Friday’s news (9/29/2017) – Some Republicans already bailing on tax plan

Unrest in Congress over tax plan; hidden tax hike

Yesterday’s tax plan is already facing pushback from some Republicans in Congress:

A day after announcing their ambitious tax plan, Republicans debated scaling back one of their largest and most controversial proposals to pay for lower tax rates: repeal of the individual deduction for state and local taxes. Faced with the potential for defections by House Republicans from high-tax states such as New York and New Jersey, Republicans are exploring ways to satisfy those lawmakers without backing off the lower tax rates they promised. (Wall Street Journal)

The Cato Institute’s blog also notes that there is a concealed tax hike in the plan made public yesterday.

Speaker of the House Ryan complains that the House has passed hundreds of bills, but they go nowhere once they reach Senator Majority Leader McConnell’s Senate. But Wall Street Journal columnist Kimberley Strassel argues that Senator McConnell isn’t the problem but rather the “Never Trump triumvirate” of Senators McCain, Collins, and Paul.

Scandals – addressed and not addressed

President Trump quickly moved to douse the scandal surrounding Health and Human Service Secretary Price’s extensive use of chartered private jets at public expense. Price is apologizing and digging into his own pockets to partially repay for his expensive travel.

But Special Consul Mueller is accumulating new critics of his investigation into alleged Trump campaign – Russian collusion.

Judiciary appointments, hostility to Gorsuch, DeVos, and Mrs. Trump

President Trump’s latest slate of judicial nominees has been well received in conservative circles.

Liberals, however, are exceptionally upset over Supreme Court Justice Gorsuch’s new presence on the Court now that a major employee free speech case has just been granted certiorari. This Court’s decision could result in a major hit on trade union membership and members’ involuntary funding of Democratic Party causes and candidates.

Cambridge, Massachusetts vies with Hollywood and San Francisco as a center of embittered opponents of anything Trump. Betsy DeVos was heckled and interrupted in a speech at Harvard’s Institute on Politics, and a local elementary school librarian refused a gift by Melania Trump of Dr. Seuss books to her library, alleging that Dr. Seuss was a racist. Had the books been offered by former President Obama, also a Dr. Seuss fan, it is unlikely the librarian would have been so rude.

The National Football League faces new critics

The NFL is facing new criticism following its defense of players’ anti-patriotic demonstrations. The NFL isn’t enforcing its own rules for players and has benefited from exceptional taxpayer subsidies of its stadiums and a lucrative television monopoly from Congress.

Russia

Jon Huntsman — the former Utah governor, Republican presidential candidate, and ambassador to China — has just been confirmed as the new U.S. Ambassador to Russia. He’ll have a lot of issues to deal with. Russia has been attacking U.S. allies in Syria and stirring up racial hatred in the U.S. through Facebook ads.

Middle East

But U.S. diplomatic and military policy in the Middle East isn’t making much sense. U.S. Defense Secretary Mattis has just stopped off in Qatar to reassure that country’s leaders of continued U.S. support, despite the fact that Qatar funds many of the region’s anti-U.S. jihadist groups.

China

It’s not clear whether the U.S. has made any serious attempts to negotiate with China the unification and neutralization of Korea under South Korean auspices. That is likely the only alternative to a deadly, probably nuclear, war. China’s Xi Jinping is consolidating dictatorial power like Mao Tsetung before him and North Korea’s Kim Jong-un presently. At the same time China is building a strategic advantage in space warfare.

Musk, Mars, and rocket-velocity international air travel

With NASA floundering, U.S. hopes for advances in planetary exploration and international air travel are now centered on Elon Musk’s SpaceX company. Musk outlined his plans for Mars today in Adelaide, Australia. The same technology to accomplish this can be scaled down to make possible travel anywhere on Earth in under one hour, Musk said.

Proust’s shills

Fake reviews on Amazon, secretly paid for by sponsors, are really old hat. The French writer Marcel Proust promoted his famous novel Remembrance of Things Past in the same way.

Click here to go to the previous Founders Broadsheet (“Thursday’s news – 9/28/2017 – Mixed verdict for tax plan outline”)