We begin today’s roundup with Catherine Rampell at The Washington Post and her analysis of the GOP talking points in the Alabama Senate race:
Fun fact: Under U.S. law, sexual assault allegations are now adjudicated by political election.
Don’t believe me?
Just ask White House officials, Republican lawmakers and right-wing pundits, who lately argue that an electoral win provides absolution for any past sexual misconduct.
This troubling claim is being applied to (who else?) our president. But it also sets a terrible precedent for what happens if alleged child molester and sexual predator Roy Moore wins an Alabama Senate race.
Paul Waldman at The Week explains why the GOP is making the tax code more complex:
It does eliminate some deductions, that's true. Depending on whether you take those deductions, you may find your taxes a little simpler — but if you do, it's because your taxes are probably being raised.
For instance, if you're someone with significant health-care expenses — let's say because you have a family member with a disability — the good news is you won't have to gather up all your receipts and count up how much you spent on health care this year, which could save you as much as an hour when you're making your way through your tax software. The bad news is that you won't be able to deduct those expenses (depending on which version of the tax bill finally gets passed), which could mean your tax bill will go up by thousands of dollars. Ditto for your state and local taxes: Congratulations on not having to enter them into your tax software; sorry that you won't be able to deduct them anymore.
The truth is that the "simplification" represented by the elimination of those deductions is miniscule — and at the same time, Republicans are adding complication to the code. One big way is with the gigantic loophole they want to open up with "pass-through" income. Right now, most businesses are organized as pass-throughs, meaning the profits go directly to a person or group; they pay taxes on that income at the regular individual rates. But because Republicans want to give special privileges to pass-through income, they'll create a gigantic incentive to classify all kinds of work as a pass-through. There will be a whole new avenue for tax avoidance for anyone (especially the wealthy) who can find creative ways to take advantage of this loophole.
Margaret Hartmann dives into the latest news on the Trump Foundation:
A spokesperson for the foundation confirmed to NBC News that it is being shuttered. “The Foundation continues to cooperate with the New York Attorney General’s Charities Division, and as previously announced by the president, his advisers are working with the Charities Division to wind up the affairs of the Foundation,” the spokesperson said. “The Foundation looks forward to distributing its remaining assets at the earliest possible time to aid numerous worthy charitable organizations.”
However, that doesn’t actually mean the Trump Foundation is no more. In September 2016, New York attorney general Eric Schneiderman announced an investigation into the foundation “to make sure it’s complying with the laws governing charities in New York.” A year earlier, the foundation had admitted to “self-dealing,” and paid a fine to the IRS. Reporting at the time revealed that Trump hadn’t personally contributed to the foundation in years, and he was using the charitable contributions of others to buy gifts for himself, settle lawsuits, and donate to politicians. Schneiderman ordered the Trump Foundation to cease all fundraising in October 2016.
Eric Levitz also dismantles GOP talking points on tax reform:
The frenetic pace of the GOP’s tax “reform” push has left some of the party’s own members short of breath. “You’re rewriting a tax code for a generation, and you are doing it in ten days,” Republican congressman Peter King said Thursday. “In [1986], it took two years to put together a tax reform bill.”
King’s exasperation is warranted. A couple of weeks might be enough time for legislators, policy analysts, and voters to consider the legislation’s first-order effects: Whose taxes will go up, whose will go down, and how much revenue will be lost in the process. But it’s far too brief an interval for lawmakers (let alone, the public) to comprehend the broader consequences of those changes.
Dana Milbank:
“Historic pace.” “Historic accomplishments.” “Historic visit.” “Historic gathering.” “Historic day.” “Historic act.” “Historic event.” “Historic speech.”
What actually is historic about this first year of the Trump presidency will be left to the historians. But so far, Trump’s actual achievements have been few. What seems most historic about this moment:
Trump’s hysterics.
John Nichols at The Nation has an important piece up on the attacks against net neutrality:
“Free Press will take the FCC to court to challenge [the] vote, as we have in the past when the agency weakened its ownership rules. The FCC has again failed to run a fair and transparent process, listen to public input, do the necessary research, or answer for how gutting these rules will impact the already abysmally low levels of broadcast ownership by women and people of color, says Aaron. “The FCC has repeatedly lost in court on this very issue for ignoring these concerns. It can’t keep ignoring them and hope to escape court scrutiny and public outrage.”
And today’s must-read is this piece by Adam Sewer over at The Atlantic:
During the final few weeks of the campaign, I asked dozens of Trump supporters about their candidate’s remarks regarding Muslims and people of color. I wanted to understand how these average Republicans—those who would never read the neo-Nazi website The Daily Stormer or go to a Klan rally at a Confederate statue—had nevertheless embraced someone who demonized religious and ethnic minorities. What I found was that Trump embodied his supporters’ most profound beliefs—combining an insistence that discriminatory policies were necessary with vehement denials that his policies would discriminate and absolute outrage that the question would even be asked.