We're screwed.
Congress passed the tax bill, and by next week, when it goes to the White House, it will be law, thanks to Donald J. Trump. Also thanks to Bob Corker, the Tennessee Republican senator who switched his vote to yes, which he insists had nothing to do with a provision in the bill that allowed deductions on his real-estate holdings.
The rich will make out like bandits, of course. The middle class will only get temporary relief from this bill, and Trump is gambling - perhaps correctly, if we consider just how stupid voters can be - that enough of these rubes will be taken in by the extra money in their pockets in the fall of 2018 to reward the Republicans with continued control of Congress. And what do the Democrats think of all this? No one cares. I watched MSNBC for an hour yesterday and didn't see any Democrats being interviewed on the subject. MSNBC did, though, cut away to Paul Ryan when he spoke about the tax reform bill. Perversely, Martin O'Malley got to speak out against it on Fox News.
The biggest takeaway is the taking away of unlimited deductions for state and local taxes, now capped at $10,000. In New Jersey, this will make it much more difficult for incoming governor Phil Murphy to raise taxes on the rich, because if the rich can't deduct their state taxes, they'll move to a low-tax state . . . and leave everyone else holding the bag. Unless state taxes are lowered. That means, no universal pre-kindergarten education, no mass transit improvements, no highway repairs - none of that stuff. In short, Murphy will not be able to create in New Jersey an American Denmark, a place of the sort of amenities that make any place worth living in.
Should ten-grand caps appear too small . . . be thankful they won't take it all.
And to those of you stupid enough to continue to support the GOP once this law goes into effect on January 1, I have another George Harrison lyric I'd like to paraphrase . . .. Ring out the old, ring in the new, ya ding-dongs! :-p
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