The Thread of Despair

I don’t know how you all are doing, but I can say that the last couple of days, watching the inevitably of this absurd tax plan move toward passage, that I have been the most depressed I’ve been since at least it looked like the ACA would be repealed. While you can’t be sure what is going to happen, with Murkowski excited to drill in ANWR and Collins cool with repealing the individual mandate, this looks very grim. The bill is so terrible in so many ways, including the tax on graduate student tuition benefits, which will destroy graduate education in this country; the tax on charitable contributions, and of course the exemption for private jets. Republicans are so open about doing to the nation what Sam Brownback did to Kansas that they actually trotted him out earlier today to talk about what a success his tax cuts were in his state. And now we come to find out that Republicans are probably going to replace the automatic tax cuts when of course the revenues don’t keep up with automatic spending cuts.

All of this is going to lead to widespread poverty. And it’s just devastating to me. It’s actually affecting my ability to write, which is when you know things are bad. Bastards.

I don’t have anything else to offer. This is open class warfare.