From NBC News:
Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., threw his support behind the Republican tax plan Thursday, boosting the bill’s chances of passage.
McCain said that while the Senate bill is “far from perfect,” he believes it will “enhance American competitiveness, boost the economy and provide long overdue tax relief for middle class families.”
The Maverick added, “But my wife Cindy inherited a Budweiser fortune, so fuck all that shit about working together and gimme those tax cuts!!”
While McCain’s support offered momentum, a late-in-the-day analysis from the nonpartisan Joint Committee on Taxation, or JCT, concluded that the plan doesn’t live up to expectations.
The JCT estimated that, even accounting for economic growth, the tax bill would increase the deficit by $1 trillion over 10 years. Republicans have previously said economic growth would cover the costs of the bill, which the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, or CBO, said would add $1.44 trillion to the deficit over the same time.
…snip…
Assuming all Senate Democrats vote against the tax plan, Trump can afford to lose only two Republican votes — three would sink the bill.
There’s a handful of other holdouts, including Bob Corker of Tennessee,
LurchJames Lankford of Oklahoma and Jeff Flake of Arizona, who have expressed concerns about how the bill would affect the deficit.They wanted a “trigger” mechanism that would hike taxes should the bill not prompt enough economic growth, but the Senate parliamentarian ruled late Thursday afternoon that the proposed trigger wouldn’t work under Senate rules, Corker said. Corker and Flake both announced this year that they wouldn’t seek re-election in 2018.
Trump and Republican lawmakers have repeatedly touted the bill as a boon for the middle class, despite several independent analyses that say otherwise. Two-thirds of middle-class earners would see tax increases, according to the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center.
The bill would also eliminate the Affordable Care Act’s individual mandate, cutting the tax credits it offered to lower-income earners who purchase health care. This would leave poorer Americans worse off, the CBO said, while top earners and corporations would benefit.
…snip…
Democrats, meanwhile, have remained united in opposition.
The bill would “increase the deficit which will cannibalize support from everything we know is essential to economic growth [and] a strong middle class,” Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer of New York said in tweet.
HYSTERICAL RAISINS 
it’s been proven that trickle down doesn’t work & the middle class will wind up being responsible for the trillion dollar deficit. this is nothing more than immoral. but what do oligarchs care about morality?
and let’s not forget that as the deficit continues to increase, the oligarchs will try to take away social security & medicare to pay for it becaue that’s the way greedy people are. they kick us while we’re down.
Captain Underpants, despite his epiphany about working together and getting back to regular order, has shown his true colors. He is particularly despicable, because there are a lot of people fighting their own fights against terrible diseases who will die if this bill passes. Kids are already being thrown to the wind with the CHIP program in danger, and now the poor and the elderly and disabled will be up the creek when they start taking away Medicare and Medicaid benefits. Fuck John McCain. When it comes down to saving people’s lives or making sure his family (who, incidentally, is only rich because his rich wife’s father made money by dirty dealings with gangsters) gets to keep even more of their wealth, he selfishly chose the latter. He can go to Hell.
You had another chance here, John, to stand up for something besides your own self-interest. Why bother to make such a show last time, when there’s a clause in this one to maim the ACA and hurt your citizen constituents in much the same way, plus the tax increase on so many of them?
Maybe what it would take is another insult from the Tweeter-in-Chief. Or maybe you know something about how many will vote against it, and figure you don’t have to bother pretending to care this time.
Either way, your legacy is what it is. Some maverick you are, going along even when you don’t have to.
I hope all these hypocritical shitheads–McCain, Collins, Murkowski, Flake, Corker, et al–are bombarded with pictures of all the people they are hurting. Let them look at pictures of little kids, the elderly, the sick and the disabled whose lives will be made more miserable because they will no longer have medical insurance.
I agree with you. I see cynicism written all over this. Come years down the road when the Dems are in power again this bill will have increased the deficit so much that money will have to be cut from the most vulnerable among us just to pay the bills.
Welcome back. You were missed!
Thanks Eleanor. I’m not back completely yet, but there are moments when I feel like I am going to explode, and I guess the healthiest way to deal with that is to photoshop. 😉
I don’t think this is a matter of cynicism. It’s a case of greed and selfishness. This is all about Rethug donors. They are turning off the money faucet until they get their taxes cut.
Wish there was a “don’t like” button. Because I DON’T like this at all. I’ve been calling a bunch of Senators for days — mine are all dems. How can they vote on a bill this consequential without being able to read it. Claire McCaskill just tweeted that the Dems had to get a list of amendments McConnell has agreed to from the lobbyists … what a farce.
On the other hand, Trump is pooping his pants hourly over Flynn and so that makes the day less of a writeoff.
They didn’t have enough of a PR nightmare since becoming the party of Roy Moore (and, yes, I think the bible-thumping bigots in Alabama will get him elected), so they decided to throw the middle class, poor, sick, disabled and elderly under their party bus. I hope there are people marching in front of all their offices every day with pictures of people whose lives they are making miserable or even cutting short. They need to know that history will record them as the pieces of shit they have proven themselves to be over and over and over again.
I should go to the Hill and provide actual pieces of shit for all of them.
This’ll make you feel better. Our tax dollars are going to pay for this disgusting pig’s sex life.
P.S. If anyone could find enough shit for that task, it would be my girl Elyse!
You didn’t post the picture of him in his ducky Jammie’s!
I think the ASPCA sued him for cruelty to animals, and he was never allowed to wear them again.
😂
The poor and needy just went by the wayside as the GOP party givers, takers and shakers celebrate on the hill. I knew the sorry bastards would get their way. Who cares when you are in the driver’s seat and you can run down and over the under class as you laugh your ass off on the way to the bank. Yep, the middle class will have to ante up and this is what the racist and bigots got with their vote. I wonder what all the folks that voted for Trump and the minorities and folks that did not vote, will do when its time to vote again.
And now Orrin Fucking Hatch has announced that there is not enough money to fund CHIP, even though it would only cost 1% of the shit bill he just voted for. They honestly don’t care if kids and other people die, as long as their billionaire donors get their fucking tax cut. 😡
Exactly my thoughts. They want to continue as so called politicians and know where the money comes from that keeps them in office. I hope they reap what they sow someday and I hope it happens sooner rather than later. Bastards- all of the GOP effers.