The Impeach-O-Meter is a wildly subjective and speculative daily estimate of the likelihood that Donald Trump leaves office before his term ends, whether by being impeached (and convicted) or by resigning under threat of same.
There’s some drama going on right now involving the details, but it looks like all 52 Republican Senators want to pass a version of the Republican tax cut bill. (The House has already passed its own.) While the bill is subject to further revision and is quite complicated, here are some statements and consensus predictions about it which we can be fairly confident in:
- It will cut taxes for many/most households across all income ranges in the near term.
- It will raise taxes for many middle class households in the long term.
- It will cut taxes for corporations and “pass-through” business owners in all terms.
- It will raise the deficit by $1.5 trillion, which will trigger various automatic and indirect cuts to social spending.
- Its benefits to corporations will generally be passed on to stockholders (rather than passed on to workers in the form of higher wages).
- On the whole and on average, the bill benefits wealthier households by taking from poorer ones, cutting social spending, and creating debt.
Assuming it passes, how does this play out politically? Few voters will be paying higher taxes right away because of it, so there probably won’t be an immediate/reflexive pocketbook backlash. The economy is also doing well enough on a macro level right now; if that continues, the GOP can say the tax bill helped.
On the other hand, the long-term reality (or at least the reality experienced by everyone except right-wing-media consumers who would never be persuaded to vote Democrat anyway) will likely be that taxes go down on the wealthy while the deficit goes up by a lot and wages stay flat. This fits nicely into the Democrats’ emerging message about an oligarchy of corporations and idle rich people sucking up money that should be going to actual working Americans; meanwhile, it seems like it should undercut Trump’s vaunted populist appeal to blue-collar middle American swing voters. Initial polling has moreover found the bill, at this point, to be historically unpopular. Raise the meter!
Today’s meter level is up two points.
