Response To Comments: The Tax Bill Is Still Very Bad

A follow-up defending his prior post against the 2017 GOP tax bill. Granting even strong low-tax priors, the corporate cut is the wrong way to cut taxes: the same ~$100B could instead halve income taxes for the bottom 80%. The corporate-cut-boosts-growth case fails (the IGM economist panel: 51% say no substantial GDP boost, ~1 says yes; Forbes finds CEOs plan to raise dividends, not invest; growth has decoupled from wages). And crucially, even if it DID work, the good outcome — more money to the poor and middle class — is exactly what you'd get by just giving them the money directly, 'you moron.' A tremendous opportunity cost.

Quality 64 · Strong. A sharp, punchy policy follow-up with a clean opportunity-cost argument ('even if it works, it's an inefficient version of giving people money'), but brief, of-the-moment, and dependent on the prior post. Strong-low.

Claude’s paradigm shift 46 · Moderate. Restates and defends a prior argument with a crisp opportunity-cost framing; modest novelty. Moderate.

Real-world impact 2 · Minor. A within-discourse policy response; no material-world effect. Within-blog influence.