The Tax Bill

If the Republican tax bill irresponsibly takes from the poor and middle class and gives to the rich, as is widely reported, the party will have a major communications problem in an election year. How do you explain to constituents that you have worked on their behalf? It is an issue tailor-made to put Democrats back in power, especially with a wildly out of control President. It will be interesting to see how Republicans spin implications of the bill and what they do, if anything, to clean up sections that are unintentionally hurtful. They won’t have much time given demands of campaigning, and there is a good chance Democrats will block them from making the bill better. The communications practitioners on both the House and Senate side will be working overtime trying to find messages that make a bad bill palatable. If on the other hand, the bill is not so damaging, senators and congressmen will still have a major communications challenge to turn around the conventional belief in time to be elected. Either way, I wouldn’t want to be a Republican operative now.