With the bill’s passage, as Frank Bruni brilliantly noted in a Times column, the Democrats have become the party that stands for fiscal austerity, family values, safety nets, fairness, decency, modesty, and the rule of law — as opposed to the greed, corruption, plunder, racism and sexism the Republicans are now known for. The GOP’s pillars are falling. They’re up for grabs, or so it would seem.
While Trump and Republicans celebrated at the White House, Enten poked holes in their tax cut rhetoric. He noted that every boast about the bill — the GOP will be rewarded for passing something unpopular; voters will like it once they understand it; it will rally the base — was not supported by many national surveys. Essentially, healthcare — not taxes — is what worries most voters, and the law’s anti-Obamacare and anti-Medicare elements will increase out-of-pocket healthcare costs as early as next year.
But on the question of whether the tax bill will drive the dynamics of 2018 like Obamacare did in 2010, an insightful take came from Walter Shapiro, who has covered politics for four decades and now is a fellow at the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU Law School.
Many history-minded writers have said the obvious: there’s an old pattern of the president’s party losing seats in midterm elections. That’s because the day-to-day realities of what they do in office never lives up to the campaign trail’s promises. In 2014, Shapiro wrote a piece saying that wave elections in midterm years were becoming the new normal. The dynamics around how the GOP trashed Obamacare seem poised to recur in 2018 — but to their detriment. (As he talks about Obamacare, swap in the tax law).
“The lesson here for future presidents is simple: Despite temptation, never pass controversial legislation on party-line votes,” Shapiro said, warning against exactly what the GOP just did.
No other single piece of legislation — until, perhaps, the GOP's tax bill.
The Quinnipiac Poll’s Brown warned against drawing parallels when each era’s specifics vary. After the two tax cuts during the Ronald Reagan presidency, the nation elected Republican George H. W. Bush, he said, as a counterpoint suggesting tax cuts sometimes are popular. But back then, in the 1980s, both parties were talking and making compromises. No more.
Today’s tax bill is the latest big injury inflicted by the GOP on a party line. As Bloomberg’s Kapur tweeted after the vote, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell told him it wasn’t even his biggest achievement: hijacking the federal courts was.
“Didn’t make it into the piece, but @SenMajLdr told me the tax bill is only his second-greatest achievement. ‘For me personally, it would be [confirming Supreme Court Justice] Neil Gorsuch and the changes we’re making [creating right-wing control] in the circuit courts,’ McConnell said,” he tweeted.
Whether the tax bill will do for Democrats in 2018 what Obamacare did for Republicans in 2010 is an open question. But Americans are seeing what a GOP monopoly on federal power is bringing, and in poll after poll this month, growing numbers are rejecting it and supporting generic Democrats by double digits.