Trump's Big CON: Trapped by Lies

UPDATE II:  "The Republican Party has become an unstable and potentially unsustainable coalition. The danger has been apparent from the day President Trump began his quest for the White House. Roy Moore’s victory in the Alabama Republican primary provided the exclamation point.

Moore’s victory was telling for what it showed: that the Trump message has more power at the grass-roots than the president himself. Trump was persuaded to embrace Sen. Luther Strange in the GOP runoff against Moore. But it was the anti-Washington, anti-establishment message of the twice-removed state Supreme Court justice that prevailed Tuesday.

That this is a period of turmoil and flux in American politics states the obvious. Tribal voting has become the norm, with the country divided into red and blue camps. . .

Yet the red-blue alliances and the left-right differences are no longer sufficient to explain the tensions and divisions that mark the politics of the Trump era. They still shape political debates and policy differences; they still help predict general-election voting patterns. But alone, they do not provide the fuller framework for such an unusual time. Neither party is offering answers.

For establishment Republicans in Washington, Tuesday was perhaps the worst day among many bad days. It was a trifecta of disappointment and rejection. The failure of the party that controls so many levers of power to govern effectively and the consequences of that inaction rarely have been on such public display.

The day started with the Senate leadership’s capitulation on health care. . .

There then was the announcement by Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) that he plans to retire at the end of his term in 2018. . .

Finally, on Tuesday night, there was Moore’s victory, though it was hardly a surprise. . .

The larger challenge for Republicans is trying to find a way to govern in the midst of a civil war. The party establishment proved powerless in its efforts to deny Trump the GOP nomination last year, then assumed he could not be elected, then tried to make peace with the fact that he had won. GOP leaders nonetheless held out hope that Trump would be a somewhat malleable president, that he would follow their lead on policy and use the unique megaphone that he has developed to advance the cause.

But that assumption turned out to be incorrect for at least two reasons. First, that Trump’s agenda was their agenda, that he was as interested in party success as in personal success. Second, that the divisions that had immobilized congressional Republicans long before Trump became a candidate would somehow disappear if the party controlled the White House. They didn’t.

The GOP today is an awkward combination of establishment Republicans who have embraced the president out of what they consider necessity; grass-roots citizens only partially attached to the Republican Party and for whom Trump’s populist, 'America first,' anti-Washington rhetoric strikes a chord; and 'Never Trump' Republicans who formed an important part of the party before Trump came on the scene and who are looking for a home and don’t know what to do.

This is a conflict with no certain outcome and no clear timeline. It reflects instability across the political spectrum and the shifting sensibilities of many voters. Above all, it reflects politics in the age of Trump and all that has come to mean."

Read the Washington Post, Can the GOP ever finesse the contradictions in their coalition?

UPDATE:  "Two in three Americans believe that large corporations pay too little in taxes. Only 11 percent of U.S. adults think these businesses pay too much, while 17 percent think they pay their fair share. Even half of Republicans believe big businesses pay too little in taxes, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.

Overwhelmingly, across party lines, people feel that the current tax system is rigged in favor of the wealthy. Over 7 in 10 Americans think the tax system favors the rich. Just five percent think the current code favors the middle class.

But the more details that leak out about President Trump’s plan, the clearer it becomes that the wealthiest are likely to be the biggest beneficiaries. Top White House negotiators and key GOP leaders have reportedly agreed on two targets: lowering the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 20 percent and cutting the top income tax rate — for those who make more than $418,000 a year — from 39.6 percent to 35 percent. . .

This is part of a pattern: Trump campaigns like a populist. He governs like a plutocrat. The dichotomy between what the president promises his tax plan will do and what’s he’s likely to unveil on Wednesday is just the latest example of the president’s actions not backing up his rhetoric.

As a candidate, Trump said hedge fund managers weren’t supporting his campaign because they were 'getting away with murder' when it came to avoiding taxes. He said he would stop them and argued during the debates that he was well suited to close loopholes in the tax code because he had taken advantage of them.

Then, as president-elect, he was caught on a cellphone camera reassuring patrons at one of Manhattan’s poshest restaurants. 'We’ll get your taxes down, don’t worry about it,' he said at the 21 Club.

With the Trump administration, always watch what they do — not what they say. "

Read the Washington Post, Trump’s plutocracy problem complicates push for tax cuts. 

Republi-CONs "have spent years routinely lying for the sake of political advantage. And now — not just on health care, but across the board — they are trapped by their own lies, forced into trying to enact policies they know won’t work.

Reporting on why the G.O.P. plowed ahead with Graham-Cassidy makes it clear that many Republicans supporting it are well aware that it’s a bad bill, although they may not appreciate just how bad. 'You know, I could maybe give you 10 reasons why this bill shouldn’t be considered,' said Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa. 'But,' he continued, 'Republicans have campaigned on this,' meaning repeal-and-replace, and had to fulfill their promise. . .

But repealing the Affordable Care Act wasn’t the only thing Republicans promised; they also promised to replace it with something better and cheaper, doing away with all the things people don’t like about Obamacare without creating any new problems. Remember, it was Bill Cassidy, not Jimmy Kimmel, who came up with the 'Jimmy Kimmel test,' the pledge that nobody would be denied health care because of expense.

Yet Republicans never had any idea how to fulfill that promise and meet that test, or indeed how to repeal the A.C.A. without taking insurance away from tens of millions. That is, they were lying about health care all along. . .

The thing is, health care isn’t the only issue on which lies are coming back to bite the liars. The same story is playing out on other issues — in fact, on almost every substantive policy issue the U.S. faces. [including tax 'reform' and foreign affairs]. . .

As with health care, the party has masked its lack of good ideas on [tax reform] with lies, claiming that it would offset lower tax rates and even reduce the deficit by eliminating unnamed loopholes and slashing unnamed wasteful spending. But as with health care, these lies will be revealed once actual legislation is unveiled. It’s telling that Republicans are already invoking voodoo economics to justify their as-yet-unspecified tax plans, insisting that tax cuts will pay for themselves by leading to higher economic growth.

At this point, however, few people believe them. The Bush tax cuts didn’t create a boom; neither did the Kansas tax-cut 'experiment.' Conversely, the U.S. economy did fine after the 2013 Obama tax hike, as has the California economy since Jerry Brown raised state taxes. Party apparatchiks will no doubt engage in an orgy of Reaganolatry, but the broader public probably won’t be moved by (false) claims about the wondrous results of tax cuts 36 years ago.

So tax policy, like health care, will be hobbled by a legacy of lies.

Wait, there’s more.

Foreign policy isn’t usually a central concern for voters. Still, past lies have put the Trump administration in a box over things like the Iran nuclear deal: Canceling the deal would create huge problems, yet not canceling it would amount to an admission that the criticisms were dishonest.

And soon the G.O.P. may even start to pay a price for lying about climate change.

The bottom line is that the bill for cynicism seems to be coming due. For years, flat-out lies about policy served Republicans well, helping them win back control of Congress and, eventually, the White House. But those same lies now leave them unable to govern."

Read The New York Times, Trapped by Their Own Lies.