As GOP tax cuts take effect, Democrats struggle for line of attack

KOKOMO, Ind. – Democrats predicted a political backlash for Republicans in December when the GOP pushed through a broad-based tax cut.

But at the outset of the 2018 campaign season, Democrats’ early optimism appears less well founded here, where Democrat Joe Donnelly is facing a tough Senate reelection fight.

The new law is rising in popularity as businesses in Indiana and elsewhere trumpet bonuses and bigger paychecks. And while Donnelly and fellow Democrats struggle to craft a consistent attack on the law, Republicans are united in touting the tax cuts and slamming Democrats who voted against them.

The three Republicans vying to replace Donnelly hit that point repeatedly as they met on a debate stage last week. “He said he would work for a tax plan that would help middle-class families,” said one of those candidates, Rep. Luke Messer. “We delivered a tax plan that helped middle-class families, and he was nowhere to be found.”

Americans have just started to see the tax cut show up in their paychecks this month, and along with those boosts in pay have come a spate of recent polls showing public opinion turning in favor of the tax legislation – leaving Democrats the unenviable task of trying to convince voters that a law increasing their paychecks is bad for the country.

“That’s a great thing that people are getting some benefits,” the low- key Donnelly said in an interview at a coffee shop in downtown Indianapolis last week. But the first-term senator contended that if voters understood the full implications of the legislation, they might be inclined to turn down those $1,000 bonuses or retirement-account contributions from Midwestern businesses such as Anthem, a health-insurance firm, and Fifth Third Bancorp.

Tim Phillips, president of Americans for Prosperity, which is running ads against Donnelly and Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., said the tax law will be the most important election issue for his group.

Democrats who opposed it “chose partisan politics, and the price they pay is going to be extremely high,” Phillips said.

And while Republicans are united in promoting the tax law and at- tacking Democrats who opposed it, Democrats are juggling a range of responses.

Activist groups on the left are clamoring for the law’s full repeal, putting pressure on liberal lawmakers who for the most part are stopping short of pushing to undo it entirely. Meanwhile. red-state Democrats such as Donnelly must craft an even more nuanced response. It’s a communications challenge many Democrats appeared to have not foreseen when the tax bill passed late last year over their unanimous obstruction.

The growing challenge for Democrats was clear in comments from voters last week in Kokomo, a central Indiana town hit hard by the recession but creeping back toward prosperity thanks to auto-industry jobs. As rain fell one week- day, residents found refuge in the small but cheery Markland Mall, anchored by a Target on one end and a Carson’s department store on the other. Several spoke approvingly of the tax cuts and claimed their paychecks had already gone up as a result.

Brent Duff, 54, dismissed Democratic complaints that the majority of benefits would go to the wealthy while the middle class would make do with “crumbs,” in the words of House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif.

“I could be handing out hundred-dollar bills at the front of this building and someone would complain about it,” scoffed Duff, who works at Aptiv, an automotive-parts technology company. The tax bill “has been a huge advantage,” he said.