Quick Recap November 29, 2017November 29, 2017 The Republican tax bills would: Cut the tax rate on billionheirs — from 40% (already down from 55%) to ZERO. This would help them — Trump’s kids would save billions — but do nothing for the bottom 99.8%, whose inheritances fall below the estate tax minimum. Hurt charities. (Because the after-tax cost of bequeathing $100 million would jump from $60 million to $100 million. When something costs more to do, people do less of it.) Eliminate the alternative minimum tax, which would have saved Trump $20+ million in 2005, the one year we know he paid tax, but which would do nothing for most. (The AMT hits about 5 million of us, and is annoying, to be sure; but we need the revenue.) Keep the carried-interest loophole — a great gift to a few thousand very fortunate folks who pay a lower tax rate than their secretaries. Push US jobs and factories abroad (now there’s one you didn’t expect) as explained by Bob Pozen here in the Financial Times. Balloon the deficit — and not for the purpose of revitalizing our infrastructure (something worth borrowing for, that would create good jobs) but, rather, to enrich the already rich — and the corporations that they own. Crimp badly needed spending, e.g., cutting $25 billion from Medicare next year alone. (How would that help Trump voters?) And more. So: TAXES: Aid the rich at everyone else’s expense. HEALTH CARE: Repeal it. Sabotage it. Roll back the tax on the wealthy that helps subsidize it. CONSUMER PROTECTION: Bludgeon it. Watch Barney Frank explain. He challenges the CFPB critics to name one specific thing the CFPB has done in fighting for consumers that they wish it hadn’t. They can’t. Consumers like it when Wells Fargo is called to task for setting up millions of unauthorized accounts. They like it when those who victimize unsophisticated borrowers are called to task. CLIMATE CHANGE: Deny it. DIPLOMATIC CORPS: Decimate it. ONGOING RUSSIAN ATTACK ON OUR HOMELAND: Ignore it. Or, really, abet it. Because the attack is designed to heighten the divisions in our society and to destroy trust in the institutions that make our system work — the free press, the judiciary, the electoral process, norms of common decency and mutual respect. Trump may or may not have actively colluded with the Russians — I don’t know — but he is abetting all those goals and has already taken our national brand down from #1 in the world to #6. In less than a year. Is ignoring an attack from our chief adversary of the past 70 years not a form of treason? Or does treason have to be as explicit as, say, revealing classified information to them in the Oval Office (oh, wait, he did that, too). Is bragging about grabbing women’s genitals not some form of misdemeanor? What about constant lying (albeit not yet under oath)? Any issues with the emoluments clause? Obstruction of justice? I think you know where I’m headed with this.