Chuck Schumer, Nancy Pelosi and their Democratic followers laid a careful trap for their Republican tormentors, and then fell in it. The Republican leadership can keep them from climbing out if they’re smart and show a little courage.
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The Democratic strategy was to prevent passage of the Republican tax-cut legislation. They lost, if only by a single vote in the Senate, but the modern Democrats have become inordinately fond of moral victories, so they applaud themselves, anyway.
“But it didn’t have to be that way,” writes Fred Barnes in the Weekly Standard. “Had Democrats negotiated with Republicans they might have saved the provision they most wanted to preserve, the full deductibility of state and local taxes. It’s a crucial [tax] break in rich, high-tax states like New York, New Jersey and California.”
But the Democratic strategy admits of no compromise, ever, on anything. Mr. Schumer and Miss Pelosi are proud of the fact that no Democrats urged compromise, which if they had they might have saved several tax breaks dear to the hearts (and pockets) of rich donors to Democratic campaigns. The Wall Street Journal suggests that a co-operative Democratic leadership might have traded support for a carbon tax, which Democrats have sought for years, for eliminating the business tax. But compromise cannot be when the strategy calls for give-no-quarter opposition to everything Donald Trump proposes. The only thing this cutting off of many noses accomplishes is a lot of faces without noses, and a lot of bloody noses underfoot.
The Democrats dare not propose anything to help business lest it offend its base, which has no interest in making the economy grow, but wants only to redistribute whatever wealth comes along. An honorable compromise might have prevented the deep cut in the corporate tax rate, from 35 percent to 21 percent. But that’s what the president and his party wanted, so who needs a nose, after all, as long as there’s a working mouth.
Democrats decree death in the swamp for the Dreamers
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The Democratic strategy was to prevent passage of the Republican tax-cut legislation. They lost, if only by a single vote in the Senate, but the modern Democrats have become inordinately fond of moral victories, so they applaud themselves, anyway.
“But it didn’t have to be that way,” writes Fred Barnes in the Weekly Standard. “Had Democrats negotiated with Republicans they might have saved the provision they most wanted to preserve, the full deductibility of state and local taxes. It’s a crucial [tax] break in rich, high-tax states like New York, New Jersey and California.”
But the Democratic strategy admits of no compromise, ever, on anything. Mr. Schumer and Miss Pelosi are proud of the fact that no Democrats urged compromise, which if they had they might have saved several tax breaks dear to the hearts (and pockets) of rich donors to Democratic campaigns. The Wall Street Journal suggests that a co-operative Democratic leadership might have traded support for a carbon tax, which Democrats have sought for years, for eliminating the business tax. But compromise cannot be when the strategy calls for give-no-quarter opposition to everything Donald Trump proposes. The only thing this cutting off of many noses accomplishes is a lot of faces without noses, and a lot of bloody noses underfoot.
The Democrats dare not propose anything to help business lest it offend its base, which has no interest in making the economy grow, but wants only to redistribute whatever wealth comes along. An honorable compromise might have prevented the deep cut in the corporate tax rate, from 35 percent to 21 percent. But that’s what the president and his party wanted, so who needs a nose, after all, as long as there’s a working mouth.
Democrats decree death in the swamp for the Dreamers