Americans want tax reform, but not this bill

As the Republicans in Congress race towards passing their tax reform bill this week, I have Arizona on my mind. (Not North Carolina, since we know how our Senators and Representatives will vote on the bill.)

Arizona is on my mind for two reasons. First, because of a colleague and friend, who is suffering from Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis—ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease. Ady Barkan had a conversation with Senator Jeff Flake about the tax bill on a plane last week, and the videotape of their interaction has gone viral. It’s a moving video. Ady found out he has this terminal illness shortly after he and his wife welcomed their first child in the world, and now the disease’s progression makes walking and talking difficult for him. In short, he’s dying, and he knows it.

In the video, he asks Flake whether he plans to vote for a bill that would deprive him of health care treatment for disabilities from which he is already suffering, and which will become worse as the illness progresses.

It’s a courageous conversation and a poignant video, and Senator Flake deserves credit for engaging in it and allowing it to be taped. His willingness stands in stark contrast to members of our North Carolina Congressional delegation who support the bill, and have made themselves almost entirely unavailable in public to discuss our opinions and feelings about this enormously consequential piece of legislation. What has happened, however, is an enormous army of corporate lobbyists has turned out on Capitol Hill to influence the bill—over 6,000 and counting. Apparently, swamp draining has been canceled until further notice.

The second reason I’m thinking about Arizona is Sen. John McCain, who is flying back to Arizona for more cancer treatments and will miss the anticipated vote on the tax bill this week. He, too, is suffering from a terminal illness, and faces increasingly debilitation during the time he has remaining.

Senator McCain cast a now-famous vote against the Senate’s bill to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act. In doing so, he decried the way in which that bill was being pushed through with no public hearings whatsoever, and no regular Senate order. He warned that legislating in such a hyper-partisan and secretive way would even further undermine public confidence in and respect for Congress, which were already at rock-bottom.

There is a strong reason why Republicans have rushed this bill through with so little public input — it’s wildly unpopular. Polls have consistently shown high disapproval ratings.

Provisions that make this bill unpopular are numerous. It’s heavily skewed in favor of the wealthy and corporations, and promises far less relief to most working and middle-income Americans than was initially touted, or is now being admitted. It threatens healthcare coverage for 13 million people, will trigger a $25 billion cut to Medicare absent a subsequent fix, and will actually raise taxes for 60% of us in 2027. Never mind the pork dangled for potential Senate defectors, like a green light to drill in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, and a just-added break for real estate developers, like the Trumps.

In addition, almost no economists actually believe the bill will produce the economic growth that would offset the $1.5 trillion projected addition to the federal deficit, and Paul Ryan and other Republican leaders have signaled that they intend to work in 2018 to reduce this deficit with further cuts to Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. It’s impossible to imagine that already-struggling Americans would sign off on big cuts to our social and healthcare safety nets to make life easier for the wealthy, but that appears to be the direction in which we could be headed.

My holiday wish for this unpopular and unhelpful bill is that Senator McCain will make his feelings about regular order and a responsible bipartisan process known once again, and that enough of his Senate colleagues will take his admonition to heart that the drive for tax reform will slow down and allow the rest of us to have our say. Americans want tax reform, but not this bill, and not in this way. Like Ady Barkan, who is unsure today whether its passage this week will reduce the time he has left to spend with his young son and wife, we all deserve better than what we will be getting if this bill is rammed through. It’s the holiday season. We’re not asking for a miracle, just a fair shake.

This story was originally published December 19, 2017 at 9:30 AM with the headline "Americans want tax reform, but not this bill."