IT'S NOT JUST A TAX BILL; IT'S A VICTORY IN THE CULTURE WAR, AND WE LIBS/DEMS LOST

The GOP Tax Bill will certainly come out of reconciliation quickly and be signed into law by a grinning clown surrounded by a bevy of buttcheek smoochers. And the tax system in America will be changed.

But this bill is not really about taxes. Sure, it will benefit the wealthy and corporations by lowering their tax rates. It will benefit some percentage of the proverbial middle class, at least for a few years until those benefits expire. It will not, in the opinion of most honest economists, do a lot for wages and the economy; the high estimates of economic boost I've seen are in the tenths of a percent. The goal of this tax bill is to give a big gift to wealthy donors, including corporations, and break the social contract of the past few decades between government and citizens. 

What this bill really represents is a major victory in the decades-old culture war in the United States of America, the political and economic struggle between liberals and conservatives, Democrats and Republicans, haves and have nots. We on the liberal/progressive side of the war have to understand that we have lost a major and prolonged struggle. And we have to understand that this pendulum won't swing back our way very soon.

There is a lot of reporting coming out about the new tax bill. I have read and listened to some, and have a few take-aways. 

• The rich will get richer, and corporate profits will get larger. The corporate tax rate will drop from 35% to somewhere between 20 - 25%. Corporations will have an incentive to bring profits they've stashed offshore back to the US. This will not result in what the GOP claims will be more jobs and increased wages, with perhaps a few exceptions. Mostly this will result in big dividends to shareholders, and big buy-backs of stock from shareholders, both benefiting people who own corporate stocks. 
• People like me will benefit, because our retirement investments includes shares of stock in various corporations. People like the Clintons, the Obamas, and all the other people of wealth in this country, no matter their political affiliations, will benefit from lower taxes and larger returns on their investments. This does not make us happy.
• The corporate tax reductions have no expiration date; the tax rate reductions for people with lower incomes will expire in 2025. 
• Numerous income tax deductions available now will be gone. I don't have a complete list yet, but many people will end up paying more.  
• A very key change, in the category of lost deductions, will be the end of the deduction for local and state taxes. This is huge. Some states have been able to increase their tax rates because of the federal deduction for these payments. This is how those states have funded increased government services. Once that deduction is gone, people in those states will start to clamor for lower taxes, smaller government, fewer services - sound familiar? And by the way, these higher-tax states are mostly those that vote Democratic. The GOP goal of smaller government at all levels will be supported. 

There are many non-tax related items in the new tax bill, of course. Pork has flowed freely on Capitol Hill. 

• The Affordable Care Act - of course! The mandate that everyone needs to buy insurance is eliminated. This will mean that millions of people, mostly younger ones, will choose not to have health insurance, leaving the older people in our society left holding the bag. Rates will go up, services covered will go down in order for insurance companies to remain profitable, and Medicare to remain viable. 
• The Johnson Amendment is repealed. This has kept religious organizations from being political by threatening to eliminate their tax-exempt status if they are politically active. Once the amendment is gone, we can expect to see churches jumping into politics in a big way, especially on issues like abortion, birth control and others. 
• New taxes will be levied on private college endowments, tax deductions for the interest on student loans will be eliminated, and tuition waivers for graduate students will be taxed (waivers will be considered income). This all will hurt students, and make college even less affordable for young people from middle- and working class families.
• The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge will be opened to oil and gas development. This very large piece of pork was the price for the vote of Senator Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), who has been working hard to reverse the Obama protections of the ANWR. 

There are many more items in the new massive tax bill that we will learn about in the weeks ahead. Some things might not survive intact through the reconciliation process (getting the House and Senate versions jammed together into one bill), and new things could be slipped in. But one thing is certain, the bill will be put on Trump's desk and he will gleefully sign it, before Christmas. (Hey, just say "Merry Christmas" everyone!)

AND...the new tax bill will paint a larger target on government programs, the ill-named "entitlements" social security, medicare/medicaid, and others. The tax bill will increase the federal deficit by more than one trillion dollars ($1,000,000,000,000) over the next ten years. In other words, the tax reductions are not paid for in the bill. To address this deficit, the GOP will step up the attacks on the programs that assist the poor, the elderly, children - you know, those who do not have any political power in America, in order to replace the money lost by lower taxes. 

Let me be clear here; this is not happening because Donald Trump is President. This has been the trajectory of the GOP for a few decades. What happened in 2016 was a grand coming together of a number of critical trends, including: widespread discontent with government; an incredible increase in the gap between the very wealthy and the rest of us; increasing power and control of government by corporations and their henchpeople; loss of jobs and stagnation of wages; permission to let prejudice out from the dark corners and into the light of day (particularly as a reaction to the first black President of the United States); a drastic widening of the gap between the perceived liberal urban elites and those good folks in the heartland; the "war on religion (Christianity)" exemplified by "happy holidays," same-sex marriage, abortion and birth control; seemingly uncontrolled "invasion" by immigrants who take jobs away from Americans (and rape and murder us!); and little green men hiding under every bed. OK, that last one is a joke. 

As I see the state of politics in America today, the conservative side, albeit a very different and radical type of conservatism, has won a series of political battles. This is the same as saying that the liberal side has lost these battles, and suffered very serious blows. Some data:

• Republicans control 67 (68%) of the 98 partisan state legislative chambers, Democrats control 31 (the lowest number since the Civil War);
• Republicans control both legislative chambers in 32 states, Democrats control 13;
• 33 Governors are Republicans, the most since 1922. 

In other words, it is not just at the federal level that Democrats are in the minority. 

What went wrong for the Democrats? What went right for the Republicans? There are books on this topic, and I'll leave it for a future post, maybe, to get into these questions. I will say, however, that in hindsight I think the Democratic Party, and Democratic voters, have made a series of major blunders in strategy and choice of candidates. The Dems largely ignored the rising tide of populism, and at the last moments threw Bernie Sanders populism at the voters. Hillary Clinton was a bad choice to carry the standard of liberalism into battle, no matter how qualified she is, no matter how thick her resumé, no matter that she is a woman. Neither Clinton nor Sanders could have beaten the tide that lifted Trump to the White House. What Democrat would have had a chance? Maybe nobody. Maybe the battle had already been won. Think about it - Donald J. Trump - a foul-mouthed, buffoonish, ignorant, combative, bigoted man with zero political experience became President of the United States. And no, it wasn't Russia, it wasn't Comey, it wasn't Jill effing Stein - stop being delusional already - that lost Clinton the election, it was the people who voted for Trump, the better Electoral College algorithm, and a shit strategy by the Clinton campaign and the DNC! 

The pendulum of politics swings back and forth. It has swung very far from where I am, and I am not hopeful that it will get back to me before I'm just a memory. So in the meantime, I will continue to study, I will continue to comment, I will try to understand that Trump tweets and toots are mostly hot air and methane used as cover for the dirty work that is going on in every corner of the federal government. I will support liberal causes, but only those that I conclude are realistic. I will continue to support those people in my community that need a hand to keep them above water and safe. 

And I will hope that things turn out OK for my grandkids. 

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