Author: A.T.

Did you see Roger Cohen in the New York Times last week, r-if-fing on Rudyard Kipling? “If this is America, with a cabinet of terrorized toadies genuflecting to the Great Leader . . .”

A must read.

Thursday I offered The DEMOCRATIC Tax Plan and Friday, The Spirit of Christmas.  That one, otherwise filled with tinsel and sugar plums, ended on a somewhat sober note.

. . . My faith in that spirit, and in America, lead me to believe “this too shall pass” and we will regain our footing.  But it’s not guaranteed.  Democracy did not last forever in Greece or Rome; nor in parts of Europe in the first half of the last century.  And it lasted in Russia for about five minutes, subverted by Putin, who is now well on his way to successfully subverting ours.

Yet like the honey badger, Trump — he don’t care.

You will be forgiven if you didn’t click all 11 links in that column (though I trust you at least wept at the end of It’s A Wonderful Life and A Christmas Carol?).

But that last link, to the Washington Post — about Russia’s attack and Trump not caring — is worth expanding:

Doubting the intelligence, Trump pursues Putin and leaves a Russian threat unchecked
By Greg Miller, Greg Jaffe and Philip Rucker
Dec. 14, 2017

. . . Nearly a year into his presidency, Trump continues to reject the evidence that Russia waged an assault on a pillar of American democracy and supported his run for the White House.

The result is without obvious parallel in U.S. history, a situation in which the personal insecurities of the president — and his refusal to accept what even many in his administration regard as objective reality — have impaired the government’s response to a national security threat. . . .

Rather than search for ways to deter Kremlin attacks or safeguard U.S. elections, Trump has waged his own campaign to discredit the case that Russia poses any threat and he has resisted or attempted to roll back efforts to hold Moscow to account.

. . . This account of the Trump administration’s reaction to Russia’s interference and policies toward Moscow is based on interviews with more than 50 current and former U.S. officials, many of whom had senior roles in the Trump campaign and transition team or have been in high-level positions at the White House or at national security agencies. Most agreed to speak only on the condition of anonymity, citing the sensitivity of the subject. . . .

. . . Michael V. Hayden, who served as CIA director under President George W. Bush, has described the Russian interference as the political equivalent of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, an event that exposed a previously unimagined vulnerability and required a unified American response.

. . . The feeble American response has registered with the Kremlin.

. . . “Putin has to believe this was the most successful intelligence operation in the history of Russian or Soviet intelligence,” said Andrew Weiss, a former adviser on Russia in the George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton administrations who is now at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. “It has driven the American political system into a crisis that will last years.”

. . . U.S. officials declined to discuss whether the stream of recent intelligence on Russia has been shared with Trump. Current and former officials said that his daily intelligence update — known as the president’s daily brief, or PDB — is often structured to avoid upsetting him.

There’s so much more to it.  If this thus-far successful threat to our way of life interests you, I urge you to read the whole thing.

Ninety seconds.

How I love it.  How, growing up, I looked forward to it.  A ritual in our home — eyebrows glued to the cold windows as we drove up to the country Friday night, ogling all the Christmas trees and lighted eaves and elves along the way . . . watching March of the Wooden Soldiers with Laurel and Hardy (defeating the bogeymen!) and Amahl and the  Night Visitors (opera a little slow for a 7-year-old, but my mother loved it) and, of course, most profoundly, It’s A Wonderful Life and A Christmas Carol.

Decorating our tree Christmas Eve . . .

And then, oh boy oh boy oh boy! bolting out of bed at 6am — the presents!

God bless us . . . everyone.

It wasn’t a religious thing. By 10, I had figured out I was an atheist (which just seemed logical and reasonable and didn’t bother me a bit: there was no Santa Claus, and although there had been a Jesus whose awesome teachings we should rightly celebrate and seek to live by, he never literally walked on water).

It was a human thing.  That yearning we all share to be our best selves, to help each other get through this miraculous — but, for so many, difficult — life with as much love and happiness . . . as little suffering and oppression . . . as we possibly can.

(Competing yearnings, of course: for power and dominance and . . . well, it’s a constant battle between the devil on one shoulder and the better angels of our nature on the other.)

(And, no, I don’t believe there are literally a devil or angels — not even George Bailey’s lovable Clarence.  As the uneducated but wise Ugandan woman says to the young missionaries who, upon fully realizing how ridiculous the Mormon tale is if taken literally, have begun to lose faith . . . rolling her eyes and trying to buck them up . . . “Boys!  Eeet eez a MEH-ta-phor!”)

These are the greatest stories ever told (here and here) . . . Moses coming down from Mt. Sinai, leading our people out of bondage . . . Jesus dying for our sins, giving hope and solace — and guidance — to billions down through the centuries to this day.

And so I have always loved Christmas.

And yet . . .

Visiting friends for dinner the other night, I was jarred by their Christmas tree, my first of the season.

And jarred that I was jarred.

Why was I jarred?

Did it simply seem out of place against the backdrop of their modern art and furniture?

The wrong color scheme?

No, I think it’s that the President has politicized Christmas and added it to his own horrible brand, tainting it by association.

Beautiful, innocent, our-best-selves Christmas.

Was there ever “a war on Christmas?”  No!

Was Obama born in Kenya, as Trump rose to power suggesting?  No!

Is this “beautiful Christmas present of a massive tax cut for the middle class” — “that will cost me a fortune, believe me” — real?  No!

It will just add to the gross inequality that is already tearing at the fabric of our country, and deprive us of resources to revitalize our crumbling infrastructure and care for the Tiny Tims whose health care we are reducing to pay for a reduction in taxes on the uber-wealthy.

Trump has used Christmas — Christmas!!! — to divide us further, to inflame the forces of white supremacy and intolerance, and I hate it.

He is a vulgar bully who — despite his love for “two Corinthians” and his three sacred marriages and his reverence for women (“nobody has more respect for women than I do — nobody“) — is the exact opposite of everything Jesus Christ asked us to be, the exact opposite of the spirit of Christmas.

My faith in that spirit, and in America — plus the happy gene inherited from parents who gave my brother and me so many magical childhood Christmases — lead me to believe “this too shall pass” and we will regain our footing.  But it’s not guaranteed.  Democracy did not last forever in Greece or Rome; nor in parts of Europe in the first half of the last century.  And it lasted in Russia for about five minutes, subverted by Putin, who is now well on his way to successfully subverting ours.

Yet like the honey badger, Trump — he don’t care.

Much love, guys.  I appreciate your readership.

Thanks to his “exquisite leadership,” Trump now has the deficit topping a trillion dollars and our National Debt growing faster than the economy, as Reagan, Bush and Bush did (it took Clinton and Obama to turn that around) . . . depriving the country of the resources to revitalize its crumbling infrastructure . . . wrecking the Affordable Care Act to the disadvantage and what in some cases will inevitably be the death of hard-working lower-income citizens (whose minimum wage Republicans refuse to raise with inflation) . . . preserving the egregious carried-interest tax break he claimed to be against . . . and greatly enriching himself and his wealthy cabinet members while lying directly into the TV cameras at every opportunity to claim it will “cost me a fortune.”

The autocrat tightens the noose, just as did the democratically-elected leader of Germany, whose book of speeches Trump famously kept by his bedside . . . seeing some “very fine people” among the torch-marchers at Charlottesville . . . joining arms with journalist-murdering autocrats Putin and Duterte . . . (Erdogan has thus far merely imprisoned 120) . . . and none of this seems to bother his fawning cabinet members or the fawning Republicans in Congress (though in private at least one calls him “a fucking moron” and before he was elected Senator Lindsey Graham called him “a race-baiting, xenophobic, religious bigot . . . undercutting everything we stand for” and Senator Ted Cruz called him “a pathological liar” and Senator Marco Rubio called him “a dangerous con man.”)

But — because it’s now safe again to say Christmas again and I love Christmas — let me stop whining.

Ron S.: “All we get from Democrats is whining about process and dire warnings about the impending economic catastrophe that Republicans would inflict on the always struggling and oft-mentioned middle class.  Kind of reminds me of the Congress during the 8 years of the Obama administration — repeal and replace, but no realistic plan.  So I keep reading your blog but it is very repetitive and whiny with very little positive substance with realistic details.”

☞ In other words: okay, big shot.  You say you’d be for a fair, revenue-neutral tax reform — what is it?

A fair question.

Rising to this reasonable challenge, I would say this.

First, don’t borrow $1.5 trillion to cut taxes.  This is not a time to cut taxes.  Borrow it, instead, to revitalize infrastructure.  That would put far more to work in good jobs that can’t be out-sourced, and make America more productive, benefiting us all.  Let’s build infrastructure, not yachts and mansions.

As to the tax code itself, how about:

1. Raising the estate tax rate on amounts above $100 million from 40% to 55% (where it used to be) — and using that extra revenue to lower co-pays and deductibles for health insurance?

2. Raising the top rate on income of any kind in excess of $1 million by 2% — and using that extra revenue to lower co-pays and deductibles for health insurance?

3. Eliminating the “carried interest” loophole, as Trump promised he would — and, yes, using that, too, to lower co-pays and deductibles for health insurance?

4. Lowering the corporate rate as low as Republicans want — even to 21% — but only by closing whatever loopholes the Republicans want to close in order to keep the reform, as scored by the CBO, “revenue neutral.” Likewise: simplify it any way the Republicans and Chamber of Commerce want, so long as the simplifications are revenue neutral.  (Even then, it would be like a tax cut, because a simpler tax code would save corporations a fortune on accounting and legal fees.)

How’s that?

Whoever emails me first gets three free TiVo’s (TCD140060; TCD649080; Pioneer DVR-810H-S) and three WiFi do-dads that can connect them (TiVo AG0100).  My cable provider’s recently gone digital, so they no longer work.  If one or more might work for you, they’re yours.  Free shipping.

Happy Hanukkah! (The oil lasted until this seventh day!  How was that possible?)

Merry Christmas!  (Celebration of which was outlawed by the Puritans, but whose message of good will is unmatched.  I wish I could you give you all TiVos.)

Unfortunately, while claiming to be a big fan of Christmas, Trump totally misses its spirit.  He claims his tax scam — horrible for the country in so many ways — will cost him a fortune when in fact it will save him a fortune.

He is a liar.  Up is down.  Black is white.

Some have clocked his lies at 71 per hour.  Others, at 124 separate false statements a year (compared with 2 for Obama) — most repeated dozens of times. (By contrast, once Obama became aware he had said something untrue, he stopped saying it.)

The “beautiful giant Christmas present” Republicans are giving “the middle class” is a lump of coal.

It will raise health insurance premiums for millions and serve to deprive an estimated 13 million of health insurance altogether. That’s in the spirit of Christmas?

And where Scrooge finally saw the light and spent generously to shower gifts upon the less advantaged, this bill will greatly enrich Scrooge at the expense of the middle class and the poor.

Yes, it gives a modest tax break to many for eight years — but plunges the average family of four yet a deeper $20,000 into debt.

Already the Republicans are talking about cutting back on “entitlements” like Medicaid to narrow that deficit.  Merry Christmas, Tiny Tim.

Marco Rubio’s famous child tax credit enhancement?  One report I saw said it would mean $75 for a family of four at minimum wage, but thousands for a wealthy family that doesn’t need it.  (See also: Tax Bill Vote Proves Marco Rubio Is No “Longtime Champion of the Working Class”.)

Watch one of my friends walk you through his 2015 tax return to see what a scam this is.

Shameful.

Which brings me (at last) to a retired cardiac surgeon’s letter to Senator Collins.

Jon Hull writes:

Senator Susan Collins
413 Dirksen Senate Office Building
Washington, DC  20510

Senator Collins:

I am 79 years old, have served as an Airborne officer in the U.S. Army to include service in Vietnam and have spent 45 years as a civilian in national security assignments, most of that time in extended tours overseas.  I am not a member of either political party but have watched with horror and despair as your party, the party touted as the party of Lincoln, is in the process of ravaging our system of government and the ideals for which it has been known and largely admired.

More to the point, I am unspeakably saddened by my own loss of faith in the institutions I have spent most of my life defending.  And I am writing to you only because I believe you may be one of the very few members of this collection of power worshippers who might understand whereof I speak.

I submit that you and yours are aiding and abetting an administration that is bereft of any morality beyond its own self-aggrandizement.  Your party has offered nothing but mindless obstruction during the 8-year tenure of Barack Obama, a man who tried diligently, if imperfectly at times, to better the American condition.  It is with pride, don’t forget, that this party brags constantly about having blocked a sitting president with 9 months left in his term from getting so much as a hearing on his Supreme Court nominee.  Like it or not, the obstructionism was so virulent and pervasive that a large portion of the population could only explain it by deducing that racism was a significant factor.

That obstructionism has left us with a health care system which is the laughing stock of the developed world, a system which will produce untold hardships and tragedy for younger generations as they try to cope with unforeseen medical problems, a system which could have been vastly improved with bipartisan effort to tweak the Affordable Care Act but instead is being demolished with nary a replacement in sight.  This has put us in the unenviable position of having the world’s highest per capita health costs by far while we languish in 37th place between Costa Rica and Slovenia in the World Health Organization’s rankings of health systems in some 190 countries.

It has left us with an incoherent, racist policy on migration, on Dreamers, on refugees – tens of thousands of them of our own creation.

It has left us with spectacularly unqualified individuals heading major governmental departments, individuals nearly all of whom have views and intentions antithetical to the entities they head.

It has drastically undercut what used to be our leadership role in critical issues such as climate change and international trade and in the process created doubt or alienation among many of our staunchest allies.

It has watched with utter nonchalance as top ranked state department officers with decades of experience retire or are forced out, many in humiliating fashion, seriously diminishing our influence in the world and our voice on human rights.

It leaves us to the rapacious whims of coal and oil and mining interests, mostly in pristine areas, on the specious promise of job creation while doing everything to discourage the advancement of the potentially bigger job creator in sustainable energy.

It attacks banking regulations and consumer protections, opening the way to obscene riches for those already obscenely rich and leaving the average citizen helpless, mired in endless debt as s/he tries to deal with student loan obligations, grossly expensive health insurance premiums with ridiculously high deductibles, stagnant wages and so on.

It is without a hint of shame that your party covets a “win” on their tax “reform” bill, a bill that hadn’t even been scored, that the party was not interested in seeing scored and that adds an estimated TRILLION DOLLARS to the deficit in spite of the maniacal hue and cry against deficit spending that was a party mantra during the Obama years.  And on top of that they claim without a scintilla of evidence that the discredited “trickle down” effect will more than pay for this.  When the nonpartisan Joint Committee on Taxation’s score recently belied this claim, the party’s response was the standard one:  mount a coordinated attack on the scorekeeper, claim it to be partisan and disparage its flawed analysis.

It has left us with diabolically gerrymandered voting districts which assures us that bipartisanship will remain nothing but a concept, possibly even a thing of the past.

It has left us with an Attorney General – the chief law officer of our government! – who not only doesn’t see any problem with Russian involvement in our presidential election but who has fought every effort to determine the extent of that involvement while cravenly dissembling when questioned about it under oath.  And in that regard, we have two investigative committees headed by your own party members who are themselves doing all within their power to impede and/or sidetrack the process.

And finally it has left us with a leader who is a misogynist, a pathological liar, a morally hollow individual with no discernible ideals or values beyond his own ego who will fight to the death to keep his tax returns from the light of day and who has accumulated a fortune by way of Russian oligarchs who launder billions through his real estate holdings.

And the saddest part of all:  you and your party are seemingly content to bob along in this man’s flood of “alternate facts” and empty rants, basking in his endless bluster about his first legislative “win” from a tax bill that will have profound effects on every U.S. citizen for years to come and that, guaranteed, most of your party has not read beyond the bones that have been thrown to them for their votes.

Make America Great Again.  Right.  A pox on both your chambers.

Jon Hull

If, after reading about Esther the Pig, you would not slaughter and eat her — and I promise you, if you read this story and watch the clips, you would not . . .

. . . and now that there is perfectly credible fake meat . . .

. . . let me ask you this: why not go vegetarian?

It’s better for your health, better for the planet, and, one would think, better for Esther.

The Economist reports: Motorised nose wheels will let planes leave gates by themselves.

From its mouth to God’s ears.

Even so, I’d push back (as it were) on a couple of points:

First, the Economist notes that WheelTug adds weight to the aircraft.  That seems obvious yet may not be true.

Yes, of course, this tiny motor and the wires to the cockpit weigh something; but so does the reserve fuel airlines take on in the event of unexpected delays.  (If there’s unexpectedly long taxi time or de-icing time, they sure don’t want to have to come back to the gate for more fuel.  With WheelTug, that won’t be necessary.)  After accounting for the weight of that fuel, the system may add little or nothing to the weight of the aircraft.

Second, the TaxiBot system they describe has been available for quite some time and doesn’t seem likely to catch on.

It would not eliminate the need for a tug — or allow for “the twist.”  (The twist is the ability WheelTug will give airlines to park parallel to the gate, boarding and deplaning passengers from both front AND rear doors.  It’s those two things — eliminating the need for a tug and allowing for much faster boarding and deplaning — that are the chief attractions of this new technology.)

Finally, not every airport would welcome the addition of an enormous vehicle running back from the runway to the gate area after each flight.  Airports are complicated enough places as it is.

Have you called Senators Collins, Rubio, McCain, Flake, Murkowski, Sasse, Corker, Lee, Paul, and Johnson — plus any others you can think of — about the tax scam?  Just dial 202-224-3121.  And then, if one or both your senators is Republican, go a step further.  Google over to their website and find the phone number for their local office — and call that one, too.  Not sure what to say?  Heck: just read them the highlights of this.

We all get things wrong from time to time.  But not like this.  Here’s a chart that shows Trump issuing six times more false statements in his first 10 months than Obama did in eight years.  About 2 a year from Obama, 124 a year from Trump.  (These are separate falsehoods, many of them repeated endlessly — so thousands in all.)

“If we had used a less strict standard,” the authors note, “Trump would look even worse by comparison.”

For one thing, when Obama became aware he was saying something untrue, he stopped saying it.  “Trump is different. When he is caught lying, he will often try to discredit people telling the truth, be they judges, scientists, F.B.I. or C.I.A. officials, journalists or members of Congress. Trump is trying to make truth irrelevant. It is extremely damaging to democracy, and it’s not an accident. It’s core to his political strategy.”

Our country is in danger.

Which brings me to DangerousCase.org.

“This is not normal,” opine literally thousands of mental health professionals:

In a historically unprecedented fashion, we have come together as mental health experts to warn that Mr. Trump, in the office of the president, is a danger to national and international security.

Usually, we mental health professionals have an ethical rule against diagnosing public figures unless we have personally examined them and gained their consent.  However, as health professionals, we are charged with protecting the health and well-being of our patients and the public, and there are superseding rules.  When a person is a danger to others, we have a duty to report, a duty to warn, and a duty to protect potential victims, including the public.  In an emergency, we do not have the choice not to treat someone as a patient.

A diagnosis is irrelevant when someone is dangerous.  We need first to contain the person, to remove any access to weapons, and to perform an urgent evaluation.  Mr. Trump has already shown numerous signs that he is dangerous.  From our perspective, his personal characteristics, combined with the power of the office and his access to the nuclear arsenal, put the ultimate safety and survival of humanity at risk.

One of our mandates as mental health professionals is to improve public health through education: we have an obligation to bear witness when something is not normal.  Our mission through the National Coalition of Concerned Mental Health Experts is to inform and educate all sectors, from the public to the governmental.

Pressure makes unstable people worse.  Collectively, we warn that the worst is coming.  Anyone as mentally unstable as this man simply should not be entrusted with the life-and-death powers of the presidency, and the public deserves protection.

Help us to take action now.

With a disastrous tax scam about to be perpetrated, perhaps as early as tomorrow, the most immediate action we should take is to scream bloody murder.

Call 202-224-3121 to reach Senators Collins, Murkowski, Corker, Johnson, Rubio, Sasse, Flake, Paul, McCain and any others you can think of.

How about Lindsey Graham, who rightly called Trump a con artist?  Surely it offends him to hear Trump lying that this tax bill is “a massive middle class tax cut” that’s gonna cost him and his rich friends a fortune.  Surely it concerns him that the Wall Street Journal and the Financial Times think it may cost American jobs, not create them.

Call their in-state offices, too, where you may be more likely to reach a human or a voice mail system that’s not full.

Not sure what to say?  If all else fails, just read them the highlights of last week’s post.

We have to stop this bill — and need only a couple of Republican Senators to do the right thing (and another to not vote).

I never call — 202-224-3121.  I type.

But I’m calling.

We have to stop this bill — and need only a couple of Republican Senators to do the right thing (and another to not vote).

Call their in-state offices, too.

From the newly-energized DNC (with links to the Wall Street Journal, etc.):

Changes To The Republican Tax Bill Make It Even Worse

• The Republican tax bill could encourage companies to actually cut jobs, not add them.

 Wall Street Journal: “Based on analyses of past programs to repatriate overseas corporate earnings, Wall Street analysts and tax experts expect companies would use the money for purposes such as buying back shares and mergers. Instead of adding jobs, they say, companies might cut them if they use their cash to buy rivals and then take out costs.”

[And as I’ve noted, this Financial Times piece says “Trump tax bills would push US jobs and factories abroad.”]

• The Republican tax bill creates a huge pass-through loophole that benefits the rich.

 Vox: “The deduction creates a huge loophole for rich people, who could incorporate as sole proprietorships and ‘contract’ with their employers so their income is counted as pass-through income rather than wages.”

• Republicans have tried to claim their tax bill helps middle-class families with changes to child tax credits and other deductions, but these changes are small and only temporary.

 Bloomberg: “Other temporary changes, which would last through 2025, would boost the standard deduction and child tax credits and modify state and local tax deductions and the mortgage interest deduction.”

Center on Budget and Policy Priorities: “Final CTC Changes Don’t Alter Tax Bill Basics: 10 Million Working Family Children Get Little or Nothing”

The Richest Americans Are Still The Biggest Winners

• The Republican tax bill benefits corporations and the richest Americans – who get massive tax cuts — more than the middle class.

Associated Press: “GOP tax bill slashes rates for corporations and wealthy with smaller benefits for middle class”

Washington Post’s Wonkblog: “The final plan lowers the top tax rate for top earners. […] This amounts to a significant tax break for the very wealthy, a departure from repeated claims by President Trump and his top officials that the bill would not cut taxes on the rich.”

CNN: “The bill — which critics say is heavily weighted to ease the tax burden of businesses rather than the middle class — drops the corporate tax rate down from 35% to 21%, repeals the corporate alternative minimum tax, nearly doubles the standard deduction for individuals and restructures the way pass-through businesses are taxed.”

• Tax cuts for middle-class families in the Republican tax bill expire, leaving many households left to pay more than they do now.

The Daily Beast: “Your tax cut is temporary. A company’s tax cut is permanent.”

Wall Street Journal: “Middle-income households will get tax cuts that are set to expire, and some households, particularly upper-middle-class residents of high-tax states, would likely pay more than they do now.”

Washington Post’s Wonkblog: “Republicans are paying for a permanent cut for corporations with an under-the-radar tax increase on individuals. […] Republicans can’t just let the individual tax cuts expire, as they do at the end of 2025, but they actually need to raise money to offset the permanent corporate tax reduction.”

• The Republican tax bill repeals the individual mandate and would result in 13 million fewer people having health insurance.

Bloomberg: “As a bonus for Republicans, the measure would repeal the individual mandate that requires individuals to purchase insurance — a measure imposed by the Obamacare law. … Congressional budget experts have estimated that repealing the mandate would result in 13 million fewer people having health insurance in 10 years. “

• The Republican tax bill increases the deficit by nearly $1.5 trillion, and Republicans will use that as an excuse to slash funding for critical programs that would hit lower-income families the hardest.

New Yorker: “The Final Version of the G.O.P. Tax Bill Is a Corrupt, Cruel, Budget-Busting Hairball”

Bloomberg: “A preliminary score from Congress’s Joint Committee on Taxation showed that the new version of the bill would increase federal deficits by $1.46 trillion over 10 years — before accounting for any economic growth that might result. Earlier versions of the legislation were estimated to boost deficits by roughly $1 trillion even after such effects.”

Washington Post: “On top of that, Republican leaders say they want to ‘reform’ welfare and entitlement programs such as Social Security and Medicare next year. Scaling back those benefits hits lower-income families and, again, exacerbates the gap between the top and the bottom.”

• Trump and his family would still benefit a lot from changes in the Republican tax plan, but we can’t know exactly how much until he releases his tax returns.

The Daily Beast: “The Trump Organization wins, big league. […] The final tax bill, however, slashes this liability, allowing most pass-through businesses—like the Trump Organization—to deduct 20 percent of their income tax-free, effectively cutting the president’s tax rate in half. Of course, without the president’s tax returns, it’s impossible to know for sure.”

Business Insider: “It’s noteworthy that even just from the changes to the tax brackets and the eliminations of deductions, very wealthy households, including President Donald Trump, stand to benefit handsomely from the plan.”

Center for American Progress’ Seth Hanlon: “The final bill has a new loophole (carved into the limits of the pass-through loophole) specifically for business owners that don’t employ many people. I’m told it’s a carve-out mostly for (surprise!) the real estate industry.”

Now is the time to scream bloody murder — 202-224-3121 . . . and Google their local offices to call those, too.

Not sure what to say?  If all else fails, just read them the highlights of yesterday’s post.

It would be fine to have a well-thought-through corporate tax reform that were revenue-neutral . . . and that did not encourage companies to move jobs overseas as the current Republican plan, being rushed into law, likely will.

And it would be economically dumb but at least morally defensible to give the working poor and middle class a tax cut.  They are struggling to get by!  They’ve been cut out of the tremendous gains in wealth the country has made these past 30-odd years.  It’s almost all gone to the top few percent, especially to the tippy top.  (As you know, the net worth of just three individuals now exceeds the combined net worth of the entire bottom half of the country.)

But what possible reason can there be to lower the top individual tax bracket from 39.6% to 37%?  How would that help the working poor or middle class?  How would it help fund revitalization of our crumbling infrastructure?  How would it help reduce the deficit that Republicans care so deeply about when they’re not in power — but then explode when they are?

What possible reason can there be to cut the estate tax (which they like to call the “death” tax but is effectively an inheritance tax on lucky multi-millionheirs and billionheirs)?  How would that help the working poor or middle class or fund revitalization of our crumbling infrastructure or reduce the deficit?

What possible reason can there be to cut the top tax rate on highly-earning professionals and business folk from 39.6% to 30% or so, as they “pass through” their income from LLC’s and S-corps?  It’s no fun being taxed 39.6% on that portion of your income above $450,000 when you’re making $600,000 or $1 million or $3 million a year — but do we really need to go deeper into debt to cut those taxes?  Shouldn’t we revitalize our infrastructure instead?

Why has the “carried interest” loophole for hedge-funders survived yet again?  It’s just an illogical giveaway to people, some of them immensely wealthy, who simply don’t need it.

Why throw out “the individual mandate,” which is projected to raise the cost of health insurance for millions of Americans — and cause 13 million to lose coverage altogether?  Republicans consider it a great way to save money, because when people lose their Affordable Care Act insurance, the government won’t have to provide the subsidies that make it affordable.

With inequality threatening our economy and our society like never before (well, maybe like 1929), why would we do this to ourselves?  Could it be because the Koch brothers and the Mercers and the Devos family and Wilbur Ross and Carl Icahn and the Trump family really want to?

Call every Republican senator you can think of, especially these, and ask their staff these questions.  Or if you call in the middle of the night, leave those questions on their voice mail.  The Senate switchboard is 202-224-3121.  Collins, Murkowski, Flake, Sasse, Corker, Rubio, Paul, Johnson, McCain . . . And then, if one or both your senators is Republican, go a step further.  Google over to their website and find the phone number for their local office — and call that one, too.

Seriously: we’re not going to get another shot at this.

Have a great weekend.

Read it here: DNC Waged Stealth Organizing Campaign for Jones.  It’s a new day at the DNC, as the results in Virginia and Alabama are beginning to show.  Invest in the ground game they’re building for 2018.  I’ll see whatever you do the instant you do it, if I’m at my screen, and jump through yours to say thanks.

And check out The First Night of Chanukah, from Mother Jones — a primer on The Big Lie, that book of Hitler’s speeches Trump used to read.

But mainly (speaking of The Big Lie): it’s not too late to defeat the tax scam . . . billed as “a massive tax cut for the middle class,” that would “cost me and my rich friends a fortune” — but that would actually save them a fortune.

It’s such a breathtaking lie — “up is down,” “water is dry,” “I will absolutely release my tax returns if I run” — that many of his followers can’t imagine it is a lie.

But it is.

Here, again, the Quick Recap, to refresh your memory.

The Republican tax bill 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 it less.)
• 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?)
• Open the Arctic Wildlife Refuge to drilling.

There’s more, and some of it may have changed — no one has seen the final bill (maybe we should?) — but that’s the gist.

Also: hurting blue states by eliminating the deduction for state income tax; hurting higher education, by taxing graduate students on the imputed value of their waived tuition and taxing large university endowments; enriching $1 million-a-year surgeons and law partners, et al, by taxing much of their income at what will be the much lower corporate tax rate.  Oh!  And raising health insurance premiums for tens of millions, while an estimated 13 million lose their insurance altogether.

Trump considers all this a triumph.

Call the Senate switchboard — (202) 224-3121 — and ask for the office of Susan Collins!  Lisa Murkowski!  Marco Rubio!  John McCain!  Bob Corker!  Jeff Flake!  Ben Sasse!  Richard Shelby!  Tim Scott!

Call every Republican senator you can think of — respectfully, of course.  Tell them you would be in favor of a well-thought-out revenue-neutral corporate tax  reform — but this?  This would just take us deeper into debt to shift resources mainly from the bottom 80% to the top 1%.

They should be ashamed.

And Trump is massively lying about the personal sacrifice he and his family and fellow Cabinet gazillonaires would be making if it passed.