You're back? Good. OK, so the basic point for today is the observation that sometimes predictions go wrong because of some random event. Shit happens. The philosophy of "radical skepticism" is that there is no point even trying to make predictions because shit just happens and history is one damned thing after another, but fuck those people. Yes, sometimes history goes off the rails, but there are patterns, and the occasional oddity is a deviation from a pattern. That's why I like statistical analysis. It allows you to see that all of those bark-covered plants protruding from the ground are, indeed, a forrest.
Occasionally, though, shit really will happen, and models will make bad predictions even when they usually work. In the lead-up to the 2016 election, many of us political scientists were looking at two sets of models: poll-based models, which told us that Clinton would win, and "fundamentals"-based models, which often told us that Trump would win because conditions were such that a generic Republican should beat a generic Democrat, and if we focus on the aggregate set of bark-covered plants protruding from the ground, then we should not overemphasize the shape of any particular chlorophyl-producing protuberance from any one bark-covered plant. Like most political scientists, I went with the polls, once we had them. Oops. I suck.
I did, however, repeatedly reference Tetlock, right here on this very blog! I asked, what would it take for Clinton to lose? Some external shock. That shock happened, less than two weeks before the election, when James Comey decided to "re-open" the investigation into the Clinton email... thing... because of Anthony Weiner. Of course, nothing came of it, and Comey's announcement was, itself, a violation of DoJ policy, but the polls moved. Bigly, and by enough to give Trump enough swing states to give him the White House.
Tetlock warns about the "nobody could have seen that coming" phenomenon. Truly, though, nobody could have seen Comey's announcement coming, and without it, Clinton would have won because the polls moved by enough to shift those states. This was measurable.
Shit really does happen. And we need to keep this in mind.
With that in mind, it is now really hard for me to see how the Republican tax bill fails. They are advancing it to the Senate floor, and I would expect some dramatics, theatrics and vote-counting problems, but in the end, what would it take for them to fail? Some exogenous shock that I can't imagine.
Yesterday, I listed several groups of potential obstacles. If you pay attention to what has been happening, everything is falling into place. I'll take this out of order.
The Drama Club
The scenario for the Drama Club to kill the tax cut bill is for there to be a failure of coordination. They all have to posture at once. That hasn't been happening. Rand Paul postured on the budget resolution itself, but has been relatively supportive since. Ron Johnson started posturing about the pass-throughs, but he is being glad-handled. Once he gets his happy ending, Cruz and Lee can find something to whine about, but the fact that they are doing it sequentially solves the coordination problem. Nobody in the Drama Club can share the stage, so they take turns giving monologues. Problem solved.
The deficit-whiners
As I wrote yesterday, there is no such thing as a true deficit-hawk in the GOP. Once Bob Dole adopted a flat tax proposal for his 1996 presidential campaign, that was it. Their last goose was cooked, to keep with the bird references. So, what will Corker do? His current stunt is some nonsense about a "trigger" that will automatically raise taxes again if the deficit gets too high, even though that trigger would never be allowed to go into effect. Will this get written into the final bill?
That doesn't matter. What matters is that it shows Corker wants to vote for the bill. He wants to vote yes. He is trying to talk himself into voting yes. The substance won't matter. Remember how he wasn't going to vote for any bill that added a penny to the deficit? Now, he wants a trigger if the deficit goes up by too much... Remember that old joke, for which the punchline is, "we've already established that. We're just haggling about the price?"
Here's an old trick. If you are trying to decide between two choices, flip a coin. If it comes up heads and you are unhappy, you go with the choice you assigned to tails.
Corker is a yes vote. Why? He's a Republican. This bill will cut corporate taxes. Nothing else matters. Everything else is posturing.
The moderates
Collins and Murkowski. They are negotiating rather than objecting. That means they want to vote yes. That means they'll probably talk themselves into voting yes. During the healthcare debate, they were raising real, substantive objections to the underlying concept-- benefit cuts. They didn't want to cut healthcare benefits. Cutting healthcare benefits was what the GOP was trying to do. So, Collins and Murkowski weren't on board.
Tax cuts, though? Does anyone hear them objecting to the concept of a corporate tax cut? No? Then everything else is just dotting the "i"s and crossing the "t"s.
John McCain
Without two other objectors, he doesn't matter.
The big picture
So, how do you get three no-votes? I don't see it. Could it happen? Sure. Maybe McConnell can't find a way to keep Corker happy on some phony "trigger" scheme that doesn't alienate the Drama Club, and Collins gets nervous about somethingorother. Add in McCain, and this falls apart, but I really struggle to put together any such scenario. One objector? Sure. Why not? McCain can be obstinate. Two? OK, McCain and Collins, or Collins and Murkowski, or... yeah, I can put together pairs. Three? That's where I really struggle.
Collins and Murkowski, plus McCain? Possible, but we aren't seeing real objections from either Collins or Murkowski to the concept of a corporate tax cut, so I don't buy it. Maybe McConnell loses one, but both? Plus McCain? That's getting harder to see. If both Collins and Murkowski are negotiating to get to yes, it means they want to vote yes. They are behaving differently than they did before the healthcare vote. Much differently. Corker? Like I keep saying, true deficit-hawkery in the GOP died off long ago. I ignore everything he says, just like I do for the Drama Club.
What would it take for me to be wrong here? I could be wrong about Corker. I don't think I am, but I could be. It would be the first sign of true deficit-hawkery in the GOP in more than two decades. Or, Collins and Murkowski could start getting twitchy. I just don't see it, though. There would have to be some external cause for that because they are currently acting like they want to vote yes. That wasn't the case for healthcare.
I've been saying all along that this was different from healthcare. And it is.
Oh, and have you heard anything about pressure to get rid of the individual mandate-repeal? No? Me neither. The individual mandate is probably toast. Like I said, the moment it was introduced into the Senate tax bill.
Could they fail? It's possible, but I have a hard time seeing how at this point. Somebody would have to introduce a new objection that we haven't heard so far because everything so far... McConnell can do this. There aren't all that many IQ points in the GOP right now, but they are pretty much all concentrated in McConnell's skull. (That's why the hardcore conservative activist types hate him so much. They can't stand smart people!)
Hey, watch me not write about Trump still challenging Obama's birth certificate and telling people that the "pussy" tape is fake! (Although I'll probably break down and write about that over the weekend. We'll see...)