Framing the argument: Perception will determine tax legislation's near-term impact

What matters most coming out of the GOP tax bill likely to be signed by President Trump before Christmas is largely subjective to how individuals stand to be affected by the proposed changes it contains.

Bringing businesses back to America that had fled this country's soaring corporate tax rates is sure to be a boon to jobs -- if and when those companies do migrate home.

Increased jobs -- and hopefully with them, wages -- will then inject the economy via increased purchase power for consumers.

But many who argue the bill contains more cons than pros suggest the middle- and low-income families will suffer in the long run. They say that is because the initial impact of the bill will be to cut taxes and increase profits for the already well-to-do, and the short-term gains for those of more meager means will soon be eroded by an economy that cannot possibly grow fast enough to cut into the deficit set to balloon over the next 10 years by more than $1.5 trillion.

So while the true fallout of the tax bill, financially speaking, would unfold over the next decade, the more immediate backlash will come in less than one year when voters turn out to either stand behind or stamp out the Republican majority in Congress and in state offices across the country. Democrats are obviously doing all they can to ensure the latter.

Brass tacks: The perception of this bill will make or break the Republican party for the remainder of Trump's first term and could potentially derail his chances at re-election.

Ohio Gov. John Kasich, an outspoken Republican who opposed the president since day one, summed up the opposition in his appearance Sunday morning on NBC's "Meet the Press" with Chuck Todd.

Kasich said that while cutting taxes makes sense, the bill could have done more for the middle and lower class by asking just a little bit more from businesses. Had that happened, he said, voters would likely be more accepting of the measure and the bill itself would not have been injured. Opinions vary on why that didn't happen but, he said, a lack of bipartisanship certainly did not help.

More importantly, he pointed to large swaths of voters who stood or stand to be negatively affected by the GOP's attempts to repeal Obamacare, the threat to Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals and the 800,000 immigrants who might be forced to leave the country, and an increasingly alienated demographic, millennials, who are seeing this country's global standing withered by a faction of the party who approach problems with thinking that is "small, angry and narrow."

"People are not happy with us being small, angry and narrow. They are starting to say no. That means those of us who believe in a positive party are starting to win, but we have a long way to go," Kasich said.

Tax reform is coming, for better or for worse. The Republican Party, however, is no longer approaching a crossroads. It is standing dead center at a fork in the road, and it had better chose its course carefully.

Published in Editorials on December 17, 2017 9:23 PM