Early Byrd Special

Explaining the GOP’s rapid slide into authoritarianism is complicated, but you can’t tell the story if you don’t understand that Republicans have been unwilling to abandon huge, unpopular tax cuts for the rich as an organizing principle. In their view of things, if popular majorities don’t support regressive tax cuts, then democracy has to go. So it’s no surprise that last week House Republicans published its blueprint for special legislation that would cut taxes by many trillions of dollars, and partially make up the cost through enormous cuts to Medicaid.

In this episode, Matt and Brian (who used the wrong mic like an asshole) discuss:

• Why Democrats are so eager for Republicans to shift emphasis from attacking the civil service and the rule of law to advancing huge tax cuts for the rich.

• Can Republicans, with their small Senate majority and tiny House majority, actually pass anything significant

• Have they convinced themselves that there’s never a big political downside to cutting rich people’s taxes?

Then, behind the paywall, why that assumption is more likely than usual to blow up in their face. How many people would lose their health insurance if Republicans cut $2 trillion from Medicaid? How dramatically would trillions of dollars in (mostly deficit-financed tax cuts increase inflation? If Republicans have doomed themselves no matter what (either they cause economic harm, or they abandon their legislative agenda), why don’t Democrats train more of their focus on the unfolding constitutional crisis, before Republicans succeed at wiping out constitutional government.

All that, plus the full Politix archive are available to paid subscribers—just upgrade your subscription and pipe full episodes directly to your favorite podcast app via your own private feed.

Further reading:

• Matt on the disconnect between Donald Trump’s aggressive power-grabbing and his party’s legislative incompetence.

• Real-world consequences of the Trump-Musk assault on the work force are really bad.

• The famous George H.W. Bush-Bill Clinton exchange on the real world impact of federal debt.

• We’re rationing eggs now.