Maverick
"Maverick" Paul Morigi / Getty

Today, John McCain affirmed his support for the Senate's tax bill, which will, as Peter S. Goodman and Patricia Cohen put it in this must-read analysis in the New York Times, "widen American economic inequality while diminishing the power of local communities to marshal relief for vulnerable people—especially in high-tax states like California and New York, which, not coincidentally, tend to vote Democratic."

Here's his stupid fucking statement:


Let me just go down the list here.

He says he likes this bill because it would "boost American competitiveness." If by "boosting American competitiveness," he means reducing the foreign earnings tax and adding other incentives to reward businesses that avoid paying local and state taxes by moving overseas, then sure! This bill boosts our global competitiveness. But it's not for the benefit of Americans as he suggests.

He says Americans haven't seen a pay raise, and so he likes this tax cut because it would let us keep a higher percentage of what we earn. If you're a corporation or a lawyer who wants to call themselves a corporation to pay less in taxes, then yeah, this is true. But if you're anybody else then you will eventually not keep a higher percentage of what you earn. If you're a student, a former student with loan debt, a teacher, a sick person, an elderly person, or a person who plans to retire, then you're especially fucked.

According to the Times:

By 2027, people making $40,000 to $50,000 would pay a combined $5.3 billion more in taxes, while the group earning $1 million or more would get a $5.8 billion cut, according to the Joint Committee on Taxation and the Congressional Budget Office.

He still thinks cutting corporate taxes will "stimulate job creation." It won't.

He says the bill was considered through the "normal legislative process." Ramming a bill through in two weeks with zero input from Democrats, with all GOP negotiations done behind closed doors, and with no final assessments from tax analysts is not regular order.

He says we can grow our way out of the $1.5 trillion deficit. We can't.

He says the individual mandate hurts low-income tax payers in Arizona. But if they repeal the mandate, 13 million people will lose their health insurance and premiums will continue to increase.

For the ten-thousandth time, John McCain is not a maverick who earnestly wants to return the Senate to its supposed deliberative glory. He's a lying liar who knows he's lying, which just means he's a regular fucking Republican.

Any hope of stopping this bill rests on Corker and Flake, both of whom passed the bill out of the Budget Committee Tuesday. Collins and Moran haven't given definitive answers yet, but it doesn't look good.