Although several GOP Senate votes are still in play, most of these Senators want to make the tax bill even worse than it already is, so this may not be too steep a hill for McConnell (the GOP Senate majority leader) to climb. Plus, Republicans are desperate to pass something, anything, to make it look to the folks back home like they’re doing something to earn their salaries (even though it’s obvious to informed people that we’d all be better off if they did nothing at all). So it’s possible this tax bill will go through.
If it does, they’ll be enacting tax cuts whose benefits will inure almost entirely to the rich. It will be paid for by a combination of (1) adding to the debt, (2) taking health care away from 13 million mostly poor Americans, and (3) raising taxes on the middle class. Later on, the higher debt will be used as an argument to cut spending on Social Security and Medicare (we’ll be told we can’t afford those entitlements anymore).
The 52 Republican Senators, including the half dozen or so lobbying to make this egregiously bad legislation even worse, certainly are aware of the polls showing that two-thirds of the public opposes this bill. It’s possible they’re living in some kind of bubble they believe will somehow insulate them from the inevitable voter reaction. More likely, though, they’re simply counting on the deceptions built into the tax bill.
These are pretty simple. You get a $300 tax cut now, and they’re hoping you won’t connect the Obamacare individual mandate repeal contained within the bill to the 10% – 15% jump in your health insurance premiums that will occur almost immediately, or think about the big increase in your tax bill that will happen a few years from now when the individual tax cuts expire and you don’t have your personal exemptions, child tax credits, or mortgage interest, state and local tax, and medical expense deductions anymore.
On the other hand, if you own millions of dollars of stock, and collect huge amounts of capital gains and dividends from your investments, you should make out just fine.