The Republican reality problem..

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In Alabama, 71 percent of Republicans say they believe the allegations against Roy Moore are fabricated. In Washington, President Donald Trump believes he “won the popular vote if you deduct the millions of people who voted illegally” (he didn’t), that he had “the biggest Electoral College win since Ronald Reagan” (nope), that his inauguration crowds were the largest ever (they weren’t), and that virtually any information he dislikes is “FAKE NEWS!” It’s comforting to imagine this denialism as a particular affliction of the Trumpist factions of the modern GOP. It isn’t. It’s present even in the most sober, credible, and respected corners of the Republican Party. It predates Trump and Moore, and it arguably led to their rise.

The battle over tax reform has been a particularly stunning example. Republicans in the House and Senate have passed bills that will add a trillion dollars or more to the debt, and they simply pretend otherwise, despite mountains of evidence (and common sense) to the contrary. The debate shows that the most established of establishment Republicans are just as resistant to unpleasant information, just as happy to live in fantasy worlds of their own concoction, just as likely to wave away overwhelming evidence as partisan fabrication.

That the GOP tax bills will add to the debt is not a controversial, or even arguable, conclusion. The proposals have been assessed by the right-wing Tax Foundation, the centrist Tax Policy Center, the respected Penn Wharton Budget Model, and even Congress’s internal referee, the Joint Committee on Taxation. A number of these estimates were so-called “dynamic scores” — the Republican gold standard for tax analysis, which takes into account the possible growth from tax changes and the new revenues that growth can create. 

Every single one of these estimates concluded that the GOP’s tax plan would add $1 trillion or more to the debt over the next decade. “Tax cuts do not pay for themselves — they do not even come close to paying for themselves,” wrote the nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget in a meta-analysis of the various estimates. A survey of 42 top economists failed to find a single one who believed the tax cuts wouldn’t add to the national debt.

Dave Roberts has written in detail about our “epistemic crisis,” which he traces to “the US conservative movement’s rejection of the mainstream institutions devoted to gathering and disseminating knowledge (journalism, science, the academy) — the ones society has appointed as referees in matters of factual dispute.” You see the process in action here. To hold fast to their assertions that tax cuts pay for themselves, Ryan, McConnell, and even Collins have had to ignore the economics profession, all credible journalism on tax policy, and the official judgment of Congress’s own analysts. And if they can ignore those institutions, and encourage their supporters to ignore those institutions, why can’t Trump and Moore do the same on matters both trivial and profound?

Donald Trump, Roy Moore, and the Republican Party’s reality problem - Vox