics.  The comity that existed in the Senate and the House that has been destroyed by McConnell, the Tea Party, the House Freedom Caucus and other right-wing organizations will be difficult to reestablish.

In my opinion Republicans and their followers have divided the nation with their bad precedents, particularly over the past eight years.  Now Trump has truly become the divider-in-chief with his scurrilous attacks on opponents and support for the alt-right and neo-Nazis.  This troubles me greatly because a divided America is a vulnerable America.  And despots like Russian President Vladimir Putin are eager to take advantage.

Footnote:  Please cut me a little slack over the next several weeks.  Writing on a laptop in a motel room is challenging.

An article I read recently suggested that President Donald Trump’s tax plan was based on his understanding of the Laffer Curve.  At the risk of boring some of you I decided it was worth the effort to explain what this means since tax reform is high on the GOP agenda in September.

Dr. Arthur Laffer holds a PhD in economics and was the chief economist in President Nixon’s Office of Management and Budget from 1970 to 1972.  As the story goes, Laffer was having dinner with President Gerald Ford’s top advisors, Dick Cheney and Don Rumsfeld, in 1974 when the U.S. economy was in recession.  At the time the top income tax rate was 70 percent.  Laffer was counseling Cheney and Rumsfeld that the top federal tax rates were too high and that high taxes were stifling economic growth.  To emphasize his point, he drew a crude graph on a napkin that I believe looked something like graph from the Laffer Center depicted here.

Laffer’s purpose was to show that as the top tax rate goes up it initially increases revenue but at the tip of the curve economic growth is stifled and revenues begin to go down.  At a 100 percent tax rate no revenue would be collected because there would be no incentive to work.  This is obviously false since the top tax rate during 1952 and 1953 was 92 percent and lots of people were still working and paying taxes, even the very rich who were subject to that rate.

The key question was — and still is — at what top tax rate is revenue maximized without discouraging productivity and investment?  As far as I know Laffer did not suggest what the optimum tax rate would be at the time, although his symmetrical curve would seem to indicate that revenues would be maximized at a top tax rate of around 50%.  Today the top rate is 39.6 percent.

Devotees of the Laffer Curve use it to show that tax cuts stimulate economic growth and tax increases suppress economic growth.  The Laffer Curve has even been used to support a theory that tax cuts actually pay for themselves by creating strong economic growth.   In fact Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin claimed that Trump’s plan would do that.

In 1981 Dr. Laffer became a member of President Ronald Reagan’s Economic Policy Advisory Board and remained in that position for eight years.  It was during Reagan’s tenure that “supply-side economics” became the prevailing economic theory in the Reagan administration.  And Laffer was its champion.

No doubt Laffer influenced Reagan’s first big tax cut in 1981 that reduced the top rate from 70 percent to 50 percent. Then Reagan’s 1986 tax reform brought the top rate down to 28 percent in 1988.  This reform was designed to be revenue neutral so it collected the same amount of revenue as when the top tax rate was 50 percent.  Although rates came down significantly, this reform is not considered to have been a tax cut.

Dr. Laffer now runs Arduin, Laffer & Moore Econometrics (ALME), an organization that does consulting and studies for mostly Republican led states like Kansas and North Carolina.  Typically these studies suggest that if a state eliminates its personal and corporate income tax systems and replaces them with a much higher consumption (sales) tax, the state’s economy will boom.  Of course, a sales tax puts the greatest burden on middle to lower income wage earners and the elderly on fixed incomes.

The study that ALME did for North Carolina in 2012 was entitled, “More Jobs, Bigger Paychecks,” It recommended a consumption tax based system.  In January 2013 the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy published a report that concluded the ALME study for North Carolina “relies on an economic analysis that is fundamentally flawed to the point of making it entirely useless.”

Kansas Republican Governor Sam Brownback relied heavily on Dr. Laffer’s advice when he and the Republican controlled legislature passed a massive tax cut in 2012.  But instead of stimulating strong growth, tax revenues plummeted and huge spending cuts became necessary.  To this day the Kansas economy has not kept pace with its neighboring states.  In short, the Kansas tax cuts were a disaster.

Here are a couple of other data points on tax cuts:  President John Kennedy reduced the top tax rate from 90 percent down to 70 percent (enacted in 1964 after his death).  This tax cut was by some measurements larger than Reagan’s 1981 cut but Kennedy is rarely mentioned as a tax cutter, nor is his tax cut touted as having spurred economic growth.

President George W. Bush engineered large tax cuts in 2001 and 2003 that were also larger than Reagan’s in some respects.  But his eight years in office ended in the Great Recession and he had the worst job creation record, on record, according to the Wall Street Journal.

There is nothing simple about tax policy, either in theory or in practice.  But in my opinion the Laffer curve is entirely too simplistic to be useful.  It focuses on the top tax rate when in truth the top rate is just one factor in tax policy as Reagan’s 1986 tax reform demonstrates.  So I would not conclude that the Laffer curve is a joke; I just don’t think it has much relevance in today’s economy and Republicans shouldn’t claim that it does.

During the past eight years Republicans in Congress spent most of their time obstructing President Barack Obama’s agenda.   But they also focused on passing legislation that was popular with their base.  They tried to repeal Obamacare over 50 times.  They tried to defund Planned Parenthood and they did everything they could to eliminate or hobble climate change initiatives. The draconian concurrent budget resolutions they passed would roll back the social safety net and weaken the federal government.  And they promoted religious freedom laws that would protect individuals and businesses that use their religious beliefs as an excuse to discriminate.

Most of these bills simply slipped under the radar because everyone knew they would never be signed into law.  Republicans were overjoyed when they finally put a bill to repeal most of Obamacare on the Obama’s desk in 2015 but those who voted for it knew he would veto it.  Well, that very same bill failed miserably last week in the Senate as Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) tried to pass something – anything — to weaken Obamacare.  His caucus wasn’t so enthusiastic when they knew their votes would have consequences.

The GOP quest to repeal Obama’s signature law is not over but the effort so far this year was stopped in its tracks due mainly to protests by concerned, involved citizens.  The Congressional Budget Office told them what Republicans were doing to their health care and they reacted loudly and forcefully.

Now Republican leaders are working on their second big priority, tax reform.   A robust infrastructure plan that would truly help boost the economy and aid American workers has fallen by the wayside.  Although a tax bill is thought to be an easier lift than health care, I am betting the public will be much more interested in the details of this legislation after the Obamacare repeal debacle.

Congress has abandoned Washington for a totally undeserved August vacation where they will no doubt get an ear full from constituents on their legislative failures during the past six months.  As they were departing President Trump was turning the White House into a carnival sideshow where no one seems to know what is going to happen next.  We can only pray that no crisis like 9/11 or hurricane Katrina occurs. 

Fortunately the news media has kept focused on the various investigations into Russian meddling in the 2016 election and I think most of the public is interested in this process too.  Trump didn’t help his cause by holding a two plus hour love-in with Russian President Vladimir Putin at the recent G-20 economic summit.  To me this meeting was an embarrassment to our nation and we have to wonder what Trump sees in the autocratic Putin who controls the media and eliminates his opponents.

Compared to most other members of the G-20 Russia is big “nothing burger.”  According to a chart published by the International Monetary Fund, Russia’s 2017 gross domestic product (GDP) will be $1.56 trillion.  That’s slightly less than Canada, slightly more than South Korea and only 63 percent of California’s GDP, the sixed largest in the world.  If not for the fact that Russia has around 4,000 nuclear missiles, most of which are probably aimed at the United States, the country would be of little significance in world affairs.  Putin wants to change that perception in any way he can.

So what does Russia have that makes it so important in Trump’s eyes.  Well, evidence indicates that Russian hackers helped him get elected.  No doubt he liked that.  Trump Jr. has disclosed that Russians are heavily invested in financing Trump’s businesses.  It’s hard to argue with that basis for friendship.  Or maybe, just maybe, Russia has some damning video or documents that could severely damage Trump. 

Some reporters are beginning to speculate that Putin was more interested in destabilizing our democratic processes than electing Trump.  Either way, he got so much more.   Trump is disrupting U.S. foreign policy and weakening American leadership around the world.  It seems obvious to me that Putin left tracks leading back to the Kremlin so the world would know that Russia could cyberattack the U.S. at will.  He thinks that makes Russia look like American’s equal.  But not even a savvy politician like Putin could have anticipated the chaos that is occurring in the Trump White House.

I try to look for a silver lining in Trump’s election and I’ll admit it is elusive.  But now Republican policies will finally be subjected to full public scrutiny like they were with the Obamacare repeal.  Then voters may come to understand what Republicans are trying to do to them.  Perhaps they will realize that these conservatives don’t really care about ordinary people’s health care or financial wellbeing.  And it may become clear to the middleclass that the GOP tax reform is nothing more than a gift to the rich at their expense.

Some may call me naïve and maybe I am.  But I relied on the fairness of well-informed juries in huge litigation cases during my career without regret.  I have to believe that when Trump and the GOP leadership show a callous disregard for the public wellbeing in legislation — as they did last week — the good people of this great country will rise up and reject it.  We shall see.

Footnote:  For those who read my blog about a letter to a Republican congressman; he has not responded.

House Budget Committee Chairman Diane Black (R-Ten.) rolled out the GOP’s fiscal year 2018 budget resolution last week entitled “Building a Better America (BBA).”  This budget covers fiscal years 2018 through 2027 and claims to achieve $6.5 trillion in total deficit reductions compared to the Congressional Budget Office spending and revenue baseline for the same period.  

Needless to say, that is a lot of money and these deficit reductions have to come from somewhere.  Either revenues must be increased or spending must be decreased or some combination of the two must occur.  Ms. Black claims that the BBA will produce a balanced budget with a $9 billion surplus in 2027.  That’s a pretty tall order since the CBO baseline projects a $1.4 trillion deficit for that year. 

So how will the BBA accomplish this magic?  As usual Republicans mostly want to cut social welfare programs and taxes.  The bullet points are quotes from their documents:

• This budget addresses Obamacare by incorporating the House-passed American Health Care Act and all of its savings.

Oh, it assumes the AHCA will become law.  This bill barely passed in the House and it was roundly rejected by Senate Republicans.  Even the milder Senate Obamacare replacement legislation may fail.  Clearly the savings anticipated here are questionable.

• Reforms Medicaid to ensure the program works best for the most vulnerable and gives states more power to tailor their Medicaid programs to meet the unique needs of their populations.

The Republican’s AHCA would reduce Medicaid funding by $800 billion over the next decade.   Perhaps they should have added:  “Prevents the need for painful medical procedures by eliminating your health care insurance.”  Congressional Republicans can’t sell the Medicaid proposals to their own members let alone the voters.

• Saves and strengthens Medicare by moving to a premium support system that gives seniors more control of their health care. 

Yep!  This budget transitions Medicare to a system that provides beneficiaries a voucher with which to buy health care policies from insurance companies.  Supposedly there will be an “option” to retain traditional Medicare, but I suspect it will be too expensive for most seniors to afford.  When the public focuses on this proposal, all hell will break loose.

• Border wall funding is also included in this budget through various Department of Homeland Security construction accounts.

Although this funding is not certain to survive amendments, did anyone doubt Republicans would try to fund the border wall even though it is widely believed to be a waste of money? 

• This budget gives reconciliation instructions to 11 House committees to achieve at least $203 billion in mandatory savings and reforms (over 10 years). 

Here they are mainly talking about food stamps, housing assistance and other so-called entitlements.  Reductions to these programs will be difficult to achieve, but the House Freedom Caucus wants to cut double this amount. 

• The resolution also instructs the Ways & Means Committee to produce deficit-neutral (revenue-neutral) tax reform legislation that will reduce tax rates and simplify the tax code to boost economic growth. 

What Republicans are actually talking about is a tax cut for the wealthy, which they always claim will jump start economic growth and create jobs.  But it doesn’t actually work that way.  President George W. Bush cut taxes significantly in 2001 and 2003 and he ended his eight years in office with the Great Recession and the worst job creation record, on record, according to the Wall Street Journal. 

But never mind the facts.  Tax reform is the real purpose of the BBA budget resolution.   It’s the vehicle by which tax legislation can be passed without fear of a Democratic filibuster in the Senate.  Unfortunately for the GOP leadership, this legislation faces tough sledding in the House.  The Freedom Caucus has already signaled that their support requires significantly more spending cuts and funding for the border wall.  They prevented passage of the GOP’s FY 2017 budget resolution in 2016.

• We estimate that the pro-growth policies of health care reform, tax reform, welfare reform, and deficit reduction assumed in our budget will yield economic growth of 2.6 percent on average over the 10-year budget window, resulting in $1.5 trillion in deficit reduction.

Many economists would say that the BBA depends on a “pie in the sky” growth estimate.  The CBO believes economic growth will be much more modest over the next decade.  Just look at 2017.  Unemployment is low, corporations are quite profitable and still economic growth is less than two percent.

Don’t get me wrong; we need to reduce deficits and control the national debt.  But it must be done by controlling spending AND increasing revenues.  I am confident that Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid costs, which are by far the largest parts of the federal budget, can be much better controlled.  And I believe revenue can be increased while lowering the top tax rates, eliminating deductions and simplifying the tax code.  Both will require focused, bipartisan legislation.

Bipartisan, however, hasn’t been in the GOP lexicon for the past eight years. It’s the same problem they had with health care reform; major legislation must be passed with only Republican votes.  But even radical bills like the AHCA and the BBA fail to meet the far-right standards of Tea Party conservatives.  They haven’t changed since 2010 and neither have the budgets produced by Republicans since they took control of the House in 2011.