Watching retiring Republican politicians as they tentatively dip their toes into a puddle of Actual Reality after spending their careers vowing that the pipes were holding up just fine, thank you very much, can be an interesting sight. Here is retiring Sen. Bob Corker of Tennessee, who, he would have us believe, has only just now discovered that the Republican tax law he and his fellow senators just passed will balloon the deficit by a staggering $1.9 trillion dollars, according to CBO estimates. http://thehill.com/policy/finance/382663-corker-tax-cuts-could-be-one-of-worst-votes-ive-made
But Corker had a pretty good idea the bill would be a budget-buster from the outset; that's the precise reason he withheld his support, up until the very moment when he courageously caved and voted for it anyway. He knew it. The whole party knew it. This is not the heady days of Reaganomics. We now have decades of data showing, conclusively, that tax cuts for the wealthy do little for the economy and balloon the deficit every time they are tried. Nobody was credibly expecting anything different this time around, and the party barely pretended to care.
Nonetheless, Corker quickly followed up his admission with the "hope" that perhaps the CBO was not sufficiently taking into account the promised rainbows and ponies.
It is exceedingly unlikely that the Congressional Budget Office overlooked $1.9 trillion dollars of "whatever."
Well there you go, sport. You've found the door handle at least, and just in time to bolt through before a new generation of lawmakers has to grapple with what you and your colleagues have done to the place. What courage, and so forth.
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