Republicans At Each Other's Throats Over Tax Policy Again

Earlier today, we looked at how badly Republicans are expected to do in November. Don't fret; they've earned it. And the sense of likely doom is already starting to spill over into their congressional policy agenda. Yesterday, writing for Politico Nancy Cook and Bernie Becker reported that White House and top congressional Republicans who want to push for a House vote on a second round of tax cuts ahead of the midterms in hopes of bolstering their economic pitch to voters are running into opposition from endangered-- and freaking out-- Republican incumbents in swing districts. In Orange County, for example-- where Republicans are already likely to lose 3 or 4 red seats-- anything that brings up toxic GOP tax policies, is deadly for them at this point.

A dozen House Republicans, all but one of them from the high-tax states of California, New Jersey and New York, voted against the tax law in December because it capped state and local tax deductions, which they said would lead to tax increases on too many of their constituents.

Some of those GOP lawmakers have openly said they would prefer to leave the tax issue alone as Congress also grapples with how to fund the government and the House potentially votes on health care measures that might be more politically beneficial to vulnerable incumbents. “If we were to pass that here in the House, it would be an exercise in futility, because it could never pass in the Senate,” Rep. Leonard Lance of New Jersey, who opposed the first bill, said Friday on CNBC.

Top House leaders will unveil the second tax overhaul bill this week. Drafted by House Ways and Means Chairman Kevin Brady (R-TX), the bill proposes to make permanent individual tax rate cuts from the Republicans’ first tax bill, while introducing new measures intended to help families save money, especially for retirement, and to spur innovation for businesses.

Sure, why should Brady case? His backward R+28 district north of Houston is 68% white, has no cities and gave Trump a massive 72.7% to 23.9% win over Hillary. If cavemen still lived in America, Kevin Brady's district is where they would be concentrated. Brady, one of Congress' most corrupt members, raised $4,233,536 this cycle against a token Democratic opponent, Steven David, who has raised $25,044. Brady told reporters that regardless of what his vulnerable colleagues are freaking out over, "it's full steam ahead."

Democrats have criticized the amount of stock buybacks that have followed the tax law and maintain it’s done little to help the average worker, and are likely to pound those themes again when discussing the second bill.

Democrats might have run from that fight in the past, given how often Republicans label them tax hikers. But these days, they are more than happy to relitigate last year’s tax law, which they have insisted from the start would heap savings on to corporations and the wealthy while leaving behind the middle-class.

The more even ground on taxes shows up in polling, too. The new tax law has not been the political plus that many Republicans expected as they try to hold on to the House, only becoming less popular since the beginning of the year.

Democrats and-- at least at election time-- some Republicans, are especially concerned because GOP leaders have made it clear that they hope to pay for these tax cuts by cutting back on crucial and popular programs like Medicare and Social Security and have all but given-up on the big infrastructure spending Trump promised when he campaigned in 2016. Jared Golden, the progressive Democrat and current state House majority whip now running for the Maine congressional seat held by Trump enabler Bruce Poliquin, told us that he's "always supported tax relief targeting the middle class and our small businesses in Maine. That is were my focus will be in the US House of Representatives. Unfortunately, my opponent voted to give millionaires and big corporations a windfall in the Trump tax plan. Now he's proposed legislation that will cut food stamps for struggling families in Maine as a way to pay for his misplaced priorities. That's going over like a lead balloon so I can understand why some of the sensible Republicans are worried about a round 2 of tax give-aways to the wealthy right before the election."

Randy Bryce, the much-celebrated Wisconsin everyman, @IronStache, on the cusp of replacing Paul Ryan in Congress, is eager to move forward with a massive infrastructure bill to bring good-paying jobs back to his region and the rest of the country. He's also vowed to sign on to the Medicare-For-All legislation on his first day in the House. This morning he told us that "at this point Republicans feel the water at neck level. They know the ship is sinking. It’s obvious to everyone that control of the House will be taken back by Democrats this November. It appears that what’s going on now is a final show of gratitude to reward the wealthy Republican donors that have helped them get elected. Some GOP Congressmen admitted that they needed to pass the initial tax scam or their donors were going to cut them off. The American public was wise to it and saw right through it for being the heist that it was. We see through this as well. No amount of contributions are going to save them from what’s going to take place this November."

A couple of the best Texas progressives running for Congress this cycle are Mike Siegel (TX-10, west of Houston) and Dayna Steele (TX-36, east of Houston). Mike told me that he's "yet to meet a single working Texan who prefers the idea of 'tax cuts' to essential programs like health care and Social Security. The Republicans are selling a fiction-- essentially, a new version of trickle-down economics. They want us to believe that helping corporations will eventually help American families. But the people here don’t have time to wait. They need support now." Dayna was quick to note that "You can live large every day but eventually the bottom will fall out. I learned this from watching countless "rock stars" crash and burn in the music business. The initial tax cuts, and now these new tax cuts, will be good for many in the short term. However, for success, you have to plan for the long term and it appears the Republicans are grifting as much as they can from the system before they take leave..."

The Best Laid Plans Of Mice And... Paul Ryan

McCain got a lot of ink over the weekend for his trip to the security meeting in Munich, ink that was primarily centered on his sharp criticism of Trump and Trumpism. He appeared on Meet the Press Sunday saying that he worries Trump doesn't understand the important issues confronting the country nor how to run an operation like the White House, which he pointed out is now mired in chaos. Miss McConnell, of course, is far more circumspect in his criticism of Trump, but it doesn't take much reading between the lines to see how frightened he is that Trump is going to drag the Republican Party into the toilet with him. He told the Weekly Standard that the president’s approval numbers would be "10 to 15 points higher if he allowed himself to stay on message... What [Trump’s] saying makes everything harder."

Juan Williams asserted in an Op-Ed for The Hill Monday that If a White House scandal begins to damage the GOP brand, the political dynamic will shift [and McConnell and the Senate Republicans will head for the hills]. The 2018 midterm elections defined by Trump scandals will threaten Republican control of the Senate-- not the Trump White House. If Republicans in Congress look to be covering up a national scandal, they open the door to a 'change election' that pushes them out of power."

The Senate Intelligence Committee has already pledged to investigate the Russian controversy. But that is not enough for Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.), who argues that the GOP majority on that panel could lead to a cover-up.

“Republicans need to look in the mirror and do a gut check,” she told the New York Times. She wants an open, public investigation in the form of a select committee.

Top Senate Republicans are resisting a select committee so far.

But the counter-threat for Republicans is the prospect of a catastrophic 2018 election.

...Already, Senate Republicans are open to writing a law requiring Congress to sign off on any changes in the current sanctions against Russia imposed by the Obama administration.

It is a different story in the House, where fear of blowback from Trump supporters has the leadership playing defense for the president.

The House Intelligence Committee is chaired by Rep. Devin Nunes, a California Republican who served with Gen. Flynn on Trump’s presidential transition team at a time when some of the illicit communication between Trump’s team and Russia apparently was going on.

Does this mean that Nunes is investigating himself, along with his House colleagues who also served on the transition team?

In addition, House Oversight and Government Reform Chairman Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) said last week his committee would not be investigating the Flynn scandal.

"I think that situation has taken care of itself,” Chaffetz said. “I know that the Intel committee is looking into the hacking issue.”

Chaffetz had no problem asserting his committee’s broad jurisdiction over matters of national security when they were looking into Benghazi.

Chaffetz did call for an investigation by the Department of Justice on the Russian issue--  but not into Flynn, only into who leaked the transcripts to reporters.

That is consistent with Trump’s complaint that the real story is media bias against him, as well as leaks from the intelligence agencies intended to do political damage.

Senate Republicans have fully accepted that there needs to be some form of investigation.

“I don’t think we need to go through setting up a special committee,” McConnell said. “But we are going to look at Russian involvement in the U.S. elections. It’s a significant issue.”

The contrast between how Speaker Paul Ryan’s (R-Wis.) House Republicans and McConnell’s Senate Republications handle Flynn is instructive.

Just as Ryan mishandled Trump’s candidacy during the campaign, he is mishandling Trump’s presidency. Ryan did chide Trump over the Muslim ban and his slander of Judge Gonzalo Curiel’s integrity on the basis of his ethnicity. But Ryan still backed him on the basis of party unity.

McConnell, on the other hand, kept his mouth shut and never took the bait when asked to respond to a Trump tweet or rude remark, instead focusing on preserving his Senate majority.

As last week showed, McConnell is a much shrewder political operator than his party colleagues in the House.

He is putting daylight between Trump and the fate of the Senate GOP majority.

This growing chasm-- and lack of cohesion-- inside the Republican Party is, naturally enough, impacting the party's ability to get anything done. Over all, that's extremely lucky for the American public. Remember when they were promising to repeal Obamacare on day one? Trump's incompetent and chaotic regime is also making it impossible for the Republicans to move any of their agenda-- other than setting Wall Street free to rape and pillage again, and that because they have unwavering support for the Republican wing of the Democratic Party (the Wall Street-financed New Dems and Blue Dogs).



Sunday, on Face the Nation (just before the 4 minutes mark on the tape above), Lindsey Graham noted that "the Congress is stumbling. Republicans in the Congress... we’re all tied up in knots. The House is talking about a tax plan that won’t get 10 votes in the Senate. So it's not just the administration that's got problems. Republicans in the House and the Senate have problems and I hope that we will get out act together." He also said that a free press and independent judiciary-- both of which have beens severey attacked by Trump-- are "worth fighting and dying for. The bottom line here," he warned Trump, "is America is not becoming a dictatorship."

So why won't Ryan's tax plan-- raising taxes on the middle class and giving massive breaks to the very wealthy-- get even votes in the Senate? Ryan and his brain surgeon who heads the tax-writing House Ways and Means Committee, Texas extremist Kevin Brady, came up with this outrageous Trump-inspired 20% across-the-board tax increase on imports to finance tax cuts for the very rich (i.e., the political donor class which underwrites the politicians' sleazy, disgusting careers). David Perdue (R-GA), points out that Ryan's plan is both "regressive"-- which is actually pretty standard for GOP tax plans-- and that it "hammer consumers." Republicans don't like that label, especially before an election.

Cory Gardner, a Republican from swing-state Colorado, is another Republican who wants Ryan to shove his tax plan up his ass. Last week, on the Senate floor he noted that "If you were to go to a farmer and say what does a border adjustment tax mean to you, they might try to sell the farm right then." He quoted the Wall Street Journal article from February 8, ,The Next American Farm Bust Is Upon Us.

The Farm Belt is hurtling toward a milestone: Soon there will be fewer than two million farms in America for the first time since pioneers moved westward after the Louisiana Purchase. Across the heartland, a multiyear slump in prices for corn, wheat and other farm commodities brought on by a glut of grain world-wide is pushing many farmers further into debt. Some are shutting down, raising concerns that the next few years could bring the biggest wave of farm closures since the 1980s."

Today, The Hill published an OpEd by Ro Khanna (D-CA) making a cohesive case against Ryan's idiotic border adjustment tax, which Khanna points out is "reverse redistribution... It is taking money out of the pockets of middle-class families to pay for a $1 trillion tax cut for the wealthiest individuals and corporations. The entire GOP plan hinges on the assumption that these increased costs will be offset by a stronger dollar. There is a good chance this will not happen. For example, if other countries implement their own tariffs and taxes in response to this U.S. policy, the dollar will not appreciate. Japan implemented a similar policy a couple decades ago and the Yen did not appreciate as expected. Also, most economists believe it could take up to five years for any meaningful appreciation to come about. Middle class families cannot take the risk and pay more for everyday items for five years in the hopes that this financial experiment will eventually work. Do we need a reminder about the last time we took a risk on a 20 percent tax on imported goods? The Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act of 1930, which President Reagan often cited as the main culprit for the Great Depression."

Republican Party's Pledge Of Allegience To... The Banksters

The big news today is the GOP's Contract On America, the widely ridiculed (on both sides of the ideological divide) "Pledge" that they rushed out now that they feel the shot they had this summer to take over the House slipping out of their grasp. At first glance it sounds like an attack on Bush: "An unchecked executive, a compliant legislature, and an overreaching judiciary have combined to thwart the will of the people and overturn their votes and their values, striking down long-standing laws and institutions and scorning the deepest beliefs of the American people. An arrogant and out-of-touch government of self-appointed elites makes decisions, issues mandates, and enacts laws without accepting or requesting the input of the many. Rising joblessness, crushing debt, and a polarizing political environment are fraying the bonds among our people and blurring our sense of national purpose."

Right wing operative Erick Erickson called it "dreck... full of mom tested, kid approved pablum that will make certain hearts on the right sing in solidarity. But like a diet full of sugar, it will actually do nothing but keep making Washington fatter before we crash from the sugar high... This document proves the GOP is more focused on the acquisition of power than the advocacy of long term sound public policy." Boehner had an especially sleazy corporate lobbyist put it together but I wonder if it was Aaron Schock who wrote the dog whistle part about pledging to honor traditional marriage and if was Jerry Lewis who put in the line about transparency... maybe oily Joe Barton about "careful stewardship (although they noticeably left out what the government would be careful stewards of. Blah, blah, blah... one sack of bullshit piled on top of the other sacks of bullshit. And lots of militaristic crap and saber rattling one day after every single Senate Republican voted to filibuster a defense bill because it included the DREAM Act that the Pentagon says is so important for the military.

Within hours of their dramatic unveiling on The Pledge in a Virginia hardware store, the House overwhelmingly passed H.R. 3470, Steve Cohen's Nationally Enhancing the Wellbeing of Babies through Outreach and Research Now Act, which was deemed too favorable to poor people and to people of color to be approved by the new guard of the GOP. Although most Republicans (106 of them) joined every single Democrat to vote YES, 64 of the furthest right members voted NO. That 64 included teabaggy favorites like Michele Bachmann (MN), Paul Broun (GA), Dan Burton (IN), John Campbell (CA), Virginia Foxx (NC), Scott Garrett (NJ), Louie Gohmert (TX), Jeb Hensarling (TX), Darrell Issa (CA), Steve King (IA), Ron Paul (R-TX), Tom Price (GA), Pete Sessions (TX), Lynn Westmoreland (GA) and-- in a very noticeable break from Boehner and Ryan-- Young Guns Eric Cantor (VA) and Kevin McCarthy (CA). They're the ideological tip of the spear the ones who are setting the real Republican Party agenda which is all about shipping middle class jobs overseas to low wage markets while crushing the small businesses they pretend to worship.

The rhetoric of House Republicans is that they have been working to help create small business jobs and save American jobs, yet their record has been the opposite. For example, just this Congress, House Republicans have:

Voted against closing tax loopholes that encourage companies to ship jobs overseas five times even as millions of jobless Americans are looking for work.

Voted against seven of eight small business tax cuts that have been enacted into law.

The truth about the Congressional Republican agenda is that it is designed to save jobs overseas, not here at home. On Thursday, House Republicans will likely again oppose the Small Business Lending and Jobs Bill, adding to their long record of voting against American workers and small businesses. This Congress, House Republicans have voted:

AGAINST the American Jobs and Closing Tax Loopholes Act (99% voted NO)

AGAINST the Education Jobs and Medicaid Assistance Act (99% voted NO)

AGAINST the Small Business Tax Relief Act (98% voted NO)

AGAINST the Small Business and Infrastructure Jobs Act (98% voted NO)

AGAINST the HIRE Act (97% voted NO)

AGAINST providing $40 Billion in Tax Credits for Small Businesses (100% voted NO)

AGAINST spurring Small Business Investment (97% voted NO)

AGAINST helping Businesses Recover Costs of New Capital Investments (100% voted NO)

AGAINST spurring Small Business Investment (100% voted NO)

AGAINST reducing Small Business Estimated Tax Payments (100% voted NO)

AGAINST providing Tax Relief (100% voted NO)

Instead of moving forward with real solutions for the American people, Congressional Republicans are focusing on their political future, doing the bidding of special interest lobbyists, and going back to the exact same policies that got us into this mess.

Just last month Boehner lit into President Obama and Speaker Pelosi for closing one of the worst of the greed-and-ideological inspired loopholes that rewarded companies with generous tax breaks for creating jobs overseas. Boehner brazenly and insultingly-- insulting to the unemployed and displaced workers of Ohio, I might add-- attacked the very idea that his supporters have now apparently identified as the economic priority they’re most interested in, more tax breaks for corporations shipping American jobs abroad.

Dan Pfeiffer, on the White House blog termed it, appropriately, the Republican pledge to special interests. "Instead of charting a new course, Congressional Republicans doubled down on the same ideas that hurt America’s middle class. Here’s what they made clear:

• Tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires by borrowing $700 billion we can’t afford;

• Tax hikes for 110 million middle-class families and millions of small businesses;

• Cutting rules and oversight for special interests like big oil, big insurance, credit card and mortgage companies and Wall Street banks;

• Doing nothing to stop the outsourcing of American jobs or to end tax breaks that are given to companies that ship jobs overseas;

• All while adding trillions to our nation’s deficits.

Their plan is also notable for what it doesn’t talk about: protecting Social Security and Medicare from privatization schemes; investing in high-quality education for our nation’s children; growing key industries like clean energy and manufacturing; and rebuilding our crumbling roads, rails and runways.

This is the same agenda that caused the deepest recession since the Great Depression, costing 8 million jobs, wiping out trillions in family wealth and setting middle-class families back. Instead of a pledge to the American people, Congressional Republicans made a pledge to the big special interests to restore the same economic ideas that benefited them at the expense of middle-class families.

Here are two of the most vacuous and insidious voices of the GOP propaganda machine attacking Alan Grayson for trying to keep working families from being illegally foreclosed on:



UPDATE: And Republican Congressmen Are Already Admitting The Pledge Doesn't Mean Anything In Real Life

Just another cheap TV reality show, like Dancing With The Stars, Desperate Housewives, Mad Men, or America's Next Top Model... only starring a lazy, orange-tinged, alcoholic golfer. Think Progress got to the bottom of the GOP pledge to hoodwink America with recycled ideas for America's Top Crooked Corporate Lobbyists.

Yesterday, after a Republican Ways and Means Committee members press conference, ThinkProgress asked Rep. Kevin Brady (R-TX) if Republicans would truly use the ideas from their own online platform-- as they said they would-- and include the popular idea to remove tax breaks for companies that ship jobs overseas in their “Pledge to America.” Brady, who actually voted to protect tax break for companies that ship jobs overseas, attacked the idea. After being pressed again, he flat out said “no,” and explained that Republicans would continue to favor tax breaks to the wealthy and to corporations that ship jobs overseas:

TP: I like the idea, letting people vote. As of last week, I don’t know the exact date, but the second highest idea, voted up by popular vote, was to end tax breaks for companies that ship jobs overseas. Do you expect something like that to be included in the new “contract” that will be unveiled tomorrow?

BRADY: I haven’t-- well, can you tell me what that provision is, because right now the ones we’ve seen from the Democrats and the White House actually penalize companies trying to sell and compete overseas. They do just the opposite. [...]

TP: So you think that some form of that, just different than what the Democrats have proposed, will be in the proposal tomorrow?

BRADY: No. I think our proposal is going to be how are you going to create the strongest economy in the world? And how’s America continue to lead for the next 100 years? All that has to do is lower taxes.