"Tax Scam" has been a terrible rallying cry for us, as opponents of the great GOP giveaway of 2017. We need to call it by its real name: Corruption.
E. J. Dionne's column today captures what this bill really is about:
The tax bill the GOP is trying to foist on the country is not only an unfair and deficit-bloating hodgepodge written on the fly. It is also deeply corrupt. Every Republican who votes for this bill will be joining a festival of venality.
Corruption is not a word to be used lightly, so let’s be disciplined by the Merriam-Webster dictionary’s definitions: “dishonest or illegal behavior especially by powerful people” and “inducement to wrong by improper or unlawful means.”
We can stipulate that the tax bill is not illegal. But it is a dishonest power and money grab by — and on behalf of — the already powerful. As for “inducements,” well, there are those long-term investments of tens of millions of dollars in campaign contributions (enabled by the collapse of all the guardrails around political money) from wealthy individuals and regiments of interest groups. They will have a merry holiday season if the bill passes as expected.
This legislation proves that Washington is, indeed, the “swamp” that President Trump described during the campaign. But instead of draining it, he and his partisan allies have jumped right in. Actually, they have polluted it further.
It's not just that the basic structure of the bill is unfair, cruel, or that its goal is to cause a deficit crisis and force the shredding of the safety net next year.
It's not just that nobody's actually seen the full bill, let alone the fine print. Or that it hasn't been scored by the CBO.
What we we do know is that every last-minute item stuck into this bill (with the exception perhaps of Rubio laughable effort to "save" the working poor with $25 a month) has benefited the party that's ramming the bill through - or the donors who pay for their votes.
Some additions were put in to buy the votes of so-called budget hawks who were opposing the bill on principle to keep costs down. The irony! Some will benefit the wealthy, the donors and even the party's leader long after he returns to the private sector. Who could have imagined?
Of, by, and for the oligarchs.
We know this bill is more than self-dealing. It's way beyond a "scam."
Dionne is right. This is naked corruption.
Let's call it by its real name.