As the official end of the first 100 days of the regime of bumbling ignoramus
Donald "Rump" Trump approaches, the media is bursting with assessments of the "
chaos and failure." As one observer sagely notes,
Rump's failures are a win for America.
Two of the most recent examples of this are the imploding Republican effort to revive TrumpCare and Rump's trickle down tax "reform" plan- on- a- napkin. The former effort, shepherded by the sociopathic Sneaker of the House
Paul "Lyin'" Ryan (R- Galt's Gulch), was a hasty effort to get a 100 day "win" for Rump on Obamacare repeal by acceding to an
even more cruel proposal than TrumpCare 1.0.
How's that workin' out for ya?
Despite pressure from the White House, Republicans determined late Thursday that they did not have the votes to pass a health-care revision and would not seek to put the proposal on the floor on Friday.
A Win for America!
The expectation of many is that, once the magical 100 days window closes, this awful piece of legislating will fade quickly since getting the Republican House caucus to agree on something that both satisfies the mouth- breathers in the "Freedom Caucus" and the vulnerable Republicans in swing districts is, well, impossible. Should they thread this impossible needle, though, the Senate would be the graveyard for any proposal that gutted the main features of the ever more popular Obamacare.
The second example of a Rump failure that's a Win for America is his stillborn trickle down tax "reform." The one- page, 16- bullet "plan" unveiled this week is getting panned from left and
right (and
far right). In fact, some Republicans are seeing the Rump "plan" as upstaging a year of effort on the part of
Ryan to pass his Ayn Randian tax "reforms." But while it's going nowhere, Rump's "plan" serves as another clear example of the shallow, self- serving ignorance that is a hallmark of this regime.
Catherine Rampell summarizes:
Credit where credit is due: President Trump’s tax plan is only one page long and yet contains volumes’ worth of dumb ideas. And there’s fierce competition for which part is dumbest.
(Spoiler alert: she thinks the tax rate on "pass- through" income, which would -- surprise! -- benefit plutocrats like Rump while gutting Medicare and Social Security. In other words, a Rump twofer.)
Eugene Robinson focuses on what used to be near and dear to Republican hearts (when a Democrat is in the White House anyway):
In his desperate quest to do something yooge, Trump proposes massive tax cuts for businesses and individuals, especially the wealthy. The impact, according to experts, would be to make federal budget deficits soar, adding as much as $4 trillion to the national debt over the next decade. I’ve never thought of myself as a deficit hawk, but this kind of profligacy is ridiculous. [snip]
I don’t know whether this is the most cynical tax plan I’ve ever heard or the most ignorant. I guess those distinctions are not mutually exclusive. Anyone who supports this mess automatically forfeits the right to be a deficit scold ever again.
But, we'll leave it to another Post-er, Tom Toles, to make it simple:
(Tom Toles, Washington Post)
