Will S. Florida’s GOP lawmakers run on helping the rich?

South Florida Republicans apparently believe that backing lousy, unpopular legislation will help their party retain control of the U.S. House.

Last week, GOP lawmakers in potential swing districts — Carlos Curbelo and Mario DiazBalart in Miami-Dade County and Brian Mast in the Treasure Coast — touted their votes for the so-called Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. The third Miami-Dade Republican, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, also supported the bill, but she isn’t running next year.

For Curbelo, Diaz-Balart and Mast, it’s a curious bet on their futures. A George Washington University researcher studied 30 years of public opinion polls for The Washington Post. He found only one piece of major legislation that had less public appeal than the Republican tax plan. That was the Republican plan this year to repeal the Affordable Care Act. And now Senate Republicans want to include an ACA sledgehammer in their tax bill.

The scorn is justified. Republicans have turned a good idea — tax reform — into a budget-busting tax cut for corporations and the rich. The party that once preached fiscal conservatism and debt reduction now favors helping the GOP donor class.

Objective, credible analysis from the congressional Joint Committee on Taxation concludes that the House and Senate plans are skewed against households that make less money. Under the House plan, the committee found, tax bills for about 10 percent of those earning between $50,000 and $75,000 actually would rise in four years. By 2027, nearly one-third of those Americans would pay more.

So House Republicans cite numbers from the Tax Foundation to make their case. The foundation receives its financing primarily from Charles and David Koch and major corporations.

The Koch brothers, whose combined net worth exceeds $80 billion and who bankroll many Republican-affiliated groups, want to pay less income tax and to have their heirs avoid the estate tax. Businesses want Congress to reduce the top corporate rate from 35 percent to 20 percent, though the Congressional Budget Office found that the effective corporate rate after deductions is 18.5 percent.

Aligning policy with a special-interest group can be tricky. After the House vote, Curbelo claimed that middle-income families would save $1,500 from the House bill. Diaz-Balart put the number at $1,945. Mast said those families would save $2,250.

In an email Tuesday, a spokesman for Mast said the $1,945 figure is correct. The Tax Foundation, he said, adjusted its numbers after Mast issued the statement.

At first, the Senate version treated the less affluent better. Eliminating the Affordable Care Act’s individual mandate, however, would drive up taxes for those households on the same timetable. They would lose subsidies and tax credits to buy health insurance.

In addition, the House and Senate would make the corporate tax cuts permanent but phase out the individual cuts starting in 2025. As President Trump’s budget director acknowledges, that’s a “gimmick” to claim that the legislation wouldn’t raise the deficit by more than $1.5 trillion over the next decade. If that number were higher, the legislation would need 60 votes in the Senate, not just a GOP party-line majority.

And unlike the 1986 tax bill, this is most definitely partisan legislation. Three decades ago, a liberal like Sen. Ted Kennedy voted for the tax bill. Democratic congressman Claude Pepper and President Reagan crafted the Social Security portion of the bill. This time, Republican House leaders held no hearings before released their legislation. Senate GOP leaders — who let 13 white men craft their health care bill — now want to pass something quickly, get the bill to a conference committee and give their donors a Christmas present.

Though leaderless and bumbling, Democrats know that some of the 24 seats they must flip in 2018 to retake the House could be in South Florida. Hillary Clinton won Curbelo’s, Diaz-Balart’s and Ros-Lehtinen’s districts. Trump and Mitt Romney carried Mast’s district — which runs from northern Palm Beach County to St. Lucie County — but in 2012 voters chose a Democrat for Congress.

Republican leaders want to raise the standard deduction so more households will take it rather than itemize, thus simplifying the tax code. Whatever Republicans give the less affluent, however, they could take away more. Benefits for the wealthy are certain.

This is the current Republican Party — bad policy done badly. Curbelo, Diaz-Balart and Mast may be secretly hoping it fails.