Democratic Silence On GOP Tax Bill

An update from Naked Capitalism's Water Cooler section:

https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2017/12/200pm-water-cooler-1252017-2.html

Notice how the Democrat Establishment is silent on Chained CPI, which will cut your Social Security, if you’re on it? They’re silent because they support it.

[Link to "because they support it"
https://theintercept.com/2016/06/02/obama-wanted-to-cut-social-security-...

Followed by:

UPDATE “Liberals need to get a grip about the GOP tax bill” [The Week]. “If Democrats hate the consequences of the 2016 election, as they should, they should oppose those consequences on substance and then hang the dead weight of these terrible policies around the neck of every Republican running for office in 2018.

. . .

Yes, there were some abnormal aspects to the white-knuckled process by which the Senate passed the bill — by a bare majority, and with last-minute major changes made up until a couple of hours before the final vote. But these institutional norms have been in decay for many years, and Democrats have done their fair share of contributing to the breakdown.” Exactly.

[The Week] https://theweek.com/articles/741253/liberals-need-grip-about-gop-tax-bill

But hey! Bernie's revolution will change the Democratic party sometime in the next 20 or 30 years.

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snoopydawg's picture

I'm going with intentionally because in some races democrats didn't fund their candidate and in others they didn't even bother to run one. Doesn't that seem intentional to anyone?

Thanks to gerrymandering and Democratic Party malfeasance, the Republicans hold a lot of power in our political system right now, and they're using it to advance these preferred policies.

These two articles say that republicans have hit a few snags on getting it passed. The Freedom Caucus is having a fit because they say that there aren't enough offsets in it. They mean that unless they are assured that cuts to social programs aren't in the bill, they won't vote for it. I'm not sure that is in these articles, it maybe what I read in a diary on ToP.
Either way, this has to be passed by the end of the year because of congressional rules.

Tax bill on its way to conference committee, but not without a hiccup

From what I've read, the senate hasn't voted on this yet because Ryan doesn't have the votes. Yet.

The Senate GOP Accidentally Killed Some of Its Donors’ Favorite Tax Breaks

ETA: I'm not expecting democrats to stand against this. Mankin (?) has already said that if this went through normal procedures, republicans would have been able to get it passed with 70 votes. We know that both Clinton and Obama were willing to fuck up social security. I don't remember any democrats coming out against them.

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Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.

Meteor Man's picture

@snoopydawg
My take precisely. The problem is getting this message to voters without any help from the media.

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"They'll say we're disturbing the peace, but there is no peace. What really bothers them is that we are disturbing the war." Howard Zinn

Alligator Ed's picture

@Meteor Man

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Steven D's picture

@snoopydawg @snoopydawg @snoopydawg I feel like one of the ever increasing accusers of Al Franken, that I've been violated by these assholes who put on a smile and say don't worry honey, you'll get used to it while molesting me.

Oh, and it's Sen. Manchin, but I did have to search for the name.

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"You can't just leave those who created the problem in charge of the solution."---Tyree Scott

divineorder's picture

@snoopydawg Grayson, Sanders and others delivered to stop cuts to SS? What I remember was the only thing that stopped Empty Suit was Dems in House and Senate responding to huge grassroots efforts to oppose SS cuts.

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A truth of the nuclear age/climate change: we can no longer have endless war and survive on this planet. Oh sh*t.

divineorder's picture

All that energy?

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A truth of the nuclear age/climate change: we can no longer have endless war and survive on this planet. Oh sh*t.

I was amused by one comment somewhere on the tax bill process. A senior Dem Senator was complaining about the handwritten amendments at the last moment. Someone posted a photo of his handwritten amendment at the last moment to the ACA.

Do as I say, not as I do, must be one of the Senate bylaws.

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Democrats have been totally reactive to substantive issues and policies from the gop. Instead of proactively doing work and agitprop on issues like taxes and social programs, they have spent the entire year spending energy on "Trump is bad" and very importantly, in league with the media, Russia-gate. As Caitlan Johnston pointed out, the trend on twitter about Flynn totally overwhelmed the tax bill.

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divineorder's picture

@MrWebster to the tune of thousands against the tax scam but Republicanspent more.

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A truth of the nuclear age/climate change: we can no longer have endless war and survive on this planet. Oh sh*t.

divineorder's picture

....

To make matters worse, Senate Republicans prevented their Democratic colleagues from even seeing clean portions of the bill until just before the final vote at 1:25 am on Saturday, December 2. When faced with such hyper-partisan foul play, the Democrats should have shut the Senate down with a sit-in until they were given a reasonable amount of time to read this raid on the regular taxpayers, before the final vote.
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A truth of the nuclear age/climate change: we can no longer have endless war and survive on this planet. Oh sh*t.

I’ve gotten so cynical and sick of the Dems, I can’t help but feel “losing” this issue and hanging it on the Republicans is part of their 2018/2020 election strategy. “We weren’t the ones who pushed for this! Vote D!” All the whole, ignoring the fact that they did nothing really to oppose it and, for the most part, they’re cool with it and a similar bill would probably have happened under their watch. It’ll be good enough for those not paying attention and those wanting to believe, even if it’s scummy cynical politics at its worst.

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Idolizing a politician is like believing the stripper really likes you.