[FRIAM] Fwd: Grad Students Would Be Hit By Massive Tax Hike Under House GOP Plan : NPR

[┣glen┫]

I don't know.  I *wish* that were the case, that the (mostly) lawyers we elect to argue about stuff we don't want to argue about, were crafty enough to plant poison pills.  Was it Napoleon who said: "Never ascribe malice where incompetence will suffice."?  We could modify that slightly to: Never ascribe cleverness where incompetence will suffice.  But I'm gullible.  Our (Oregon) congress members seem relatively authentic, even our Republican.  But who knows?

   https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/disliking-congress-as-a-whole-and-as-individuals/

On 11/21/2017 04:38 AM, Eric Smith wrote:
> I wonder if the relevant committees, too cowardly to fight t in the open, are looking for small proxy wars that would absolve them of the responsibility for being associated with a tax plan even they don’t think they could get away with indefinitely through the next several election cycles.  After all, they are mean, and in many fundamental things profoundly stupid, but in terms of infighting tactics and evading responsibility they are quite sophisticated.  
> 
> I guess that question turns on whether the elimintation of this one item would have any significant effect on the form or passage of the rest of the package.
> 
> Shame I have no professional knowledge in this sphere.  I don’t even know enough about the ones drafting the bill to have a sense of whether meanness, or cowardly shrewdness, are more plausible motives for their choices.


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␦glen?