E.J. Dionne at The Washington Post calls for Senator John McCain to once more be the conscience of a Republican Party that, in the age of Trump, has largely dropped any pretense of ever having one:
“Sens. Bob Corker of Tennessee and Jeff Flake of Arizona have said over and over that (unlike their two-faced leaders) they actually do care about the deficit, even where this tax-cut bill is concerned. If they don’t vote against it, they will be enrolling in the Ryan-McConnell Deficit Prevarication Association. Sen. Susan Collins of Maine is as close as there is to a genuine moderate in the Senate GOP. Voting for this utterly immoderate scheme would mean tossing her moderate credentials into a bonfire.
But the man whose voice most needs to be heard is Arizona Sen. John McCain. Over the past few months, he really has been the conscience of the Senate. This summer, he gave a remarkable speech during the Obamacare debate in which he chided the party’s leadership for ““asking us to swallow our doubts and force [the bill] past a unified opposition.””
I don’t think that is going to work in the end,” he said, “and it probably shouldn’t.”
It definitely shouldn’t work on this Pay-Off-Our-Donors tax cut. More than anyone, McCain could give Corker, Flake and Collins the heart to follow their convictions.”
This follows the week-end publication of a WaPo article delineating how the tax bill, which also blows a 1.5 trillion dollar hole in the Federal budget, punishes the middle and lower classes:
“The Senate Republican tax plan gives substantial tax cuts and benefits to Americans earning more than $100,000 a year, while the nation’s poorest would be worse off, according to a report released Sunday by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.
Republicans are aiming to have the full Senate vote on the tax plan as early as this week, but the new CBO analysis showing large, harmful effects on the poor may complicate those plans. The CBO also said the bill would add $1.4 trillion to the deficit over the next decade, a potential problem for Republican lawmakers worried about America’s growing debt.
By 2019, Americans earning less than $30,000 a year would be worse off under the Senate bill, CBO found. By 2021, Americans earning $40,000 or less would be net losers, and by 2027, most people earning less than $75,000 a year would be worse off. On the flip side, millionaires and those earning $100,000 to $500,000 would be big beneficiaries, according to the CBO’s calculations. (In the CBO table below, negative signs mean people in those income brackets pay less in taxes).”
And the table above does not include the impact on lower income level households that will follow enactment of this plan and Eddie Munster…. er...Paul Ryan rediscovers his concern for deficit spending and attempts to slash Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security.
It kinda sucks that we have to rely on anyone in the GOP to do the right thing and kill this Republican Christmas Present to their donors, but that’s where we are until we elect Democratic majorities in the House and Senate.
Does McCain have one more maverick moment in him?