By Veronica Morley

Features Editor

 How much do you know about the Republicans’ tax bill that just passed the Senate? If the answer is not much, and you are not a wealthy CEO with a private jet, stock options and land, you may be shocked next year come tax season.

  If you were to ask our GOP representatives or our president, they would tell you how amazing this bill is for our economy. Especially for us young adults and middle income individuals. According to Congress, we are getting a huge tax break.

  However, the day before the Senate was to vote on the magical tax bill, the Joint Committee on Taxation hit them with a little dose of reality.

  On Nov. 30, they released their economic analysis of the bill stating that over a period of 10 years the budget deficit would raise $1 trillion.

  Sounds like a break, right?

  Jim Tankersley, who reports on taxes and the economy for the New York Times, said that when Republicans were confronted with the report and the large deficit, their response was basically that it is not true.

  “Republicans are just really true believers in the growth power of tax cuts, and they have talked themselves into the idea that these cuts will pay for themselves even though no other credible model of this bill that we’ve seen has suggested they would come anywhere close,” said Tankersley on the NYT podcast, The Daily.

  This blind devotion to a person, idea or program, even though all the facts, history and experts say it will not work, sounds almost like a crazy cult or, you know, Republicans and their tax bill.

  Most of the Republican representatives wanted to move forward with the bill but Rep. Bob Corker and Rep. Jeff Flake thought that just maybe they should question the bill and look into this report.

  It was reminiscent of that scene in the movie “World War Z,” when Gerry (Brad Pitt) meets Mossad leader Jurgen Warmbruun (Ludi Boeken) to ask him why he believed a random memo foretelling of a zombie apocalypse.

  Warmbruun tells him that after the Jews did not heed warnings about the Holocaust, the 1972 Olympics, or the threat of Arab troops, they changed their way of looking at possible threats. He says that if nine of their officials look at a problem and all believe it is nothing, it is up to the 10th man to disagree, no matter what.

  Well it looks like Corker and Flake were our 10th (and 11th) man to save us from the apocalypse.

  When the Senate denied the tax bill, House Republicans went back to the drawing board to look at the issues and very carefully address the deficit.

  After long consideration and careful deliberation, the Republicans produced a thoughtful new tax reform bill for the great American people.

  Just kidding.

  The Republicans revised the tax bill as if they were students who waited until the night before to write their 30-page term paper and now are just trying to meet the word count.

  President Trump tweeted on Dec. 2, “Biggest Tax Bill and Tax Cut in history just passed in the Senate. Now these great Republicans will be going for final passage. Thank you to House and Senate Republicans for your hard work and commitment!”

  Trump’s support for this tax bill has never wavered. I guess it goes to show that as far as loyalty, even Trump can pull it off at times.

  But Trump did not write this tax bill and is not to blame for its shortcomings.

  But do we really have to hear one more time how much Trump’s corporate friends hate him for supporting this or watch him call our troops in Afghanistan to tell them they can expect a flood of tax cuts when they return?

  Because if there is one thing our military men and women want to come home to, it is tax cuts.

  This tax bill may not be the end of the world, but it is not the economic fix that our leaders promised us.