Tax bill uncovers wider Republican issues

Friday night thriller on C-SPAN2

The Senate passed its version of tax reform well after midnight on Saturday morning. The House and Senate will now create a conference committee to reconcile the two versions before sending it to the White House (details on conference committees in previous post). I fell asleep after Republicans voted down a Motion to Commit that would have delayed final passage until Monday, giving Democrats time to digest some of the last-minute changes. It failed…if that tells you anything.

The bill itself is a bit large to tackle comprehensively on a Saturday morning. But I would offer a few criticisms mostly aimed at the GOP. As a Republican, I believe we should spend more time policing our own. A few observations along those lines:

First: it’s safe to say neither party cares much about the debt (again). The half-hearted attempt by a handful of Senators to alleviate debt concerns was simply meaningless. Sen. Corker (R-TN), a born-again deficit hawk, was the only Republican to oppose the legislation, and he did so on grounds of debt and deficit concerns. I recall Republicans singing to a different tune during their days in the minority…dynamic scoring not excluded.

Second: For Republicans, this bill is further confirmation they’ve collectively decided that the ends justify the means. When it comes to passing major legislation, Republicans have no qualms leveraging the power of a majority party by enforcing procedures (i.e. budget reconciliation) that allow them to push through major bills along party lines votes. See also: Neil Gorsuch who was confirmed only after Senate Republicans triggered an unapologetic abuse of Senate power, which forever changed the precedent by which the Senate will confirm Supreme Court nominees. Little-by-little, deterioration of Senate rules and norms will erode the checks and balances of the Senate, which itself plays a critical role in balancing broader federal powers.

Third: Let’s be clear, I’m not a proponent of keeping bills secret until it’s time to vote on them, but it’s not new. The senators complaining about it now didn’t seem to have problems with it in the past – i.e. Bush tax cuts/fiscal cliff of 2013. Regardless, the majority of this tax bill, including amendments, was posted online for weeks. Sure there was some horse trading at the end, but when does that not occur, and why shouldn’t it?

Fourth: watch out for “Technical corrections” that come out of conference committee. This little-known liberty can follow passage of tax reform and gives conferees ability to specific tax law changes that, to say it generously, makes hard changes easier to swallow for certain members. The money can add up quickly.

Let’s talk about feelings

Taxation is an especially sensitive policy issue, because it not only directly impacts our personal and professional financial circumstances by determining take-home pay and corporate tax rates (among many others), it also gives the federal government a platform to make judgement calls on cultural issues. Think incentives for marriages and charitable giving, exclusions of non-profits (churches), etc. So it’s no surprise to find a wide range of opinions on the two bills that Congress has now passed.

Arguing for our respective opinions is a really good thing, but it’s critical that we avoid describing the pros and cons of a policy by simply claiming perceived outcomes. In other words, when Democrats claim the tax bill takes from the poor and gives to the rich or,  alternatively, when Republicans say it will create jobs and increase wages; such sweeping generalizations are effectively meaningless. They’re almost certainly exaggerations and may draw conclusions from one unruly provisions while glossing over reams of others that could change a person’s calculation.

Generally speaking, most of us want similar outcomes. But, holistically, the assumptions that get baked into the policy formulas are what will drive outcomes and, therefore, what we should be debating. The devil is in the details, and that’s where our debate should be too.

In the end, most of our disputes around public policies like tax reform are tied to our understanding of economics. More fundamentally, economics and politics more generally are an extension of how we view human nature. Naturally, our diverse country won’t come to a consensus on any one view, and that’s okay. The tensions that diversity creates provides a balance that, in the long-run, results in a more representative balance for the country. All this to say that maybe we could have more productive debates if our discussions included observations about human nature and how that can impact the decisions of individuals across the economy.

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I appreciate the consternation this bill and the process by which Republicans chose to pass it has caused a lot of people. But I also believe we aren’t properly assigning blame. If we want bills to be passed in a more bipartisan manner, we have to elect women and men who will lead Congress away from tribal mentalities rather than stubbornly stand by every trivial policy as if their character or country depended on it; in most cases, it just doesn’t. We can’t continue to vote for candidates at the fringe of the party’s spectrum that campaign on standing their ground no matter what and without regard to reason.

On a broad scale, the frequent lack of compromise is viewed as a failure of the system. But on the individual level, compromising (i.e. acting in a bipartisan manner to pass or reject legislation) is viewed as betrayal and weakness. America’s electorate has a dual personality in this sense. When ideals of compromise at broad levels and at the individuals levels begin to align, outcomes in legislative process will improve. As it stands, Members of Congress are not motivated to work across the aisle, because their constituents will punish them for it at the ballot box.

I’m not saying candidates shouldn’t be principled. They absolutely should. But we need Members of Congress to be elected, in no small part, because of the wisdom and discernment they demonstrate. Yes, it’s fair to say they should align with certain policies and values that are important to us. But understanding which topics merit a principled stand and the times when its better to compromise is a quality little appreciated at the ballot box.