Trump and the GOP Will Regret the Day They Passed This Sick Bill

Ever since, Republican domestic policy has consisted entirely of two prongs: cutting taxes, overwhelmingly for the rich; cutting spending, overwhelmingly for, or one should say “on,” working-class and poor people. This is who they are.

Within that broad category, there are three camps.

First, there are the coward-hypocrites: the ones who know something about policy and actually know better—who know, for example, that cutting taxes for rich people doesn’t increase revenue.

Second, there are the hard-hearted red-hots: those who devoutly believe that government shouldn’t be in the business of doing things like helping veterans pay for groceries, that we as a nation can’t afford this (because we have to give the billionaires their tax cuts) and that it creates a nation of girly men. These are your Freedom Caucus extremists like Chip Roy and Andy Harris, who caved once again this week, proving that they have no actual principles whatsoever (or more precisely proving that their real principle is obedience).

Third, there’s the clown posse: those, mostly new to politics, who are so stupid that they actually believe these lies about taxes and revenue, and spending being out of control. The lies are powerful and pervasive. If you try to Google the effect of those 1990 tax increases, for example, the first couple things you’ll see are right-wing accounts that completely rewrite history. These people, mostly under 40 or so, have been hearing the lies about tax cuts and spending since they attended their first Young Republicans meeting, and they just buy it.

Donald Trump is, surprise surprise, in the stupid category. No, he’s not young, but he is new to politics and utterly incurious about how policy actually works, so when someone from the Heritage Foundation or wherever fills his brain with post-Andrews dogma, he says “sure,” because it’s exactly what he wants to hear.