Here is my standard disclaimer: I don’t know anything about economics and I don’t want to know anything about economics because it’s not science. I similarly don’t want to study the intricacies of homeopathy or astrology. In blunt terms, I couldn’t care less about taxes and this entire bill is about as interesting to me as paint drying.
So here’s my opinion on this tax reform/tax cut/tax scam bill.
Get ready. You might want to brace yourself. It will be a tremendous surprise when I reveal my centrist opinion on this tax bill.
It’s both good and bad at the same time.
There will be people who benefit from it, and people who are hurt by it. It will depend on where you live, and what your job is, and your general life situation, and there is probably no way to figure it out beforehand.
It will obviously benefit the rich. But that doesn’t necessarily mean it can’t or won’t benefit the middle class. (The poor will probably not get any benefit and probably never will because nobody ever does anything about the poor.)
I completely understand and support cutting the corporate tax rate to be more competitive with the world. That seems like a no-brainer to me.
Removing the Individual Mandate? I don’t know enough to say whether it’s a good idea or not. For myself, obviously I don’t want to pay a penalty for not having health insurance. But I understand the reason for it from a broader perspective (because if nobody buys health insurance, there is no way to keep premiums low).
The Republican strategy here seems very risky to me. They are basically gambling that this will help America, seemingly without much interest in finding out whether it actually will help America beforehand. They are gambling that their messaging (“you were really helped by this bill whether you know it or not!”) will be able to overcome the opposition messaging (“this bill just bankrupted your children”).
Most of politics these days seems to be more of a branding exercise than anything related to actual governance. More of a Coke versus Pepsi thing than anything else, if you know what I mean. Ie. The Republican brand is better than the Democratic brand, or vice versa. It doesn’t matter a whit whether Republicans are in charge or Democrats are in charge, if both sides wall themselves off from the other side (as they have been doing since Clinton) when crafting their legislation, the country will continue down a dark path. The “losing” side is always going to rebel against the “winning” side. Both sides are supposed to feel like they won.
