Republicans have both an arithmetic and a messaging problem as they try to enact Donald Trump’s second-term agenda via a giant budget-reconciliation bill. The former involves finding a way to pay for the $4 trillion-plus tax cuts Trump has demanded, along with a half-trillion or so in border security and defense spending increases. And the latter flows from the necessity of hammering popular federal programs (especially Medicaid) to avoid boosting budget deficits that are already out of control from the perspective of conservatives. This sets up Democrats nicely to deplore the whole mess as a matter of “cutting Medicaid to pay for tax cuts for Trump’s billionaire friends,” a very effective message that has vulnerable House Republicans worried.
To interrupt this line of attack while making the overall agenda slightly more affordable, anonymous White House sources lofted a trial balloon earlier this month via a Fox News report:
“White House aides are quietly floating a proposal within the House GOP that would raise the tax rate for people making more than $1 million to 40%, two sources familiar with discussions told Fox News Digital, to offset the cost of eliminating taxes on overtime pay, tipped wages, and retirees’ Social Security.
“The sources stressed the discussions were only preliminary, and the plan is one of many being talked about as congressional Republicans work on advancing President Donald Trump’s agenda via the budget reconciliation process.
“Trump and his White House have not yet taken a position on the matter, but the idea is being looked at by his aides and staff on Capitol Hill.”
The idea wasn’t as shocking as it might seem. Trump’s 2017 tax cuts reduced the top income-tax rate from 39.6 percent to 37 percent, so just letting that provision expire would accomplish the near-40 percent rate without disturbing other goodies for rich people in the 2017 bill like corporate-tax cuts, estate-tax cuts, and a relaxed alternative minimum tax for both individuals and corporations. One House Republican, Pennsylvania’s Dan Meuser, suggested resetting the top individual tax rate at 38.6 percent, still a reduction from pre-2017 levels but a “tax increase on the rich” as compared to current policies.
Crafty as this approach might have been as a way of boosting claims that Trump had aligned the GOP with middle-class voters (the intended beneficiaries of his recent tax-cut proposals) rather than the very rich, the idea of backing any tax increase on the allegedly super-productive job creators at the top of the economic pyramid struck many Republicans as the worst imaginable heresy. You could plausibly argue that total opposition to higher taxes, or even to progressive taxes, was the holy grail for the party, more foundational than any other principle and one of the remaining links between pre-Trump and MAGA conservatism. At the very idea of fuzzing up the tax-cut gospel, old GOP warhorses like Newt Gingrich and Americans for Tax Reform’s Grover Norquist arose from their political rest homes to shout: unclean! Gingrich called it the worst potential betrayal of the Cause since George H.W. Bush cut a bipartisan deficit-reduction deal in 1990 that included a tax increase.
As it happens, it was all a mirage. In virtual unison, both Trump and House Speaker Mike Johnson have said a high-end tax cut won’t happen this year, as Politico reports:
“President Donald Trump and House Speaker Mike Johnson on Wednesday came out against a tax hike on the wealthiest Americans — likely putting the nail in the coffin of the idea.
“Trump told reporters in the Oval Office that he thought the idea would be ‘very disruptive’ because it would prompt wealthy people to leave the country. …
“Johnson separately knocked the idea earlier in the day, saying that he is ‘not in favor of raising the tax rates because our party is the group that stands against that traditionally.’”
Trump’s real fear may be that wealthy people would leave the GOP rather than the country. Many are already upset about Trump’s 19th-century protectionist tariff agenda and its effects on the investor class. Subordinating the tax-cut gospel to other MAGA goals might push some of them over the edge. As for Johnson, the Speaker is having to cope with the eternal grumbling of the House Freedom Caucus, where domestic budget cuts are considered a delightful thing in itself and the idea of boosting anyone’s taxes to succor the parasites receiving Medicaid benefits is horrifying.
If Trump’s “big, beautiful” reconciliation bill runs into trouble or if Democrats set the table for a big midterm comeback wielding the “cutting Medicaid to give billionaires a tax break” message, squashing the symbolic gesture of a small boost in federal income-tax rates for the wealthy may be viewed in retrospect as a lost opportunity for the GOP. For the time being, that party’s bond with America’s oligarchs and their would-be imitators stands intact.
Where does Zogby say Bush is leading? I heard Kerry leading in all battleground. Is it a Texas thing? I looked over the site. I read on Kos that early voting favored D. Can someone find some public data?
Here are the new battleground states according to Zogby:
Four New Battleground States
Colorado – Bush 2000
Arizona – Bush 2000
North Carolina – Bush 2000
Virginia – Bush 2000
I find that surprising the positive Bush vote reports given the poll trends. NC? VA? In Play? With R incumbent? This is amazing.
And the real Big Dog is on the case – Bill Clinton in action.
Excellent news to see OH moving in Kerry’s favor. We get Ohio or Florida, and it’s a done deal. I think the seniors in Florida will break for Kerry giving us the edge their as well.
It was so hard to see the country clearly in Bush’s favor months ago, praying that people would wake up and see things for what they were. I believe deep down that most everyone believes that Bush mislead the public while he “rushed to war in Iraq”, but that they did not want to fault a United States President for something so horribly wrong. It was almost like they themselves would have to admit they were wrong and partly to blame. Now, with the debates done, people are making decisions for whatever reason they use to justify, but again, deep down, they are voting against Bush because he has lost their trust and can not be trusted as a Commander in Chief.
Look for a significant shift in the polls after this weekend. I look for one more event to effect this election, hopefully it will be a leak or something that is damaging to Bush and then it’s lights out for the Bush experiment.
Point of curiosity. In Zogby today, those who have already voted are 50-48 Bush leading. Where is the majority of early voting going on? Is this significant? Zogby stated that two things that bear watching are this figure, and the newly registered voters being overwhelmingly for Kerry, but I had just assumed that early voting would tend Democratic.
A.
I’d add to this list that SUSA shows the Bush lead at only 3% in North Carolina. Their poll from two weeks before had Bush up 7%. Maybe this is another option for an upset…
Slate gives a list of 10 states that are the tightest. 4 are Bush 2000 states, Ohio, Florida, New Hampshire, and Nevada. 6 are Gore 2000 states. Wisconsin, Iowa, New Mexico, Maine, Pennsylvania, Minnesota.
They then give 9 for possible upstates. 5 are Bush 2000 states. Colorado, Missouri, West Virginia, Virginia, and Arizona. 4 are Gore 2000 states. New Jersey, Michigan, Oregon, and Washington.
Of these last 9, all are described as safe or pretty safe to go the same way as 2000, except WV and Virginia. So…Virginia is starting to get some press. That 4% is pretty remarkable. With 13 EV’s, that would be one heckuva a big pickup. Great news.
From the SimonsWorld blog (via Andrewsullivan.com)
Interview with John Zogby, who expressed the following views on the election:
[…]
The Running
* The race is Kerry’s to lose, barring unforeseen events. If he loses, it is only his fault.
* Why? Because Bush’s numbers have not gone above 48%. Three other key polling indicators are all terrible for Bush amongst undecideds:
– Presidential job performance: 35% positive versus 60% negative
– Is the country headed in the right direction? net negative
– Does the President deserve re-election? 15% yes versus 40% no.
These numbers have always been net negative for Bush amongst undecideds. The last 3 Presidents with those numbers were Carter, Ford and Bush snr. None won.
* Another reason: undecideds tend to break for the challenger. Zogby sees them going like in Reagan in 1980, so that the margin is 2% but it is the same in each key state and it is in favour of Kerry, thus the Electoral Vote ends in a decisive victory.
* A higher turnout favours Kerry. 2000 election had 105 million voters. Anything over 107 million this time and Kerry will win.
* The youth vote: always heavily Democrat, this time the youth vote are unusually motivated and may turn out in bigger numbers than expected, tipping the race to Kerry.
* If the focus of the final two weeks is the War on Terror —> Bush wins
If the focus of the final two weeks is Iraq and/or domestic issues —> Kerry wins.
* If the result is like in 2000 there will be masses and months of litigation. Neither side will back down and it will be complete chaos, far worse than 2000.
Nader
* Nader is a spent force and irrelevant to the campaign. He does not take votes from Kerry.
* Voters for Nader would otherwise have not voted at all, so no loss to either side.
I second Greg’s comment. Why doesn’t Virginia get more attention considering the race is as close as other battlegroudn states? I’m biased, of course: I live in Virginia and I’m working to help him win Virginia. But what’s the argument over ignoring Virginia and pursuing Missouri or Colorado?,
RT
I’ve heard this before and in other elections. Evidently the kids are reflecting what they hear at home.
Kids Pick Kerry to Be the Next President (AP)
AP – Kid power! Democrat John Kerry is the winner, and the rest of the country should pay attention because the vote on Nickelodeon’s Web site has correctly chosen the president of the United States in the past four elections.
Yahoo! News | October 20, 2004, 11:01 am
Why isn’t the Virginia number getting more attention? If PA and OH are competitive swing states with similiar spreads, why not VA?
Obviously, given it’s history VA is traditionally more red, but still, I’d love to see the headline “Bush vulnerable in VA”