It’s well worth reading John Judis’s essay that raises doubt about how certain it is that the Republicans will suffer in the midterm elections, or even in 2020, due to the passage of their plutocratic tax bill. Even if you don’t agree with many or most of his points, you should at least consider them. So, why are the Democrats too optimistic about the political windfall they think they get?
Judis begins by asserting that “most American voters don’t object to inequality” unless “there is nothing in it for them.” We can debate exactly how true that is, but Judis points out that however skewed toward corporations and the rich the bill might be, there are some things in it that less affluent people will notice and appreciate, including “the increase in the child credit and standard deduction and lower rates.”
He predicts with some justification, I think, that people don’t really care about the deficit and that banging on about the deficit isn’t necessarily sensible anyway–neither on the merits nor on the politics. And while he predicts that the bill will cause the same kind of irresponsible and unregulated speculation that caused problems in the 1920’s and in the lead-up to the Great Recession, he feels that in the short-term the tax bill will boost consumer spending and corporate investment, giving a boost to the economy.
He acknowledges that the changes in how state and local taxes and mortgage deductions are handled will alienate suburbanites in high-tax states, but he see the fallout from that as limited to the possible loss of a few extra House seats, with little benefit in other parts of the country or in statewide races.
He sees it as an optical problem that the individual cuts sunset in 2025 but the corporate rates do not, but expects this to manifest itself as a political liability in 2025, not in 2018 or 2020.
He concludes by expressing skepticism about polling that shows that the bill is unpopular, as he doesn’t think it is an expression of a substantive opposition to the features of the legislation.
I’m inclined to concede most of these points, but the areas where I disagree could be important.
Given that Donald Trump was just elected president, taking the cynical view of the American electorate might seem like the appropriate default position to adopt, but I don’t think it’s fair or supportable to say that Americans’ simply don’t care about wealth inequality. I think a lot of people care about it, and I believe it can be politically activated with or without demagoguery. During the Great Recession, Americans were being taxed at an historically low rate, but it proved easy to mobilize an impassioned political reaction based on the idea that we’re “Taxed Enough Already.” People don’t need objective reality to line up for complaints about fair treatment to gain traction, and it’s easier still when the underlying complaint happens to be true. Hammering the Republicans for favoring the wealthy and corporations is always at least somewhat effective, but I think it will be especially effective in this cycle.
As to the breadth of the Republicans’ vulnerability in the suburbs, even if it is true that it is going to be limited, if it adds a few House seats to the Democrats’ column it could be the decisive difference between winning control of the House of Representatives and failing to do so. In other words, Judis could be right in his analysis of the impact but wrong in assessing the consequences.
Lastly, I think it’s important that the bill is starting off from a position of deep skepticism and unpopularity. It’s true that people aren’t really reacting to the the substance of the bill. How could they when no one was able to read it and the provisions kept changing to the last minute? Their dissatisfaction is more an expression of their distaste for the process and their distrust of the authors of the bill and of the president. It’s also a reflection of who they currently believe when they read or watch the news, and the condemnations of this bill have been widespread in the mainstream media.
We saw something similar with the Affordable Care Act, where the bill was unpopular and a political liability for the Democrats who had voted for it. This, too, had to do more with the process than the substance, and also with who won the media war and what news sources the people chose to believe. It took several election cycles for Obamacare to become popular, and by that time the Democrats had been decimated all across the country. So, a bill that starts off in a big hole is not likely to climb out of it on short schedule, and I doubt very much that people’s perceptions of this legislation will improve much between now and next November. And, the surest way for the the bill to become more popular is for Trump and the congressional Republicans to become more popular, and that just doesn’t seem like a good bet to make.
If Judis is correct that the immediate impact of the bill will be beneficial to an already booming economy, that will mitigate the damage to the Republicans to some degree. On the other hand, if the economy unexpectedly contracts, there’s no telling how ugly things could get for the GOP.
So, overall, I think Judis is providing a worthwhile set of cautionary statements, but my guess is that the abyss is real and the only question to answer is how deep it will turn out to be.
BooMan, I’m really glad you’re examining this essay — I was hoping you would (and, I brought it to Yastreblyansky’s attention, too).
I honestly don’t know what to think about this. There’s more magical thinking involved with taxation and tax policies than with any other part of politics, bar none…which is ironic in the extreme because you would think that quantifiable, hard-nosed dollars and sense would be the easiest area in which to be correct about cause-and-effect, but I guess that’s why so the magical thinking involved is so seductive.
I don’t know what rank-and-file independent or non-committed voters think. I know that I have many, many liberal friends in high tax brackets who are going to clean up under Trump, who nonetheless oppose him and loathe him with every fiber of their being and would never vote for him in a million years…but that’s liberals; doing what’s right even if they don’t profit by it. I also know conservatives who’ve told me that once I achieve a certain level of financial success I’ll be joining them (and I do an equivalent of the Luke Skywalker “I’ll never join you!“). It’s a totally different way of thinking, and it may allow Trump to bolster his own support.
I kind of think Judis is wrong, though. I can’t back up this suspicion…I just think that next year is the Democrats’ game to lose.
I think Marshall is right on this. And Judis did co-write The Emerging Democratic Majority. We know how that turned out.
Josh Marshall dissents.
It’s a pretty good dissent though I fall probably somewhere between Marshall and Judis.
I think that anyone who talks about the details or benefits of the bill and how they will affect political winds are missing the forest for the trees. I agree with Nate Silver:
Republicans Are Taking Voter Concerns About The Tax Bill Too Literally
The fact is, it doesn’t matter if people will be getting a tax cut or not and if they’re misinformed about it. The public understands generally what the bill will do, and they don’t like it.
The TEA Party can yammer about how they were taxed enough already, but it wasn’t about being taxed at historically low rates. It was how they expressed dissatisfaction of their tax dollars funding programs they don’t want, and claim to not need. You can call it racism — and structurally it is regardless of their individual views — but their actual tax rates and how much they paid in taxes doesn’t matter and didn’t matter.
A state senate seat in Tennessee just swung 40+ points toward Democrats. Doug Jones was elected in Alabama, and if you look at the actual turnout it is not clear to me that Mo Brooks would have won in a blowout of any kind. May have been just as close, even if Jones wouldn’t have won. Democrats are banging on a ceiling of +12-18 in generic ballot and who knows if it hits 20 in some polls before Donald has a chance to nuke North Korea. The writing is on the wall, and if Republicans choose to do what I did after Martha Coakley lost (denial, convinced it was because she was a bad candidate and that’s why), be my guest.
Oh I also forgot to mention: people’s values are changing, culturally and economically. Or at least the values of people who are politically engaged are such that they don’t care if their taxes are cut to zero, they will crawl over broken glass to make Donald Trump pay at the polls. Those tax averse suburban people who you kept saying wouldn’t swallow Bernie’s radical ideas? They don’t give a fuck if their taxes are going up or down, they want Republicans punished.
It’s not just Trump either. Millennials are just more liberal, and they’re coming:
Generation after Millenials is more conservative however. Not tremendously so but somewhat.
I’ve seen that repeated and when I ask for evidence I’m shown shoddy consumer surveys. Not saying it isn’t true, but where it’s expressed at the ballot box doesn’t seem much different.
Just a cursory scan led me to this Pew survey from earlier this year. Really if you want to break it down, the Millennials and Gen X are leaning fairly liberal and Democratic, whereas the Boomers and especially the Silent Generation lean in the opposite direction. Good to see with Gen X. Not sure about what comes after Millennials yet – will probably need to see how they behave once they start actually voting. What little survey work done on Gen Z seems to come from marketing firms concerned with monetary issues – and that strikes me as just sketchy enough to warrant a lot of skepticism. I’ll hold out until Pew and Gallup and other more reputable sources capture this demographic.
Not much voting history to go on yet, we’ll see.
Right. I repeat what I wrote above: Republicans think a certain way, and don’t understand thinking other ways…specifically, they can’t fathom why anyone would approve or disapprove of a tax bill based on any criteria other than their own personal finances. That’s how they think, so that’s how they think everyone thinks.
I remember during the first George W. Bush administration, when they pulled that stunt where everyone got that $100 check. I remember arguing (cordially) with a Republican in a bar, who kept saying to me, “If you don’t want it, send it back.” No matter how hard I tried, I could not get him to understand that I disapproved of the policy, whether or not I got my fucking C-note. It was like I was speaking a foreign language.
The most important thing that will happen is what actually happens economically, and which side is ready to sell their version of the same facts. It would be prudent to prepare for this now. When the economy starts to tumble around 2020 — which it should, historically speaking — blaming it on tax cuts and fat cats sending the economy off a cliff with their reckless speculation and gambling of your finances should be the yelled at people 24/7. If the economy continues to hum along, the tax cuts did nothing except line the pockets of the rich.
They cannot be allowed to say “the economy is doing well because of these tax cuts” like Reagan’s cultural myth.
. . . “principle’s” the same: buy off (or at least limit the outrage of) the not-filthy-rich vast majority by throwing a pittance our way. Which sorta kinda worked as intended then. Only surprising thing is the difference that our current bastards are dumber than the Bushies, in that they didn’t engineer a way to make sure everybody gets at least that pittance.
The writing is on the wall, and if Republicans choose to do what I did after Martha Coakley lost (denial, convinced it was because she was a bad candidate and that’s why), be my guest.
Coakley was/is a crap candidate. Just because other factors might have played a part too doesn’t make that wrong.
Sorry. If I in any way insinuated that she was not a bad candidate, I apologize. She was a bad candidate just like Moore was a bad candidate. But riding on those facts misses what’s actually happening.
We will get to see it play out in Mississippi if Roger Wicker gets primaried, and now there’s rumors Cochran will leave in January. Double whammy.
Even a good candidate in Massachusetts in 2010 would have had a difficult time, given the political headwinds. Coakley was awful, but her awfulness was merely one of many factors. A better candidate may have won in a squeaker, but I am not so sure that was guaranteed. I’m not convinced that had Luther Strange or someone slightly more mainstream had won the Alabama primary, that they would have fared a whole lot better than Moore. I think they might have pulled off an underwhelming victory perhaps, but they were going to be facing their own headwinds, including apparently a good deal of lack of enthusiasm among Dolt 45’s base, and a very pumped up Democratic base. Yes, Moore was a horrible candidate, but his sheer awfulness was but one of many factors.
Considering Brown only got 51%, I think a better candidate probably would have just pulled it out. Which would have been enough.
Yes. And Mo Brooks would have won, also. But it’s not the point.
He is Mr. Contrarian in lefty circles. Sometimes, a contrarian point of view can be a useful correction, but here there is no point because his opinion isn’t actionable.
Regardless of whether this tax bill helps the Dems a little or a lot, the Dems are going to campaign against it in 2018 (because it is on brand to do so and the bill is really unpopular), along with campaigning against lots of other aspects of the Republican stewardship of government 2016-18. Some will matter more than others and with different voters.
Whether one agrees with Judis or not, nothing changes in how the Dems handle or should handle things.
I haven’t had the chance to use the phrase “facile contrarianism” for a while but I’ll use it now for the argument Judis makes.
Seems that this all comes into better focus if we keep in mind that there was only ever a political rationale for this bill, and that it was at its core an act of political warfare against liberalism.
Why are congressional repubs so very happy, gleeful even, about passing this steaming pile? Its disgusting watching them carry on so. And they have had every indication that everybody (except plutocrat donors) hates the thing. I can only think that they feel they have hamstrung future Democratic governments by saddling them with a crushing deficit and putting them in the position of having to raise taxes (bigly) to get anything done. Or even to continue having a functioning government. So Repubs in power can use the deficit as reason to slash social services, while Repubs out of power can force Dems to take the heat when they make the hard decisions to fix whats broken.
So maybe while there is short-term pain for the GOP, there is a long-term political payoff.
What do you mean? It’s “political” for senators and representatives insofar as they need funding to get reëlected, which is a political calculus. But nearly all of them are rich — millionaires or close — so, just like their donors and their constituents, they want the money; they object to taxes because they’re infantile and greedy and have concocted Randian fantasies about how there’s something noble and selfless about being this way. But their greed isn’t “political” (except in terms of donor money, as I said).
It’s curious that the Dems made no attempt to point out that the goal of the TrumpCut bill was to harm citizens of states with state income taxes, Blue States specifically—i.e. states with functioning state governments. It also was intended to harm urbanites (because they vote Dem).
Of course, TrumpCut will make it immensely more difficult for Blue States to continue to operate functioning state governments, so there is to be no escape from “conservative” chaos anywhere in the nation. No one is now permitted to operate an effective government. What’s funny is that Blue State SUBURBANITES (typically Repub voters) got caught in the crossfire and they will also be annihilated tax-wise just like their urban neighbors. I guess Dems thought this argument was too complicated.
If a Repub House member from a Blue state survives it’s only because the ‘burban rubes hadn’t prepared their 2018 taxes yet, haha. Or because White Tribal Identity is all they are prepared to vote on, no matter what is done to them.
I think one point you made in passing is really the most important one – voters’ perceptions are really the most important thing. You can turn the greatest bill in the world into a shitburger with the right messaging, and vice versa. You tell people that they’re getting screwed by the tax bill, and you say it often enough, and they will believe you regardless of the actual truth. How much the tax bill hurts Republicans depends in large part on how effective Democrats are at drilling home their message (and as you mention, they are off to a good start).
I keep having to remind myself that whatever we find outrageous and horrible in Republicans’ actions, their base finds laudable.
We are appalled that they rushed this tax bill, and others, without any discussion or review. Their voters don’t care.
They have allowed the hourglass to run out on the spending bill which means financial disaster for millions. Their voters don’t care.
The tax breaks for the middle class are temporary, while big corporate breaks are permanent. That’s fine, they say, it will make us richer when the economy grows.
Paul Ryan is standing at the podium with an oversized gavel, poised to smash Medicare and Social Security. Good riddance to entitlements, their voters say.
So pointing out all the terrible things Trump and his minions are doing isn’t going to matter. We’re going to have to go local and bring up local issues. We have to talk schools and infrastructure and potholes and grocery stores. And we have to get out the vote when the cracks in the Republican concrete starts to appear.
Well, chances are they will only cut Medicare and social security for the “richer”of the middle class. Who can oppose that amirite? Only the fair way to do it. And you asked for infrastructure? They will give it to you through Trump and Co for a fee of course. It’s only fair.
Look, passing tax cuts rewards plutocrats, stimulates consumer demand and stokes the materialism of the rubes, that’s why demagogues enact them. The economy may “grow’, but the tax receipts cannot. This particular cut also draws corporations and CEOs closer to their American Fascist Great Leader.
Tax cuts also place governments on fiscally precarious footings, especially pro-cyclical ones, so any Repub calling himself “socially lib’rul, fiscally conservative” is engaging in bad faith. And BTW where were the ratings agencies with their warnings of certain deficits and debt concerns? Cat got their tongue, apparently.
Judis doesn’t mention that a big part of this bill is the repatriation of the massive off-shore profits that the multi-nationals have been hoarding for a decade now. Those will now come onto the books and some taxes will be paid on them in 2018, so this (one time) tax receipt will likely make the 2018 deficit somewhat smaller than the colossal ones to follow.
After that, the government goes seriously into deficit mode, and spending targets will have to be sought. So the Dem argument has to be that TrumpCut was an intentional “conservative” set-up to wreck the government’s finances so Medicare, Medicaid and SS will have to be cut—because obviously Repubs aren’t going to ever advocate cutting “defense” spending. Never have, never will.
When the ACA passed, Repubs went straight into Apocalypse Mode–the bill was the greatest catastrophe evah. That is the strategy Dems should employ with the Trump Heist bill starting immediately—the nation’s finances are doomed and your Medicare and SS benefits are now doomed as well. Indeed, that was the Repubs’ goal from the start. Repubs destroyed your life with this plutocrat tax cut.
The repeal of the Obamacare mandate very likely also dooms Obamacare, as it is the critical component of how pre-existing conditions can be covered. The ACA’s system simply can no longer work, so that is fertile ground for another prong of apocalypse: Repubs have fatally sabotaged Obamacare and have no answer other than return to complete de-regulation of health insurance and the tender mercies of insurance companies. Your health insurance is now doomed, whoever you are.
Tax bills take a long time to shake out and see the unintended effects. But maximal language of The Coming Apocalypse should begin now.
Folks in my age range – 50 plus – who are either still paying into Medicare and SS or who rely upon them will be keenly following what happens to those programs. We practically break our backs paying into these programs and expect that we will have some support come retirement. My motto is that you’re going to pry away my Social Security and Medicare from my cold dead fingers. Democratic candidates who can resonate with that sentiment in their campaigns will find a sympathetic audience. Hit that issue and hit it hard – Congress will have to deal with Paygo for the 2019 budget and if they fuck up, that is going to really hurt Medicare and SS. This message should be made a priority going forward this coming year.
I suspect they will cut Medicare by cutting payments to providers not by raising co-pays and deductibles. That will keep people quiet until Medicare crumbles like an engineered demolition building as providers leave the system when it gets too stingy. This happened in Illinois with Medicaid. It was too tempting to just save (not balance) the budget by cutting reimbursements year after year. Now, it is hard to find a doctor that will accept Medicaid. Pharmacies are required by state law to accept Medicaid as a condition of their license, but they will do the maximum to embarrass the recipient.
Lots of stories out now on how rural voters are also swinging away from Trump support. And the GOP policies are bound to only make it worse for family farms.
https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/trump-s-support-republican-tax-plan-betrays-his-rural-voters-n
cna824291
Add to that the discovery that the GOP plan is going to make it hard for college sports to maintain their finances. It’s going to hit them hard.
In my part of the world, college sports – especially football – is practically a religion. Mess with that, and there may be hell to pay.
Politico picked up on the story
https://www.politico.com/story/2017/11/08/college-sports-republican-tax-bill-244709
Yep. Noticed that. Higher education gets hurt by this tax bill that has now passed, but the athletic programs – especially football down here in the South – will be the most visible casualties.
What is next for rural America will be the coming SNAP/welfare cuts. Our largest employer…Walmart… will close stores and cause massive layoffs. That happens next year not in 2020.
This tax cut, given the way it was passed- i.e. in the dead of the night on a party line vote with plenty of sweeteners for individual members of congress, just reinforces the prevalent view of a corrupt congress. In my opinion it really shoves the corruption of the Republican party front and center and that isn’t going to help with independent voters, providing that the Democratic party can run decent candidates this time, not a bunch of corporate hacks or ex-Republican grifters.
Sadly, my guess is that a good portion of Republican voters are perfectly happy with a corrupt government, as long as they think they are the ones that are benefiting.
. . . enactment of Obamacare with no GOP votes?
You’ll never go broke betting GOPers will be hypocrites.
In fact, you could be very well off by now that way . . .
. . . if only there were enough fools around willing to make that bet.
It seems more the next sentence – won the media war – than the actual process.
Obama held a day long roundtable with many Republicans, listening to their inane arguments.
A large part of Affordable Care Act was already enacted in MA by a Republican governor.
There were hearings and expert testimonies.
So it was not the process.
What has been terribly dismaying is the degradation of the journalistic integrity, especially on TV. I came to this country in 1980 starry eyed about the power of the press to have taken down Nixon. In India, everyone knew journalists and newspapers were compromised – as evidenced by movies made showing how the government controlled advertisement revenues for newspapers, and brought several editors to fall in line when Mrs. Gandhi promulgated emergency regulations, till she was kicked to the curb by the electorate.
So how the share of voice in news articles, and TV (especially talking head shows) became so Republican (how many times has John McCain appeared on Sunday morning shows for his lack of wisdom, and how many times have John Kerry and Hillary Clinton appeared?), is particularly galling. Perhaps the investigative reporting (last night Politico’s bombshell that House Republicans of the Intelligence Committee are conducting a secretive investigation without telling the Democratic members is a good example) opportunities now will let the fourth estate regain some of its self respect!
I would like some clarification, if I may. Now that the Rs have used this budget reconciliation for this fiscal year…they can’t do this again until next September? So unless they eliminate the filibuster, their whole agenda is dead on arrival?
They are going to try and cut Medicare, social security and Medicaid and pass an infrastructure bill. Chances are they will get Dems to side with them.
Congressional Democrats provided zero Aye votes for any of the most consequential Bills moved by Ryan and McConnell this year. There is no way Congressional Democrats will provide a single vote for Medi/Medi/SS cuts. No damn way.
Depending on how the Republicans draw up the policy, here’s a chance some Congressional Democrats will be vulnerable to pressure to pass a bad “infrastructure” Bill. It’ll be up to us to make sure they have the political space to vote No on a giveaway to plutocrats in that Bill as well.
I just read where the savings for most are quite small. To keep the bill in accordance with the budget deficit of $1.5 trillion they had to sunset the rates in 2025. After that point taxes go up for most except the top one percent and corporations. Of that the top .1% save $146,000 per year after 2025, not as much as before then, but still… So this is a bill by the rich, for the rich and they have successfully raided the treasury and made themselves more equal than all us serfs. And the pass throughs like Trump, Corker and Kushner and a bunch of other elites in congress really ripped us off with a twenty percent deduction in their income. Oh and they screwed with Obamacare that will leave thirteen million uninsured. Yet the Trump base loves him. My Facebook just exploded about the savings the poors will get. Yep a few bucks until 2025 when the rates change again and their taxes go back up. And don’t even get me started on those SALT taxes New York collects to keep the subways rolling,
Let’s stipulate Judis’ points and then put some contextual elements in place.
Expect the Trump Administration to react to events from any of the above factors with a considerable degree of incompetence and craziness at the policy/leadership level. Ad i haven’t even mentioned foreign affairs or the Russian investigation.
I am not nearly as sanguine as Judis appears to be about next year’s election for the GOP. Context is everything.
Rachel Maddow last night highlighted that this tax bill calls PR a foreign country.
And by this convoluted (lack-of-) logic, they did not need to provide any tax relief for PR. In fact they raised it 20%.
The governor (reported to be somewhat friendly to DJT) has promised a revenge vote with all the Boricuas on mainland – he said they have votes to influence at least 10 states. FL in particular. Perhaps even TX.
This seems to be more of the anything Democrats do is bad for Democrats and good for Republicans and anything Republicans do is good for Republicans and bad for Democrats.
I mean, I just love how now everyone refers to the economy as a “booming economy”. We essentially had the same economy under President Obama. For most of his second term or at least a good chunk of it unemployment was under 5% and the stock market was consistently hovering around 20,000 yet no one referred to it as a booming economy in value under Obama by the time he left the office, going from around 6,000 to around 20,000.
We were repeatedly told over and over again that yes the stock market is booming and yes unemployment is under 5% but regular people just really aren’t feeling the effects of it. Most of the good economy is accruing to those at the top.
Yet of course now with a Republican in office we have a booming economy that’s obviously going to help Republicans.
Unemployment being under 5% is unfortunately just a lie. It’s cooking the figures to exempt an awful lot of people from even counting as ‘workers’. The reality’s been way more dire than that for many years, and that’s why people aren’t feeling like unemployment is under 5%: it isn’t. Not by miles.
There are multiple measures of/related to unemployment.
The one that’s currently under 5% has been the BLS (Bureau of Labor Statistics) standard for decades for tracking unemployment to assess trends. That can only be meaningfully done by sticking with the same measure/methodology (which is why that is done!).
Duh!
Other indices (e.g., participation rate, etc.) that consistently report higher numbers are readily available. No one’s hiding anything. They can easily be used to track trends in the same manner. They just aren’t, because the standard method — being standard! — is the one everyone already is familiar with and has as a point of reference for tracking change.
Again, duh!
That it doesn’t produce the answer you want cuz it’s best aligned with your biases does not make it a “lie”.
That’s just stupid.
What the tax bill creates more of: stock buybacks, asset purchases, stock purchase and dividend schemes, and failure of middle-class commodities and services.
Bubbles and busts. Inflated assets. And eventually a panic.
Only if the lemmings control themselves from jumping off a cliff to they control themselves. Only if they control their greediness do they piss off the people who did not get tax breaks.
Democrats are still going to have to make strong arguments; the tax bill did not deliver them an automatic gift because over half trust Democrats not to do the right thing (yes, repenting Republicans) and the other half don’t know what the right things in an economy are.
The big problem I have is in knowing what if anything at all hurts Republicans on anything that used to create accountability or failure or loss of shame.
There right now is an endless bottom with Republicans.