The rot runs deep

Today’s Republicans will say anything to help the rich

Thursday, The New York Times revealed that Steven Mnuchin, the Treasury secretary, has lied for months about GOP tax plans. Mr. Mnuchin has repeatedly claimed to have a Treasury report that — unlike every independent, nonpartisan assessment — found that the proposed tax cuts would pay for themselves, increasing growth and hence revenues so much that the deficit wouldn’t rise. But there never has been such a report; Treasury staffers weren’t even asked to study the issue.

Also on Thursday, Sen. John McCain — who has delivered sanctimonious lectures on the importance of “regular order” in the Senate — declared his support for the GOP tax bill. Remember, Senate leaders rushed this bill to the floor without any hearings or expert testimony. In fact, as Mr. McCain declared his support, some key provisions were still secret so they could be put up for a vote with no time for debate.

Sen. McCain said he’d made his decision after “careful consideration.” Careful consideration of what? He didn’t even wait for an analysis of the bill’s economic impact by the Joint Committee on Taxation, Congress’ own scorekeeper.

Later that day, the joint committee delivered its predictable verdict: Like all other responsible studies, its review found that the Senate bill would do little for U.S. economic growth, while hurting tens of millions of middle-class Americans, blowing up the deficit, lavishing benefits on the wealthy and opening new frontiers for tax avoidance. But thanks to the moral collapse of Mr. McCain and other supposedly principled Republicans, at the time this column was filed the bill nonetheless seemed on track to clear the Senate.

Aren’t politicians always cynical? Not to this degree.

There’s no precedent for this frantic rush to pass major legislation before anyone can figure out what’s in it or what it does. The Affordable Care Act went through months of hearings before it arrived on the Senate floor; the full Senate then debated the bill for 25 days.

There’s also a big difference between political spin — yes, all politicians emphasize the most attractive aspects of their policies — and the outright lies that have marked every aspect of the selling of this tax bill.

Mr. Mnuchin said his department had a study showing great effects on growth; that was a lie. Donald Trump said the bill is “not good for me” personally; that’s a lie. Sen. John Cornyn said, “This is not a bill that is designed primarily to benefit the wealthy and the large businesses”; that was a lie. Sen. Bob Corker said he wouldn’t support a plan “adding one penny to the deficit”; that was a lie.

In other words, this whole process involves a level of bad faith we haven’t seen in U.S. politics since defenders of slavery physically assaulted their political foes on the Senate floor.

There are two further things worth pointing out about this moral rot.

First, it is not only a story about Donald Trump; the rot pervades the Republican Party. Some details of the legislation do look custom-designed to benefit the Trump family, but the fraudulence of the sales effort would have been much the same under any Republican president.

Second, the rot is wide as well as deep. Just about every GOP member of Congress, including the sainted John McCain, is willing to put partisan loyalty above principle, voting for what they have to know is terrible and irresponsible legislation. The point, however, is that the epidemic of bad faith extends well beyond elected or appointed officials.

Consider the Republicanleaning economists who put out an open letter lending aid and comfort to Mnuch-inesque promises of miraculous growth. They didn’t explicitly claim that tax cuts would pay for themselves, but they didn’t clearly state that they wouldn’t, either, leaving Mr. Mnuchin free to claim — as they knew he would — that their letter vindicated his position.

Weasel-wording aside, it also turns out that the letter misrepresented the research on which it was supposedly based. In other words, the rot of bad faith that has spread through the GOP has also infected many intellectuals affiliated with the party. Not all, but the conservatives who have stood by their principles have had little impact.

What will it take to root out the rot? Overwhelming electoral defeat. Unless or until that happens, there’s no telling how low the GOP will sink.