Republican lawmakers, still licking their wounds from the healthcare wipe out, had been eyeing tax reform as a chance to get back on track—whatever that means. This GOP-led government has been off the rails from the day Trump took to the oath of office. Anyway, hope springs eternal among fools but this week has been so bad that even fools are starting to fret about the tax effort. The Washington Post writes:
Several key lawmakers said Trump will need to focus on selling the GOP’s tax plan when Congress returns in September, and they worried that the difficult job of passing a massive tax package will be nearly impossible without the president playing a key role.
“At the end of the day, President Trump will be incredibly crucial to the success of this,” House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Kevin Brady (R-Tex.) told reporters here Wednesday. “Tax reform is the signature issue of this presidency.”
Earth to Brady: Trump's too busy defending white supremacists and obliterating anything that was left of American ideals to sell your tax plan (and for the moment, we'll let slide the fact that there is no "plan," no consensus, or even a set of back-of-the-beverage-nap bullet points that Republicans are coalescing around).
Seriously, the Friday exit of Steve Bannon from the White House is going to launch to GOP blood bath: Either Bannon will use Breitbart News to make war on Trump if he strays from the white nationalist movement that brung him, or Bannon will use it to make war on congressional lawmakers who stand in the way of Trump's white nationalist agenda.
No matter what, Washington will be besieged by a GOP civil war and every other normal semblance of governance—including passing legislation—will perish in the process. Regardless of which side of this Trump is on—the giving or receiving end—he does not have the mental stability, temperament, or discipline to focus on things like legislation in this situation. Making war is his specialty, it feeds his pathologies.
Rep. Carlos Curbelo (R-Fla.), who along with Reps. Peter J. Roskam (R-Ill.) and David Schweikert (R-Ariz.) accompanied Brady on the trip, said that while lawmakers were used to working in “a very distracting environment,” the push for tax reform would require Trump to help refocus attention away from day-to-day scandal and back to policy details in a way he never did during the health-care debate.
Prepare for more distraction, fellas ... incoming!