No Taxation Without Representation
There are many, many ways that the Trump Tax Bill is not representative of Americans in general. We all recall that this started the American Revolution.
The Unmitigated Gall of the tax bill is that it is for 10 years. Trump was elected for only four years, and one of those has already gone by. The rush of the tax bill shows that one could have been passed shorty after Trump is replaced, three years from now. The tax bill should have covered only three years. Yet it extends seven years beyond that, or four years beyond Trump’s thankfully short reign, or 7/3 = 233% longer than the electorate voted for Trump to serve. The majority of voters, of course, favored Clinton.
Let’s start with who wrote the whole bill: only Republicans, and only in secret. They neglected all reports on the lack up enough growth to repay the debt incurred by the bill. They did not hold hearings. There was not a public comment period. Until the very end of passage, there was not a complete printed version.
The Republicans did not need Democrats’ votes because they were passing it under a budget reconciliation procedure, where it could not be filibustered, in which case it would have required 60 Senate votes. Instead it passed 51 to 48, with John McCain absent due to illness.
The Republicans did not delay passage until early January so that the newly elected Democratic Alabama Senator could be seated, in which case it would have passed 51 to 49 with McCain’s vote. They couldn’t wait a couple of weeks for a Democrat to be seated, but managed to cripple the Supreme Court for a year to make sure that Obama could not appoint a Supreme Court Justice to replace Justice Scalia. While Trump takes credit for Gorsuch’s appointment, it was Mitch McConnell who deserves all of the credit, by enforcing the delay.
Since this is a tax bill that is going to last ten years and affect everybody in all aspects of their financial life over more than a decade, representation of the entire political spectrum should have been used in seeking input, debating, and negotiating the bill. Including all available financial analyses, and full public input should have been required. Thankfully,there is the Byrd Rule that limits the length to ten years. The reconciliation process limits the total time for debates, motions and amendments to a paltry 20 hours.
This No Taxation Without Representation is not just about throwing some imported British tea into Boston harbor, it concerns all aspects of our economic lives.
The bill was also super-rushed just so Trump could claim that he did something important in his first year. As far as fulfilling Trump’s campaign promise of a bill that would help the middle class, and offend the rich, that is just the opposite of what the Republican bill did. The top 1% will get 83% of the wealth in the tax cuts. But all will inherit the $1.5 trillion long term debt.
The reconciliation path limited the debt to $1.5 trillion over ten years (otherwise, who knows how much more income inequality redistribution would have occurred.) It’s not clear what will happen if and when it appears that the debt limit will be exceeded. Such a clause was considered by Paul Ryan, but dropped.
It’s apparent now that ten years is way too long for an economic bill. Other countries usually restrict their economic plans to five years in length, for good reason.
Such budget reconciliation bills can be introduced once a year, to reconcile expenditures, tax income, and the national debt. If there is a change in the majority in the Senate or House, or if we have to wait for the next presidential election, changes in the tax situation can be made. Whereas in the past people might have argued that the taxes should be long term so that people and businesses could adapt their lives to them, that argument is now gone with the sudden and drastic changes in this bill, especially for Democratic states. The argument that implementation should be delayed to let the IRS, businesses, tax preparers, and tax software to change forms and computer programs, is also now dead. Changes must now be made instantaneously, even over the holidays.
It’s interesting how the slogans “No Taxation Without Representation” and “Make America Great Again” could be melded together in our future elections by ousting our current ruling Colonial Regime.
