Gabble Unplugged

Paul Harvey was famous for his new brocadcasts on the radio, which eventually grew to his "The rest of the story" show, where he expounded on a news item, personality of somethihg else where we knew the story, but not the full story. He then told us that which we did not know about this person or issue. We could use Paul Harvey today.

Republicans, who are giddy over passage of their first major piece of legislation in almost one year, with the recent passage of the tax bill are telling us one side of the story.

Democrats, who are lamenting this legislation, are telling us the other side.

Where is the truth? Again, like many partisan issues, probably somewhere in the middle. The problem is that like anything involving government action (or inaction), we will not really see the impact for several years.

However, there are some sides of the story that we already know, and in my opinion, the bad outwieghs the good.

Repubicans are admitting that on its own, the bill will increase the defecit. They argue that job growth and the trickle down impact of comanies seeing these lower tax rates will more than make up for this increase. Again, we will not know if this is true for several years.However, the history on which we have to look at certainly does not back up this theory. (Not great)

We also know that while the tax cuts for corporations are permanent, those doled out to individuals are not only smaller, but temporary. Long enough to get us to or through the next electoin cycle. (Not good)

We  also have heard that in addition to the trickle down of wealth, Republicans are also looking at cuts to "entitlements" such as Social Security, Medicare, etc. This willl obviousy negatively impact our seniors and those at the bottom of our econmic totem pole. (Not good)

The legislation effectively kills the Affordable Care Act, by getting rid of the Health Insurance Mandate. Depending on your position, this in and of itself may not be bad. Unfortunately, they have no solution to replace the ACA, or to manage rate increases. (Not good)

A provision to allow oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Area was also attached to the bill, that assuming everything operates cleanly and efficiently may not be that big of a deal, but that is a huge assumption to make. (Not good)

In short, there are many things we do not yet know, so it is impossible to evaluate whether this could be good for the country overall. Unfortuantely, what wo do know is overwhelmingly negative for the average American.