Taxation Without Representation

The Republicans just passed a budget resolution in the U.S. Senate that more or less gives its blessing to the fiscal 2018 budget supported by the House - which, by the way, makes domestic-spending cuts in just about . . . everything.  The House is now ready to pass its own resolution.

Oh, yeah, a Senate budget resolution is normally standard procedure, but this resolution now clears the way for Congress to consider tax reform - without any room for the Democrats to stop it.  See, not only do Republicans have a commanding majority in the House, but the Senate resolution enables the Senate Republican caucus to push tax reform through without the ability of the Democratic minority to slow or filibuster the effort.  In other words, Democratic lawmakers and their constituents will have absolutely no say in whether or not tax reform should happen now, and Democratic efforts to mitigate it will be voted down by the majority.  Taxation without representation.

Hold on.  It gets worse.  The passage of tax reform - which could occur as early as March - will motivate Republican voters to come out in droves for the next congressional midterm elections, like they always do, but the Democrats now have to go back to their voters and explain why they couldn't prevent the Republicans from freezing them out of the tax reform debate.  Oh yeah, and this will likely depress Democratic turnout in the midterms (and it's always despressed) while making it impossible for the party to cultivate more Democratic voters and reach out to independents.

So Democrats will likely lose the midterms in November 2018.  And so I once again recall historian David Jacobs' appraisal of the Whigs after they lost the 1852 presidential election to Franklin Pierce - they "were so bewildered and demoralized by his election that they disintegrated."