Trump tax bill passes

No one seems ashamed that the passage of Donald Trump's tax legislation, which was not publicly debated, will save the president of the United States between $11 million and $15 million. And he's not alone as a beneficiary: Others in Trump's retinue also are to receive the trinkets of victory.

Donald Trump and six members of his inner circle will be big winners of the Republicans’ vast tax overhaul, with the president personally benefiting from a tax cut of up to $15m a year, research shows.

The US president chalked up his first big legislative win on Wednesday with the $1.5tn bill, the most sweeping revamp of the tax code in three decades, slashing taxes for corporations and the wealthy and dealing the heaviest blow yet to Obamacare.

Middle-class and poor wage earners receive tax breaks -- the promise Trump made -- for a limited number of years, but the cuts to the wealthy are fixed in perpetuity. Finally, the bullshit of "trickle-down" economics has been enshrined in law.

Democrats are vowing to hang the Trump hand-out around Republican necks ("the Republicans have their very own Obamacare" read one approximate quote), but it is hard not to imagine 1. voters' forgetting their latest screwing and 2. the Democrats blowing a golden opportunity.

"Crass" hardly begins to describe the depths to which the United States has been consigned. Suddenly, "overhaul" becomes "keelhauled."