Senator John McCain of Arizona loves to be portrayed as a “maverick,” as one who is willing to reach across the aisle and go against his party to do what’s right – as he did during the Republican efforts to repeal the Affordable Care Act earlier this year, casting the deciding “nay” vote to scuttle the right-wing’s heartless efforts to strip health insurance from millions of Americans.
But it appears that act, so heartily lauded by the liberal media and establishment Democrats, was nothing but opportunistic grandstanding and a chance to stick it to a president who mocked him.
Senator McCain announced on Thursday morning that he would be voting for the catastrophic bundle of handouts for the wealthy and tax increases on the poor that the Republican Party have been rushing through Congress with little debate or analysis as to its catastrophic effects on the American people and the government’s budget, demonstrating once again he is putting his party above the needs of the American people who don’t write him campaign checks.
The tax bill isn’t just a tax bill – it is a heinous act of class warfare that will reshape American life as we know it. Hidden in the text, which few have read, is a repeal of the Affordable Care Act’s individual mandate, which would effectively gut the ACA, cut $338 billion over 10 years from Medicaid and insurance subsidies and lead to 13 million fewer people having health coverage.
On top of that, they are the lifting of a ban on political activism for churches, repealing the deductibility of tuition waivers for graduate students and repealing the deduction for interest paid on student loans. Oil drilling in Alaska wildlife refuges and anti-choice “fetus rights” are in the bill.
And when the deficit skyrockets, as it inevitably will since the Republican argument that corporate profit growth will somehow translate into more tax income to pay off the deficit even though you just cut their tax rate is so laughably stupid it’s hard to understand how anybody can even make it with a straight face, our social programs are going to be the first to get the ax.
This is an enormous transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich that will have devastating effects on everyday Americans, and this vote by John McCain is an act of utter cowardice that we all should have seen coming, because John McCain has always been a liar and a snake when it comes to putting his “straight talk” into action.
Never ever trust a Republican. Senators Murkowski and Collins and Corker and Flake, all the Republicans who were heartily welcomed into the #Resistance for daring to publicly criticize the president, are all voting for this bill.
They are not your friends and they do not care about bipartisanship or compromise or the process or the sanctity of our democracy. They are the bought-and-paid-for servants of the oligarch class and they are playing to win, and they have made it VERY clear they don’t care how many people die or how many innocents suffer in order for the rich to get richer.
