Left Marooned by Trump Tax Cut

Democrats and liberals have bet the house that President Trump's tax cut would either not pass or not work. Now that the first has happened and the second is happening, they have no good place to position themselves.

They complain that it gives too much to the rich and does nothing for the poor, an accusation that rings more and more flat as black unemployment reaches a 20-year low.

They can argue that it is a giveaway to rich corporations, even as its job-creating impact among smaller companies becomes more evident.

The impact of this tax cut is too wide and too broad for even Democrats to miss in their daily economic lives.

The left will, of course, attribute the economic growth to President Obama — just as it blamed the bad economic times on George W. Bush. But, after a year of radical Trump regulatory and economic changes — and the passage of a tax cut bill all agree is a radical departure — the blame or credit for economic change would seem to be fairly affixed to the Trump policies, not to any residual Obama hangover.

Democrats can argue that the substantial increase in the deficit is the real cost of the tax cut and that its economic harm will be felt for years. But they had better hasten to make that argument. The Treasury Department estimates that, at a growth rate of more than 3 percent, the deficit won't go up.

(In the last two quarters, the growth rate was 3.1 percent and 3.2 percent respectively.)

Democrats have painted themselves into a corner by their violent opposition to the tax cut and their partisan refusal to cooperate in shaping it.

Of course, they can switch gears and attack Trump over the phony Russian collusion story or await his next tasteless tweet. They can call all those who back Trump "deplorable" and ask how such a monster can ever be president. But they are too late with their recycled rhetoric.

The fact is, the left is out of options

Dick Morris, who served as adviser to former Sen. Trent Lott (R-Miss.) and former President Clinton, is the author of 16 books, including his latest, Screwed and Here Come the Black Helicopters.