It’s an interesting question, more so when you recognize that there are two distinctly different points of view and each is the opposite of the other.
The general consensus among commenters at Daily Kos seems to be that congressional republicans are committing political suicide by passing the Massive Tax Cuts Wealthcare Bill. The rationale is, prima facie, reasonable: in 2018 Democrats will be able to run on republican tax hikes for poor and middle incomes, the loss of tax credits, the loss of ACA healthcare, severe cuts to Medicare and Medicaid etc. This, they argue, will bring down the republicans in 2018.
Seems reasonable? Well yes, it does. But it doesn’t take into account why the republicans are supporting this monstrous Bill because political suicide in not in their DNA. To understand them, we need to take a look at their reasons.
We can go back further but let’s pick it up at the beginning of August where we find Newt Gingrich and Brad Anderson predicting dire consequences for a republican congress that does not pass this tax scam.
From The Hill, 2 August 2017:
Former Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) is urging Republicans to pass tax cuts, warning that failing to do so could result in voters coming together against Republican lawmakers.
"The specter of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is looming," Gingrich and Brad Anderson, former CEO of Best Buy and a member of the Job Creators Network, wrote in a piece published Wednesday in USA Today.
Not much changed from then until now as Nancy Pelosi demonstrates with this sample of what congressional republicans were saying before the Senate vote, 1 December 2017:
Most recently there is this from The Daily Beast, 4 December 2017:
Congressional Republicans have warned in recent days that if the party fails to pass a massive package of tax cuts in the next year, their donors will desert them.
...
Several GOP donors contacted by The Daily Beast said that they would either stop writing checks to the party [or] divert their money elsewhere should tax cuts end up being stalled.
“If they don’t get tax relief done, as they promised they would, then we will support challengers who will do their jobs for them,” said Doug Deason, a Dallas investor and high-dollar Republican donor. “Donations will still flow, just to different politicians.”
To sum up, if republicans fail to pass this hideous Bill
- their biggest donors will desert them
- their biggest donors will support primary challengers instead
- current congressional republicans in House and Senate will lose their seats and risk losing their majorities in both houses.
But if they do pass it
- they will be re-elected to their seats and increase their majorities in both houses.
That is the republican belief.
This is, as we’ve seen, contrary to what their critics believe which is: if republicans pass this monstrosity, they will
- lose seats in 2018
- also likely to lose their majorities in a blue wave.
So, republicans believe that they must pass this Bill to keep their seats and extend their majorities while progressives/liberals/Democrats believe if republicans pass this tax scam, they will lose seats and their majorities.
Which one is correct?
Firstly, republicans are not politically stupid. They managed to outfox Democrats in 2000, 2004, 2014 and 2016. There’s no doubt that they know how to keep Democrats out of office.
Republicans crave money and power. They put self over party with country a very distant third… or last in some cases (Rep Dana Rohrabacher comes instantly to mind). I’d argue that this Bill provides the strongest evidence yet of their monetary and egotistic motivations. What’s more they are saying they believe they only need their big donors in order to retain power — what their constituents think is irrelevant. And because their constituents are irrelevant, they are willing to screw over 99% of them in order to retain power and increase their fortunes. They are not willing to give up power and money for anybody or anything.
Because that’s what this is really all about: money and power.
They have no intention of giving up either so they will bend to the will of their millionaire and billionaire donors who in turn will assure re-election for all of them.
You might want to think about how their donors plan to do that.