Traditional wisdom was always that if there was one thing that Republicans were good at, it was cutting taxes. They might be total goobers at everything else, but they have always been savants when it came to cutting the uber rich some slack. But, under Trump, the GOP has pretty much sucked at everything it tries, so why shouldn’t they break the mold on tax cuts too?
CNN is reporting that a lot of the party’s richest, most reliable donors have very quietly closed their wallets so far this year. And the reason that they’ve closed them may seem confusing. They’ve turned off the funski valve because they’re royally pissed about the new, highly touted GOP tax cuts. Wait a minute, Trump and the GOP just gave them 81% of a trillion dollar annual debt increase to play with, what can they possibly be fussing about?
Here’s what. They’re not pissing and moaning about the increase to the national debt. Hell, if the US goes bankrupt, they’ll just buy their own island country somewhere. No, what they’re bitching about is who got the tax cuts.
It turns out that there are different kinds of rich shitpokes out there, and the GOP tax cuts were not equitable among them. The largest cuts went to corporations, mainly by the corporate tax rate being cut from 35% to 21%, with no corresponding loophole closures. But! And, the “but” is YUGE, it largely left the hedge fund rate unchanged, dropping it only from 39% to 37%. And, for the last several years, hedge fund managers have been larger, and more reliable GOP contributors than corporations. This is bad juju for the GOP, my friends.
This doesn’t mean that the hedge fund managers have completely taken their balls and gone home. The hedge fund managers have still shown willing to donate to specific candidates in particular House and Senate races, their personal lap poodles so to speak. No, the hedge fund managers have shown their displeasure by selectively targeting–in this case, they are stiffing the two GOP national arms, the National Republican Senatorial Committee, and the National Republican Congressional Committee.
This could be fatal to the GOP in the midterms, facing a stiff opposition headwind, and with already more than 30 empty GOP seats to try to retain, this is going to be a very expensive cycle for the GOP. The sole function of the NRCC and the NRSC is to funnel money into the most vulnerable districts and Senate races. Hedge fund managers giving to individual candidates is just ducky, but they may well not be the candidates most at risk of losing. If the hedge fund managers continue to shoot birds at the NRSC and the NRCC, this could seriously hamstring their efforts to support and hold their most vulnerable seats.
But what can Ryan and McConnell do to make this right? Basically, nothing. The GOP had planned to pretty much run solely on their tax cuts in the Fall, but they had to pull those test ads in Pennsylvania when they didn’t resonate. Actual voters just aren’t seeing the difference, and the Democrats have beaten the Republicans to the messaging game for once, hammering home the inequity of the benefits of the tax cuts. If the GOP tries to either amend the current law or propose a stand-alone law reducing the hedge fund tax rate, they present the Democrats with the gift of an even more egregious tax “giveaway” for the rich to run on, with no hope of offering deeper lower and middle-class tax cuts. Basically, they’re boned sideways.
The old line was always that somebody was “so stupid that they could fuck up a one-car funeral.” Well, in the age of Trump, the GOP has finally reached that level of stupidity. And I couldn’t be happier for them.
And speaking of funerals, here’s your terrible pun for the day. (I love puns!) A young woman falls in love with the son of an undertaker. But her father has a strong dislike for the undertaker personally, so he warns his daughter away from the young man. When he sees the hearse out in front of the house again the next week, he sternly forbids his daughter to see the young man again. When he comes home the next week to see the familiar shaped Cadillac in front of the house, he goes off on his daughter for defying him. She listens to his rant, and then says, “But Dad, this is a hearse of a different caller!” *groan*
