Remember when Republicans dedicated most of their first year in power to trying to kill pre-existing conditions coverage while stripping millions of Americans of health care coverage? Then when they failed at that, they immediately turned their attention to giving mega tax cuts to America's big corporations along with multimillionaires and billionaires. That tax law resulted in: huge tax breaks for the richest one percent, who on average will save more than $51,000 on taxes this year while a family making between $48,600 and $86,100 will save $930; soaring deficits that Republicans are now using as an excuse to cut Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid; and an actual decline in real wages for real workers while corporations used the money they saved to buy back stock rather than invest in job-creating growth. Perfect.
Anyway, Trump is now having a change of heart about all the policies Republicans devoted two years of unilateral control to enacting. Here’s his new midterm platform on health care and taxes:
Huh, what do all those policies sound like to you? Yep, the policies of Democrats. And why—why would Trump suddenly adopt Democratic positions after governing in the complete opposite fashion for two full years?
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Because policies Republicans worked feverishly to enact have been overwhelmingly rejected by a solid majority of Americans. Support for Obamacare (aka the Affordable Care Act, with pre-existing condition coverage) is at an all-time high with a 54 percent favorability rating, according to an October Fox News poll. Meanwhile, just 36 percent of respondents in September told Fox they had seen "more money" in their paychecks since Republicans passed their tax law (59 percent said they hadn't).
As Daniel Drezner notes in the Washington Post, these positions amount to nothing more than Trump's "fast and furious" campaign lies.
If you have any interest in seeing just how big a lie Trump is selling, read this White House transcript of reporters asking Trump on Monday how he'll pass his fantasy middle-class tax cut while Congress is out of session.
That pretty much sums up Trump's governing prowess. He's promising to pass fantasy tax cuts with his fantasy Congress in hopes that voters won't put an actual check on him at the polls in two weeks. Time for a reality check for both Trump and Republicans—what voters think matters, and not just the super-rich ones.