People only care about deficits when the other team is in power. Such has it always been, and probably always will be.

I would not say that a bulging deficit is among the 5 worst things about this bill.

Rank 'em.

So, in general I'm inclined to agree with the concept that deficits matter less than the combination of gains that accumulate from productivity, technological innovation, a robust internal economy, and trade influence. Maybe that's wrong, but it's where I'm starting from here.

So with that in mind, I would say that the biggest failures of this bill come not from its flagrant budget busting, but from not maximizing that deficit expansion's effective use.

Specifically, the failure to prioritize things that deliver on the topics listed above. Instead, protecting idle or non-job producing wealth transfer to remarkable extremes, producing or exacerbating conditions that are contrary to American economic self-interest (see: taxing affiliates of American companies on Puerto Rico as if the island were a foreign country), and taking reckless rather than measured approaches to industry-sized decisions (ie ACA mandate repeal). I also think they underestimate how important a sizable, spend-eager lower-to-middle class has been to America's technological innovation successes.

Lastly, I would say that structuring your bill so that a disproportionate amount of the pain falls on areas that are the major players in the nation's economy, and figuring that's a win-win because those people don't vote for you anyway, is a pretty clear sign that economic growth is not the priority of the package.

Beyond that, there are a number of components to the bill that I find morally repugnant. Some are listed above. The enhanced promotion of what is already stunning economic inequality is another. The obvious intention to stripmine social programs to pay for all this is a doozy. And there's also the fact that (as I've said before) I increasingly suspect they wrote it without economic results as a real priority. Give the donors everything they want (some of which will overlap with economic growth principles, so that's free messaging!), because you're getting voted out this year anyway. Then, if the economy collapses, you can just blame the Democrats. If it does well, you can say that you handed them that economy. Meanwhile, giving those donors the absolute maximum has really opened up your own job market. Everyone who matters wins. Economic growth or collapse is less of a concern than making sure that you win either way.

The last thing is, I do think that having a functional and intellectually honest conservative party is a major positive for the nation, so the failure to reassert that here, on what should have been their best return to sanity topic (tax reform, and you don't have to work with democrats?)...and the absolute glee that was taken in forcing a broken process and delivering negative consequences for others...were among the hardest failures for me to take.

I don't expect the party that just tried to elect Roy Moore to do a 180 overnight, but it would've been nice to see some signs that anybody...anybody…was treating this as legislation rather than a looting. I think it's actually understated right now, just how expensive this bill will end up being to the GOP brand. In effect, I think they just sat down with the hard question of "rebuild? Or blow it up and walk away," and they did the most Trumpian thing of all: abandoned the building and let somebody else pay for it.

"Ah ha!" You might say. "But that's exactly what a deficit is!" But as a deficit doesn't have to be an abandonment, or a major payout to coconspirators, this bill couldn't look much worse to my mind.

So literally one voter decided which party controls Virginia.

Huh.