The Republican fantasy of lower taxes and hard-to-access social safety net programs will now be a reality
For decades, Republicans have argued that the US would be better off if taxes were low, and programs to help low-income Americans were harder to access. With Donald Trump’s marquee tax and spending bill now set to become law, the country will find out what it’s like to live under that sort of system.
The massive legislation that Trump plans to sign Friday will make his campaign promises a reality by extending tax cuts enacted during his first term, and creating new deductions aimed at the working-class voters who backed his re-election.
But it will also fundamentally reorder two major social safety net programs, slashing funding and imposing new work requirements that nonpartisan estimates say will cost millions of people their benefits. The ripple effects, experts say, will be felt across the country, and not just by the poor.
No, the Republican fantasy is doing that and having the benefit cuts pay for the tax cuts. This is the Republican reality where the tax cuts still require borrowing an enormous amount of money.
Edit: Society is always making a trade-off between helping the poor and using that money for other purposes and if, with the support of working class Americans, a candidate is elected who decides that society will help the poor less, then that’s a reasonable outcome in a democracy even if it isn’t one that I personally support. However, running the debt up like this is an extremely reckless and selfish decision to buy lower taxes in the present day at the expense of America’s future. It’s so short-sighted that I think it isn’t a reasonable choice for any ideology except perhaps nihilistic disregard for anything beyond the next election cycle…