Corey Robin (previously) wants you to know four things about the Republican plan to add 1.5 trillion dollars to the US debt and transfer trillions more to the richest Americans.
The first is that this is the core of the Republican program, the very thing the movement has stood for since Ludwig von Mises told Ayn Rand, "You have the courage to tell the masses what no politician told them: you are inferior and all the improvements in your conditions which you simply take for granted you owe to the effort of men who are better than you."
The second is that there is a silver lining: some very powerful lobbies opposed it and the GOP were still able to ram it through. This means that possibly a future Democratic Congress will be able to ignore those lobbies, too (imagine Obamacare without any attempt to mollify the for-profit health industry!).
Finally, that there's an opportunity here for the Democrats — if they don't fuck it up:
A big risk for the left is if it responds to these cuts by screaming about the debt. If Democrats do that, we’re finished.
If the left says, instead, reverse the cuts, keep some of the increases, and use that money for health care, free college, public transportation, and jobs, we’ve got a new politics, one that breaks with the austerity that Democrats from Carter to Obama have peddled.
The Republicans are already pivoting from tax cuts to the debt, claiming that the next task is to rein in spending. The task of the left is to say: not so fast. The Republicans have shown us the money is there. It should be spent, not on the debt but on pressing social needs.
The Republican tax bill: four takeaways [Corey Robin/The Guardian]
