So, Trump was elected a year ago.

[Labster]

It's kind of heartening the respect I hear for Jimmy Carter these days.  He was not terribly effective as President, largely due to events beyond his control.  But I feel he is the best Ex-President that America has ever had.  And that includes competition from Taft, who went to the Supreme Court, and Washington, who had the good sense to quit the job and stay out of politics for the sake of the republic.  Carter is a man who is always willing to run into crises to help negotiate peace, builds houses for the poor in spare time, and is largely responsible for the impending extinction of the parasitic guinea worm.  Trump has always wanted to great, and Carter has always wanted to be good.

The good news for us here is that the Republicans are going to fail.  This is also the bad news.  As much fun as it is to have supermajority rule here in California, it's also worrying that the CA GOP is continuing its slide into irrelevance here.  Both because it would be nice to have a functioning multiparty democracy, and because it means that things will be so much worse in the rest of the country.  I have friends that are establishment conservatives, as establishment as they come, and they're railing against their own party leadership.  It's sad times.

I truly believe the GOP won't be able to pass a tax cut this year, either.  For many reasons, because Trump is a distraction: he neither knows nor cares about the details of bills.  He concedes negotiating points over Twitter, then clarifies that he'll keep it as a negotiating point, but it won't make it in the final bill (what???).  And it's hard to build a support base for a bill when indictments keep happening around the executive branch.  

The bill itself isn't better.  Eliminating certain deductions that target coastal states will result in tax increase here (home mortgage, state taxes), and that will force Republicans in those states into a game of chicken with different parts of their base.   My pet peeve is that the bill will increase taxes on grad students by $2000 to $10000 annually, by eliminating the deduction for tuition waivers.  These are my complaints before even getting to the beneficiaries of the tax cuts.  Bills this extensive can pass as part of a grand bargain between the parties, so that everyone shares the blame.  But on razor-thing margins, run by people who appear to have no idea wtf they are doing?  Not a chance.  We'll still have to fight it anyway, sadly.

Saw the groundhog today, looks like it's gonna be another year of failure for the Republican party.