Magical Thinking
Those tax cuts pay for themselves, right?
The logic of fantasy land …
If you can convince yourself that the 2020 presidential election was stolen despite mountains of evidence to the contrary, including the judicial findings in more than 60 court cases …
Or you can convince yourself that the utterly despicable attack on the U.S. Capital on January 6, 2021 when Donald Trump supporters beat police with flag poles contributing to the death of at least five police officers was, as the president says, “a day of love …”
Or if you can reason your way to believing that during a Trump presidency no American need fear losing Medicaid benefits or getting dumped off food benefits or getting fired for being a wildland fire fighter …
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If you can believe these historic fictions then you can delude yourself into believing the legislative debacle of the last several days (a veritable orgy of irresponsibility and stupidity) was, as Idaho Senator Mike Crapo, the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, fantasizes, a “significant step to get our fiscal house in order.”
Believe all that and then accept that the Easter Bunny, Santa Claus and Publisher’s Clearing House have a deal for you, and the Brooklyn Bridge is for sale, at a very low bargain price.
Where to begin.
These people voted … for … the … bill.
“My hope is that the House is going to look at this and recognize that we're not there yet,” said Lisa Murkowski, the Alaska Republican who supplied the key Senate vote to pass the One Big Beautiful Bill.
The House did look at it, Senator Side Deal, rubber stamped the Senate’s work and sent it to Trump for a signature. But Murkowski got her goodies, including a tax exemption for Alaska whale hunters.
That has to be a Senate first. Whale hunters?
Murkowski was praised by the Senate majority leader as “somebody who studies the issues really, really hard and well,” but then voted for a crappy bill that she - through her diligent study apparently - found was still “not there yet.”
Then there is Missouri Republican Josh Hawley saying just before voting for the legislation:
This has been an unhappy episode here in Congress, this effort to cut Medicaid. And I think, frankly, my party needs to do some soul-searching. If you want to be a working-class party, you’ve got to deliver for working-class people. You cannot take away health care from working people. And unless this is changed going forward, that is what will happen in coming years. So I’m going to do everything I can to stop that.
In other words, I could have stopped all this assault on working-class people, but I’ll get it right next time. Trust me. No, really.
And what about the Republican claim that only waste, fraud and abuse will be targeted? Jonathan Chait in The Atlantic:
In reality, the megabill will take food assistance away from some 3 million Americans, while causing 12 million to lose their health insurance. That is how you save money: by taking benefits away from people. Congress is not finding magical efficiencies. To the contrary, the bill introduces inefficiencies by design.
The main way it will throw people off their health insurance is by requiring Medicaid recipients to show proof of employment. States that have tried this have found the paperwork so onerous that most people who lose their insurance are actually Medicaid-eligible but unable to navigate the endless bureaucratic hassle. The end result will be to punish not only the millions of Americans who lose Medicaid but also the millions more who will pay an infuriating time tax by undergoing periodic miniature IRS audits merely to maintain access to basic medical care.
Neither party has a lock on reality when it comes to deficit spending, but Republicans can now retire the traveling trophy for deficit hypocrisy. The aforementioned Crapo, a self-described deficit hawk with a debt counter on his website, just decided that extending billions in tax cuts that vastly benefit the most well-to-do just really do not matter.
Under Crapo’s logic since the tax cuts put in place in 2017 won’t expire under his and Trump’s bill they can’t possibly contribute to an increasing deficit. That’s akin to you saying, “I overspent my checking account this month and when I do it again next month it won’t add to my deficit.” So, let’s tax cut our way to the promise land.
Crapo and others claim vast benefits for the economy are contained in the legislation, but no credible authority agrees.
This is the Congress of Magical Thinking.
In the end this stupidity comes down to only one thing. Nearly every Republican made the calculation, even many who know this legislation is a likely economic disaster for the country and a political disaster for their party, that they couldn’t buck the cult of Trump. Even when, as is profoundly clear, Trump doesn’t know whats contained in his Big Bill.
At the political news site NOTUS reported Wednesday:
Trump hosted a meeting with some moderates and some members of the Main Street Caucus on Wednesday, where he listened to concerns and touted the wins in the legislation, two sources told NOTUS.
But Trump still doesn’t seem to have a firm grasp about what his signature legislative achievement does. According to three sources with direct knowledge of the comments, the president told Republicans at this meeting that there are three things Congress shouldn’t touch if they want to win elections: Medicaid, Medicare and Social Security.
Er, right.
Magical Thinking is required to follow our caudillo over the cliff like Wile E. Coyote chasing the uncatchable roadrunner.
And for his Magical Thinking the quote of the week goes to Idaho Senator James Risch, as big a Trump toady as ever there was.
Risch spoke recently to the summer meeting of the Idaho Republican Party – apparently Juan Peron wasn’t available – pledging his life, his fortune and his sacred honor not to his country, to the Senate, but to … Donald J. Trump.
Here’s the quote, as transcribed from audio a nice guy posted on Facebook, as Risch, the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, admitted he had absolutely no idea was Trump was going to do in the Middle East, but never mind about that.
“This man is our commander-in-chief. He is our leader. Whatever he decides, (a) it’s going to be right and (b) I’m going to be behind him 100 percent.”
Mighty fine time to remember that ol’ Declaration of Independence.
This line seems particularly relevant this July 4th:
A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.
Be careful out there. Thanks for reading.
All too true, and our Idahoans are the worst. But you had me laughing at the Juan Perón comment!
Yeah, I wrote to Rep. Mike Simpson, asking why — if continuing the tax cuts wasn’t going to cost anything — it was necessary to increase the debt limit. BTW, particularly good column.