Midterm madness has begun: a view from above

The first of a two-part series taking a look at the people, the issues, the voters and the anger and division fueling this all-important 2018 midterm election.

Long anticipated, and promoted, on both sides of the political aisle, for more than a year, the midterm elections are less than four days away, sending candidates into a frenzy, of public appearances and fundraising; for every dollar counts in this do-or-die race, a report card on the Trump administration, and its’ policies, or as some would say, a reason to thwart the president on his seeming path towards America’s isolation.

If some, on the left, see this as revenge, then still others see it, mostly on the right as an opportunity to keep the president and his policies intact, to save the United States from the forces, within, and without, that threaten it.

In that consideration, the Muslim Travel Ban, the installation of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court, the renegotiation of NAFTA, the tax cuts, and the sending of troops to the Southern border to meet the advancing caravan of Central Americans, are all fair game, for retribution.

You’d have to have been living on Mars, the last decade or two, not to notice the intense partisanship that has gridlocked Washington, and as the battle continues, it does appear that Democrats have a strong chance of winning back the House and also for a return for the veteran Democrat Doyenne Nancy Pelosi, as Speaker of the House.

As The Economist briskly observed: “The country is more divided and angry than it has been in decades. Politicians routinely treat each other as rogues, fools or traitors; pipe bombs and a mass-shooting at a synagogue have tainted the close of the campaign. Toxic federal politics prevents action on vital issues, from immigration to welfare; it erodes Americans’ faith in their government; and it dims the beacon of American democracy abroad. The mid-term elections are a chance to stop the rot—and even to begin the arduous task of restoring faith.”

Newsweek is reporting that “in FiveThirtyEight's tracker for a generic ballot—a simple Democrat vs. Republican question—the Democrats were up 50.3 percent to 41.9 percent, on average. And FiveThirtyEight election model projected a more than 86 percent chance that the Democrats would take back the House of Representatives from Republicans, who currently control both chambers of Congress. But FiveThirtyEight gave the Democrats just a slim chance—17.8 percent—of winning the Senate, meaning the site gave the GOP an 82.2 percent chance of holding onto control.”

No less a person than another political veteran, former GOP Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich recently spoke at a “Washington Post Live event where he said there were "two out of three" odds that the House's Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi will become the next Speaker.”

“I would say, first of all, Nancy Pelosi is a very smart, very tough person who has earned her position by just brute hard work, by applying her intelligence and by applying a network that has sustained her for a long time,” and he also added, that “Anybody who thinks they’re going to outmanoeuvre her is up against somebody who has literally spent her lifetime — she’s been in this business forever.”

Some pollsters have said that the bruising Supreme Court nomination of Brett Kavanaugh brought out a defensive posture, among Republican men, and women, and  that the subsequent “bump” given to the GOP might unleash a red wave

Margot Cleveland in the right leaning USA Today, said that Republican women were fired up to vote, at the rate of 83 percent; but, “Not so fast Republicans,” said Douglas Schoen in The Hill, while Republican women “did rally around Kavanaugh” a look at women surveyed on the whole “show that only 30 percent believed Kavanaugh's denials that as a hard-drinking teenager he sexually assaulted Christine Blasey Ford.”

Going even further was Jennifer Rubin in WashingtonPost.com, who said that a Post poll “showed a massive 19-point swing toward Democrats since 2016,” and this was less than two weeks ago.

Partisanship aside there are also the issues -- nearly forgotten in a an avalanche of television ads, and robocalls -- and they are of utmost importance, say the Democrats as they especially use the potential loss of protection for those with pre-existing conditions, as the gutted, but still breathing, Obamacare could meet its final destruction by the GOP, if they remain in control of Congress.

Premiums are high, in some areas, and the prediction that young people would fund it, via the individual mandate (now repealed) proved to materialize, with many young people feeling invincible, and without bipartisan support, these costs soared.

On Monday, Sarah Sanders, the White House press secretary said, according to the Intelligencer, “The president’s health-care plan that he’s laid out,” she said, “covers preexisting conditions.”

If the best defense is an offense, then Sanders was on point, yet, as they pointed out,

“There are several lies embedded in this statement, beginning with the premise that Trump has a plan at all. Trump ran for president promising repeatedly he would cover everybody, and then confessed, “Nobody knew health care could be so complicated.”

“He never came up with a plan that would cover everybody, or anything close to it. Republicans in both chambers devised plans that would cut health-care coverage and expose more poor or sick people to higher costs, or make access to medical care completely unaffordable. When the Senate failed to pass anything, the legislative initiative died.”

If neglect was death by a thousand blows, then, in another swipe with the surgical blade, “he denied payments owed to insurers under the law, in order to prod some of them to exit the markets,” and “his administration flouted the law’s protections by allowing insurers to sell low-cost, bare-bones plans to healthy people, which can be sold at cheap rates because they exclude coverage for medical care needed by people with preexisting condition.”

 Next up in the GOP quiver, for votes, are taxes, and the mantra that the cuts are saving the American middle-class, but in reality, have skewered the blow by the loss of the state and local tax deduction, a saving grace for many families, in all classes, but especially for those middle-class families with children.

The removal of the state and local income tax deductions affects not only  those taxpayers who itemize on their returns, but also hits cities as well as states that have, ironically large Democratic majorities, as well as those that voted for Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election.

When it was released House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi who commented that the plan “gives away the store to the wealthy while sticking the middle class with the bill.”

Working in a vacuum, say some critics, is the reduction of the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 20 percent, but that “change isn't as dramatic as it might seem because due to loopholes and other maneuvers, big U.S. corporations currently pay an effective tax rate of only 18.6%, according to the Congressional Budget Office.”

New York, is an example of how to raise the ire of those long used to something, to only have it taken away: “The benefit allows the average New Yorker to deduct roughly $20,500 annually from his or her federal taxable income, according to the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center,” reported Crain’s New York at the time of release.

“The Independent Budget Office has estimated that doing away with the deduction would increase New York City residents' taxable income by $28 billion, causing their collective federal tax bill to rise by $8 billion a year. The state and local deduction especially benefits people with incomes of $100,000 or more who live in places like New York, New Jersey and California, where state, local and property-tax bills are high, “they also reported.

Another byproduct of the cuts is that they have contributed to the national deficits, “and is on track to hit $1 trillion in 2019. The laws enacted in the last year will add $2.4 trillion to the national debt by 2027.

Vox in their report noted that “In 2018, the federal government’s revenue was only up 0.4 percent — one of the lowest growth rates in half a century. According to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, a bipartisan group that advocates for fiscal responsibility, the slow revenue rate is in large part due to the tax bill. Taking inflation into account, federal revenues were actually down between 4 to 9 percent this year because of the tax cuts.

The second reason the deficit rose is because the government also increased how much it’s spending. Republicans agreed to a massive budget deal with this year, in order to give the military the biggest funding boost in history. To compromise with Democrats, the budget deal also hiked up funding for domestic programs.”

Next up is a look at tariffs, voters, employment numbers, and the latest polls, just before the Tuesday election day. Stay tuned.