Re: "[There'll be some leaking in the press]/That will disclose/What everybody knows.
 

The SALT cap alone would destroy NJ’s housing market.

These numbers are starting points to give Trump an alibi when he passes a tax bill of epic proportions we cannot afford. “The people on the coasts and those sleazy realtors made me give up the SALT and interest deduction caps, with which it would not have created any more debt!”

Re: "[There'll be some leaking in the press]/That will disclose/What everybody knows.
 

The "throw out something crazy and compromise down to the merely aggressive" strategy might work when you go through regular order and the only people paying attention to the first draft sleep within an hour of the white house, but when you need public support for a bill you're trying to pass on a tight timeline without committee process or input, it's not really a good strategy. You quickly kill the credibility that might have gotten your bill through.

You'd think they might have figured that out by now, given that they've been doing it all year.

From what I'm seeing right now, I'd say they're chances of getting a tax bill this year are collapsing.

Re: "[There'll be some leaking in the press]/That will disclose/What everybody knows.
 

To pass, the bill must grow the deficit by no more than $1.5 trillion over ten years, and not at all after that. Otherwise they need 60 votes in the Senate, which they won't get.

Re: "[There'll be some leaking in the press]/That will disclose/What everybody knows.
 

One more Trump plan, DOA.

Re: "[There'll be some leaking in the press]/That will disclose/What everybody knows.
 

Good point. He’s pressed to get this done before year’s end, no?

Good. This bill is stupid. We don’t need tax “simplification.” Taxes aren’t that fucking complicated.

This thing looks like a giant, petulant “fuck the coasts” project coupled with a blowjob to billionaires.

Re: "[There'll be some leaking in the press]/That will disclose/What everybody knows.
 

The provisions on taxation of corp's foreign profits would have been a massive gift to my international clients, though. So I would have had more work sending shit to China to help pay for my newly inflated tax bill.

Is he just trying to see how much cravenness he can get away with or something? I remain stunned at what morons these people are.

Re: "[There'll be some leaking in the press]/That will disclose/What everybody knows.
 

I am a lawyer. As a past party apparatchik, and a current party activist, I also care about the party as an institution, something very few people actually do.

I think party apparatchiks add a lot of value, especially if you can keep them for a few years, because they tend to be hard-working, modestly paid younger people who build personal relationships that help the party. Spending money on them IS what you do to get things.

Consultants who charge by the hour are just a bad use of money. But it's not any more tawdry than practicing law.

Re: Epistemic Crisis
 

If only people who lived in swing states voted for candidates who respected the very institutions that set the standards of what constitutes truth and fact this article mentions. Wouldn't that be something.

TM

Re: "[There'll be some leaking in the press]/That will disclose/What everybody knows.
 

Who? Ryan? Trump? Republicans generally? Ryan wants to get away with as much un-taxing of the rich as he can. Trump doesn't give a fuck about any of this bill except what his accountant says he will save in taxes. Republicans want tax cuts no matter the cost to this country and the best plan for them is for rich people in blue states to pay for their cuts. And even if the plan hurts a bunch of their constituents, they don't give a fuck because they know their constituents only hear, "cut cut cut." That's it. This shit isn't difficult to understand.

TM

Re: "[There'll be some leaking in the press]/That will disclose/What everybody knows.
 

I do too. When I was much younger, my grandfather told me that the only two institutions that had ever tried to do anything for him were the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers and the Democratic Party. I have loyalty to the party, but also high expectations.

I have a sibling who worked in Democratic politics for years. It's not a way to get rich, but I don't object to paying for staff. What is the money for? Better staff than television ads.

Exactly. Not sure other consultants are better. Some are taking a cut of advertising spend, etc.

Re: Epistemic Crisis
 

No question about it.

Re: "[There'll be some leaking in the press]/That will disclose/What everybody knows.
 

Well, everyone involved in managing this bill just seems to be a moron, because they seem to be doing it in a way that is destined to fail.

Now I know for people like Ryan, trying to hold a caucus together when the nationalist right, the plutocratic right, and the religious right, a lot of this may not be about getting the bill through but instead about who gets to point fingers at who when it fails, and maybe what he's doing makes sense there. I can't understand Republican infighting well enough to understand that.

But for Trump and the administration, who just need to get something through so they stop looking so incompetent, I don't see the defense. Find two little things you can do, get them done, and call it a big win.

Re: Epistemic Crisis
 

That seems like a real fancy way of saying a lot of folks are cray cray.

Re: "[There'll be some leaking in the press]/That will disclose/What everybody knows.
 

Same with IL. A $1M house in my sleepy 'burb pays about $25k in property taxes.

Of course, the reason IL's property taxes are so high is because Illinois democrats, mostly Michael Madigan, the nation's longest tenured state speaker, have flushed this state's finances down the drain. Democrats in Illinois aren't typical democrats - they are more like a state sanctioned mafia. Once the kiddos are in college, I'm out. I'm not going to be the last person to turn out the lights - this state is fucked.

Re: "[There'll be some leaking in the press]/That will disclose/What everybody knows.
 

The question is: where you going?

I enjoyed my one year of living in Chi-town all those years ago, but the politics of the place were wild. Those were the days when Harold Washington was Mayor and Jesse Jackson was running for President, and the old white machine(s) were more than a little confused.