When the Tax Reform Bill passed last year, democrats such as Nancy Pelosi were loud in their denunciations. The tax bill was a tax cut for the rich. It would hurt middle-class and working-class Americans. Then, as companies such as Walmart and AT&T started handing out bonuses, the Democrats sneered that “crumbs” were coming the way of ordinary Americans. Then Apple made a remarkable move, and the economic effects of the tax bill are already starting to have political consequences.

What Apple did

Apple has announced, according to the New York Times, that it will be taking advantage of the provision of the new law that significantly reduces the tax on money brought to the United States from overseas by repatriating $350 billion over the next five years, paying a tax of $38 billion.

Apple will use the money to create a new corporate campus along with 20,000 jobs, give its employees a bonus in restricted stock worth $2,500 each, and make other capital spending projects.

By way of comparison, President Obama’s stimulus package, which failed to stimulate much besides the growth of government and pork-barrel spending, cost $900 billion in its entirety. A single company is bringing more than a third of that package home and will be spending it more wisely.

Political tsunami building?

Except for recently announced bonus money, the effects of the tax bill will not show up in paychecks until February. However, according to Hot Air, the political implications of the tax law are already starting to manifest.

According to the Marist Poll, the generic advantage of congressional Democrats over Republicans has plunged from 13 percentage points to just six. Approval for the tax bill has risen from 37 percent to 46 percent.

Hitherto, the conventional wisdom was that President Trump’s unpopularity plus history pointed to a “blue wave” in which Democrats would sweep Republicans out of office, capturing the House and perhaps the Senate.

Democrats could point to successes in Virginia and Alabama to buttress the scenario.

Now it looks like that the “blue wave” has a lot less chance of happening. Republicans will be able to point to the prosperity being wrought by the tax bill and other, deregulatory policies enacted by President Trump and point out that not one Democrat voted to support the president.

Indeed, if nothing else intervenes, such as a catastrophic war, the chances of election 2018 being any more than status quo will be dubious at best. The way trends are going; Republicans may gain seats in both houses of Congress, which would be as soul-shattering to the Democrats as Trump’s election to start with.