This week, (the 16th), the House of Representatives passed a $1.5 trillion dollar tax reform bill, (voting largely along party lines), and Thursday night, members of the Senate Finance Committee, (who also voted along party lines), approved their own version, but both bills have to be reconciled into a single bill, (steaming pile of sh*t), before this legislative travesty can proceed.

“The bill Republicans have brought to the floor today is not tax reform,” said Representative Nancy Pelosi of California, the House Democratic leader. “It’s not even a tax cut. It is a tax scam.”

The New York Times went on to report taxes for the middle class will actually go up, based on the analysis released by The Joint Committee on Taxation.

The Joint Committee on Taxation, Congress’s bipartisan referee on tax policy, said on Thursday that the amended Senate’s version of the tax bill will raise taxes on low-income Americans beginning in 2021, in what appears to be a side effect of the bill’s decision to repeal the so-called individual mandate that requires most people buy health insurance under the Affordable Care Act.

The kicker [for me] was when the New York Times Editorial Board said:

The administration’s cluelessness about how working people might see this cynical play for the rich was confirmed a day later when Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and his wife, Louise Linton, were photographed with a sheet of freshly printed one-dollar bills with his signature, smirking like a couple of Disney villains.

Uh, yeah, let’s keep these two away from those printing presses, shall we?

Ewwww. I think I just threw up in my mouth. Again.

Well, at least Republicans managed to scare a few privileged, college-bound snowflakes [heading off to/already enrolled in] super-expensive schools by threatening to tax tuition waivers and wipe out the student loan interest deduction. Cue the MIT graduate student who penned the following in Thursday’s New York Times:

Republicans in the House of Representatives have just passed a tax bill that would devastate graduate research in the United States.

“…methinks thou dost protest too much…”, but…

Additionally, Alan Rappeport recounted the spirited debate between Sherrod Brown, an Ohio Democrat, and Orrin Hatch, the committee chairman and Utah Republican, which took place late Thursday night. Me? I think these two needed a nap! Rappeport closes with:

Big differences still remain between the House and Senate bills, and at least four Republican senators have openly expressed trepidation about the bill over its potential impact on the national debt and whether it does enough to help the middle class.

Finally, I had to chuckle after reading Timothy Egan’s opinion piece describing the collective “dumbing-down” of Americans with respect to civics. He’s says:

We’re getting played because too many Americans are ill equipped to perform the basic functions of citizenship.

True story. Egan goes on to say:

…a huge percentage of the population can’t tell fact from fiction. …a huge percentage is also clueless about the basic laws of the land.

I couldn’t agree more. Let’s face it folks, a non-trivial percentage of Americans are just plain ignorant when it comes to understanding how our government works. Mr. Egan makes the case for using civics proficiency test results as the determinant for voting eligibility. I love it!

Pass the test, you get to vote. Fail the test, you don’t get to vote. Daring, no?

I’m convinced an approach like this might – just might – collectively elevate the level of understanding citizens have about how our government works. Without it, uneducated Americans fall victim to charlatans, specious claims and truly “fake” news.

Yup, sounds like about half of America, (and Ryan, and McConnell and Trump), could all stand to spend some time in tax reformatory school!