Tax reform bill has the ultimate plot twist

The tax reform bill has become like a stew – a giant pot of jambalaya – and every time a member of the Senate walks past the pot, in goes a new ingredient.

The stew then goes over to the House where they toss in who knows what, and then it all comes back to the Senate for a final vote, which will probably come right after that Alabama Senate election. And with the margin so close, that means the biggest tax reform in 30 years could depend on whether Alabama elects the Republican or the Democrat.

With all this going on, it’s easy to forget the principle at the heart of the tax bill, which is that when corporations pay lower taxes. Then, as White House Counsel Gary Cohn put it, “We create wage inflation. Which means the workers get paid more, the workers spend more, and we see the whole trickle down through the economy.”

When corporations pay lower taxes, our bosses will raise our salaries.

The money will trickle like a magical stream of water that flows from the executive suite, past the pockets of upper management, past the lawyers, past the shareholders, and directly into our middle-class pockets.

And then the coal miners will go back to work, the power will come back on in Puerto Rico, and the federal deficit will heal itself.

And yet, the vote margin is so thin, we face the very real possibility that whether this grand experiment goes forward may depend not on economic theory, but on whether some guy named Roy Moore was too friendly with teenagers 38 years ago.

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