Trump Pushes Tax Reform

 
With the Thanksgiving holiday now over, the push for tax reform kicks into high gear.  The Senate is expected to vote on its tax reform plan this week. 
 
Today, several senators on the Finance Committee, led by Chairman Orrin Hatch (R-UT), had lunch with President Trump at the White House.  Tomorrow, the president will meet with the Republican senators on Capitol Hill to rally support for tax cuts and reforms to the complicated tax code.
 
But the legislation remains a work in progress.  Several senators have expressed reservations about various provisions, and, as the Obamacare debacle demonstrated, Majority Leader McConnell can only afford two defections and no surprises.
 
President Trump recognized this reality in a morning tweet.  He wrote:
 
"The Tax Cut Bill is coming along very well, great support. With just a few changes, some mathematical, the middle class and job producers can get even more in actual dollars and savings and the pass through provision becomes simpler and really works well!"
 
While it's not clear what all of the changes are, the president's reference to "pass through provisions" was clearly aimed at moving Senator Ron Johnson (R-WI) from "No" to "Yes."  According to one analysis, as many as six GOP senators remain uncommitted at this stage.
 
Keep in mind that whatever the Senate passes will have to be reconciled with the plan approved by the House of Representatives in a conference committee.  So even more changes are still possible, if not likely, in the days ahead.  We will keep you posted.
 
 
 
What's Next?
 
Donald Trump was elected to end business as usual in Washington, D.C., and there is no question that he is pushing a bold agenda -- from healthcare reform to immigration reform and tax reform.  Next up on the president's list may be welfare reform.
 
"The president really wants to lead on this.  He has delivered that message loud and clear to us," said Paul Winfree, a top domestic policy official in the White House.  "We've opened conversations with the leadership in Congress to let them know that that is the direction we are heading."
 
Winfree added that an executive order on welfare reform has also been drafted.  But there are limits to what the administration can do on its own.  Significant reforms to our welfare system will require cooperation from Congress, and there is little guarantee of that.
 
 
 
Transforming America
 
There is a methodical, unending effort by the left to deconstruct America.  Historical monuments are being attacked, including those honoring America's founders.  If you disrespect the police and the national anthem, our elites consider you a hero, even "citizen of the year."  Every holiday is under attack. 
 
We got another example of this over the Thanksgiving holiday when the Washington Post ran an editorial that attacked the religious roots of Thanksgiving and suggested that the real lesson we should learn was how the Pilgrims adapted to climate change.
 
We know what happens if you are exposed to this kind of nonsense day after day after day.  There is a reason that Millennials are the least patriotic generation.  They have been subjected to the left's growing anti-Americanism throughout their education.  But now the rest of us are being subjected to it during football games.
 
Flawed as he was, George Washington was a man of real character.  Stories about Washington and the cherry tree were used to teach children about the virtue of honesty.  When I was growing up, most children were required to study and memorize the Gettysburg Address. 
 
We were taught to love America and appreciate the freedoms we possessed.  The idea that anyone would "take a knee" during the national anthem was unheard of. 
 
The left routinely rants and raves about America's sins.  It decries the "genocide" unleashed by Christopher Columbus and acts as if the world would have been better off if the Pilgrims never came to North America. 
 
The so-called "progressive left" is turning patriotic Americans into aliens in our own country.  Anyone who was born here, who is proud of the Founding Fathers and proud of what America has done for the world, is made by cultural elites to feel like strangers so the left can complete its "fundamental transformation" of America. 
 
For example, a left-wing MSNBC host tweeted yesterday that rural Americans were a "core threat to our Democracy."  Her disdain for the values of Middle America sounded a lot like Barack Obama's complaints about "small town Americans" who "get bitter and cling to guns and religion" or Hillary Clinton's condemnation of half the country as "deplorable and irredeemable."
 
Several surveys have found that this sense of cultural angst -- feeling like a stranger in your own country -- played a major role in President Trump's victory.  The left's constant attacks against America drove many voters to support the candidate who advocated for "America First" and who pledged to "make America great again."  
 
Judging from that Washington Post editorial about Thanksgiving and that tweet about rural Americans, the left hasn't learned many lessons from the election.