David Drucker of the Washington Examiner reports on Republicans’ political calculations involving the recent federal tax cut.
It was christened the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. But the $1.4 trillion overhaul of the federal tax code might as well be called the “Save the Republican Majority Act.”
Senior Republicans are suddenly feeling better about their prospects for holding their party’s House and Senate majorities. And they’re assigning the lion’s share of the credit to the tax bill they shepherded through Congress against unanimous Democratic opposition.
“If you look at the rise in the generic ballot over the past six weeks, it corresponds almost directly to the rise in approval of the tax package and Republicans’ handling of the economy,” said Josh Holmes, former chief of staff to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky.
He’s not wrong. …
… [S]omething is happening to the dark blue Democratic tsunami that everyone saw coming, and it is happening just as the country heads toward Trump’s first midterm election. It is receding, shrinking into a swell that may prove navigable as voters increasingly feel the tax bill’s impact on the economy in general and their own pocketbooks in particular. They are reassessing their opinion of both the legislation and the Republicans who, without help from a single Democrat, delivered it.
