While Republicans have finally passed sweeping tax cuts for the rich for first time since the early Bush administration, they may not have necessarily done themselves any favors with the general public.
The GOP bill is wildly unpopular, far less popular than President Obama's stimulus package, the Affordable Care Act, the Bush tax cuts, or any other major piece of legislation of the past 20 years.
Trump's top economic adviser Gary Cohn can't imagine why that is, nor can he imagine why the overwhelming majority of the public believes Republicans are lying about the bill as he personally continues to lie about the bill.
Bloomberg reports that Cohn attended an event in Washington yesterday where he was "dumbfounded" by the lack of public support.
“To be honest with you, I don’t know,’’ Cohn said Tuesday at a Washington event hosted by Axios, when asked why the plan lacked public support. Middle-income Americans “are getting the largest percentage tax savings of anyone in the whole distribution. So we have clearly not communicated that.”
My gut says the bill wouldn't be quite as unpopular if Republicans stopped insulting average Americans and told the truth about it.
Middle-income Americans will not see the "largest percentage of savings" in the bill. In fact, over 80 percent of the benefits will be distributed to the top 1 percent.
The idea that middle-income Americans will see the largest benefit is clearly a lie, but it's worse than that; Americans in the upper-middle class will actually be hit the hardest as they lose most state and local tax deductions. This class of Americans make enough money to itemization those deductions, but not enough to qualify for the tax cut Republicans added to the bill at the list minute for top income earners.
The entire bill is deeply regressive and everyone knows it. Everyone except Gary Cohn, apparently.
I don't know which is worse. Gary Cohn is either dumber than anyone would have guessed, or he's lying.