The World Seems To Be Collapsing Around Paul Ryan's Ears

The Ryan/Trump tax plan (short version): over the long run, it raises taxes on the entire middle class while repealing health coverage for around 13 million people, all to give corporations and the 1% gargantuan tax cuts. No one should have expected anything else from these two serial liars. Keep in mind that an NBC/WSJ poll in September found that 55% of Americans said they that taxes on corporations should be increased and only 16% favored decreasing them. It's a shame Democrats can't promote that as a motivation for getting people to go to the polls and voting. Oh, right... that could endanger Blue Dogs, New Dems and other corrupt conservative Democrats favored by the DCCC and the part's DC establishment.

Yesterday, several endangered Republicans-- Darrell Issa (CA), Chris Smith (NJ), Leonard Lance (NJ), Elise Stefanik (NY), Peter King (NY), Dan Donovan (NY), Lee Zeldin (NY)... a few others-- announced they're voting against the Trump/Ryan tax bill that cuts taxes on billionaires at the expense of the middle and working class. The American Hospital Association, the American Medical Association, Blue Cross Blue Shield, the Federation of American Hospitalsand several other nonpartisan groups sent Congress a letter panning it for seeking to repeal the individual mandate. The AARP is also telling it's members that the bill is not friendly to seniors (and future seniors). And the CBO response to the House Democrats made it clear that Ryan's bill raises deficits for $1.5 trillion through 2027, and leads to $25 billion in IMMEDIATE Medicare cuts. Bernie:

"If this legislation is passed, it would trigger automatic cuts to Medicare totaling more than $400 billion over the next decade and unconscionable cuts to affordable housing, nutrition programs, education and other vitally important programs. At a time of massive income and wealth inequality, it is absurd to provide tax breaks to billionaires while cutting programs for the elderly, children, the sick and the poor."

And yesterday, Bernie used the opportunity to remind his supporters who's responsible for this outrage and how to do something about it:

"At a time of unprecedented income and wealth inequality, there is no single member of Congress who does more to hurt the working people than Speaker Paul Ryan. Right now he is fighting to give hundreds of billions of dollars in tax breaks to the one percent, while throwing tens of millions of people off their health care, cutting Medicare and Medicaid, education, nutrition, affordable housing, and other desperately needed programs.

“Randy Bryce, on the other hand, has literally helped build his community with his own hands. He knows what it means to struggle and he knows what it feels like to work harder and harder while having less and less to show for it. Randy Bryce is building a strong grassroots campaign, and I am committed to helping him beat Paul Ryan. He has my full support."

Closer to home-- in Maine-- Bernie will soon be hearing about how Rep. Bruce Poliquin ran in the other direction from the handful of Republicans trying to defend their constituents. Yesterday, Poliquin, a multimillionaire himself, who will benefit tremendously from the Ryan/Trump plan, announced he's voting for the tax cuts for the super rich, despite being aware it's not what his constituents want. The strongest of half a dozen Poliquin opponents, Jared Golden, said that "Economic inequality is on the rise in this country and this tax plan will only make it worse... "a fiscally irresponsibles giant tax giveaway to millionaires, billionaires and corporate shareholders." In the district (ME-02) where Poliquin and Golden will fight it out next November, Bernie and his message of change beat Hillary and her status quo message in a 2 to 1 rout. In fact, Bernie beat her in every single county in Maine's second district.

And Maine is hardly the only place this core conflict is going to destroy the Republican Party in 2018. Right across the country in Orange County, Sam Jammal is taking on Ryan rubber stamp Ed Royce (CA-39). "This week the House of Representatives will vote on an extreme tax bill that will increase taxes on the middle class in order to benefit millionaires, and Ed Royce is set to vote YES," wrote Sam to his supporters. "This is not a tax plan, but a tax scam. In our district alone, families stand to lose an average $15,575 in state and local tax deductions and 71% of households will be impacted by caps on mortgage deductions.

In addition, the same 71% of homeowners who experience devastating natural disasters, such as the recent canyon fires, will no longer be able to deduct their losses thanks to the new tax plan.

From teachers who wish to invest in their classrooms and students, to recent college graduates who are faced with student loan debt, the middle class relies on these deductions that are now under attack. If Republicans like Ed Royce cannot stand up for families in our community, then he should step down."

Yesterday the CBO report-- with the report of $136 billion in mandatory spending cuts in 2018 and $1.5 trillion in deficits-- moved across Capitol Hill like a wildfire. One top Republican Senate staffer, drunk on his ass before 6pm told me that this "mess" proves what "the Democrats keep saying about us, that we're an opposition party, not a governing party... They're right... By letting Trump into our party-- you know damn well he's a Democrat-- we ruined the whole thing. We're going to lose the House next year; Ryan's either going to retire or be beaten by that construction worker... Who ever though we could lose the Senate in 2018. It's impossible, right? I think we're going to lose it and that sleaze Schumer will take over from Mitch... I'm drunk and I'm sick. If Moore gets elected I'm quitting." Then he sent me this and claimed credit for it.

Poor guy! I didn't even realize he was an alcoholic until today and I've known him for the better part of a decade.