Thanks as always to Pirate’s Cove and The Other McCain for the Rule Five links!

The GOP tax plan is now law, and already the benefits for working folks are piling in, as noted here and here.  Excerpts and my comments follow:

From IVB:   Gee, that was fast. Just one day after the tax bill was finally passed, companies were already scrambling to do things with their money. It’s an impressive list  and, no doubt, not comprehensive:

• AT&T’s CEO said the company will hand out bonuses of $1,000 to more than 200,000 of its workers in the U.S., thanks to tax reform.
• Comcast NBCUniversal, not to be outdone, also handed out a special bonus of $1,000 to more than 1,000 employees, thanks to “passage of tax reform and the FCC’s action on broadband.”
• Boeing’s CEO Dennis Muilenburg said his company will spend $300 million, with $100 million going to charity, $100 million for workforce development (including training and education for Boeing workers), and $100 million for “workplace of the future” infrastructure.
• Fifth Third Bankcorp said it will give 13,500 employees a bonus and lift the minimum wage to $15 an hour.
• Wells Fargo also raised its minimum wage to $15 an hour, and said it would donate $400 million to community and nonprofit groups in 2018.

Wait, wait, wait – I thought that the tax rate cuts and tax reforms were only supposed to help the 1% and a few corporate fatcats?  Because it sure looks to me like a lot of just plain folks are getting some nice bonuses and pay raises, and that’s before one iota of the new tax laws take effect.

From RCP:  With President Trump’s signing of the big tax-cut bill, the GOP snatched victory from the jaws of defeat. Suddenly, the political and economic landscapes have changed. The Republican party has turned the tables on the Democrats.

Trump and the GOP are on the side of the growth angels with the passage of powerful tax-cut legislation to boost business investment, wages, and take-home family pay. The Democrats, meanwhile, are left with stale class-warfare slogans about tax cuts for the rich.

Ironically, government unions, with their pension plans heavily invested in equity shares, will benefit hugely from the tax-cut-led stock market boom. They boo the GOP bill while they should be cheering.

But there’s a lot of irony to go around. Unlike the pro-growth, tax-cut party of JFK, today’s left-lurching Democrats root against economic growth, the stock market, and a powerful prosperity at home that lends strength abroad.

This is not a good place for Democrats to be.

No, it’s not a good place for Democrats to be.  If the GOP has any brains – something which is often not clearly in evidence – they’ll play this big in the 2018 election cycle.  Republicans in Congress have been pretty useless the last few election cycles, but if they had to pick one thing to get right, this was a good one.  I haven’t yet taken the time to read the whole bill, but I’ve read a few summaries, and here’s how I would characterize it:

It’s a good start.