Trump is a thief. I'm sorry but I will defend the statement. Thievery is an act of stealing something. It can be secret and in the shadows. But often it is in broad daylight. It can be seen as a crime or as the clever or venal taking of something from someone.

Here is what Trump is doing. You are the judge. He says he is offering a tax and jobs bill. That is false because he is offering a bill which has no prospect of bringing jobs back because it does not make it hard for corporations to avoid taxes to stash their money on remote islands and buy cheap labor abroad.

Trump has completely avoided the truth that his tax bill contains not merely the repeal of Obamacare but a formula tor ensure that millions of Americans will be unable to afford insurance they now possess.

After

This threatens to be legislation that will not reveal its cruelty and stupidity until after the GOP passes it with triumphant cries and much back-slapping.

So perfidious is the GOP strategy that a tired nation, almost done in by month after month of Trump legislative ineptitude, must now rise up and say yet another "no" to a bill which will render years of hard effort to extend healthcare a failure.

Call it by its right name -- thievery, out front, with impunity.

Deficit explosion

If you do not believe knocking an estimated 13 million off the insurance rolls is a bit risky for those who will lose coverage, how do you feel about adding over a trillion to the deficit? That is what will enable Trump to crow that he has given the nation a huge tax cut.

He will not say that to even reach this high level of prodigality he has had to raise, rather than lower, the taxes on much of the middle class.

Make no mistake. This has always been a bill to give corporations a break they neither need nor deserve and to provide the very top of the oligarchy with a huge decline in what they pay to plunder us all.

Plunder?

Plunder means taking something by force during a time of war or Civil Unrest. Trump is a master of war and civil unrest and the capacity of the IRS to make things hot for those who do not pay is rarely questioned. So plunder stands.

Our republic was started by a tax revolt, so maybe there will be some unexpected consequences if Trump's folly fails.

Fail?

I am going to assume that, like all other Trump legislative efforts, this bill will end up in a sewer somewhere. Gorsuch will be the president's only legislative triumph -- a nuclear disaster won by the barest of majorities after stealing a nomination from President Obama.

That is what we have been facing. Nothing with tons of hoopla and growing angst.
© ALL RIGHTS RESERVED