McCain had drawn a line in the sand.  Did Lindsey think he could pull him over?  really?

It seems impossible because I didn't think he could ever do that and he is supposed to be his friend.

The two women were no's.  We're never going to be any thing else.

The whole thing really made absolutely no sense. It's the kind of thing where you assume there had to be something else going on.

Is it even possible congressional republicans are so spineless,  so gutless and craven they would actually go through this whole humiliating sideshow JUST to "look like they were doing something" to Donald?

1. Lower the corporate rate from 35 to 20 percent. This makes absolutely no sense. Today's effective corporate tax rate (what they actually pay after deductions and credits) is almost the same as our major trading partners. Plus, American corporations are already so flush with cash they don't know what to do with it except buy back their current shares.

2. Reduce the tax rate for so-called pass-through businesses - including hedge-fund, private-equity, and real estate partnerships like Trump's and Jared Kushner's -- to 25 percent. This means that instead of paying the top rate of 39.6 percent, these mavens will pay 25 percent. It's a giant loophole for the super super-wealthy.

3. Lower the top tax rate for every other rich person from 39.6 percent to 35 percent. This is absurd. America's rich have gained the vast bulk of all the economic gains for the past decade. They're richer than ever.

4. Raise the bottom tax rate from 10 to 12 percent. Really dumb. Aren't the poor already poor enough? True, the plan doubles the standard deduction and expands the child tax credit, which will offset much of that increase, but why increase taxes on the poor at all?

Oh, and how much will all this cost? They don't say, but studies of similar plans produced by Trump and House Republicans have been projected to cost $3 trillion to $7 trillion over a decade.

Where will this money come from? Either (1) cuts in Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, which are the only big pots of money in the federal budget, apart from defense spending - which Republicans want to increase, or (2) an exploding national budget deficit.

Kevin Drum has more:

   1. The personal exemption for dependents is eliminated and the standard deduction is doubled.

    2. Seven brackets are decreased to three. The bottom bracket goes up and the top bracket goes down.
    3. The framework proposes using a new measure of inflation--presumably chained CPI, though it doesn't say so. If that's what it is, it would make bracket creep worse and would steadily raise taxes on the middle class. It might also be a Trojan Horse, providing an excuse to apply it to Social Security as well, which would reduce the growth of Social Security payments. This one is a sleeper. Keep an eye out for what it turns out to be.
    4. The child tax credit is increased and it phases out more slowly. There's a small new tax credit for non-child dependents.

    5. The estate tax and the Alternative Minimum Tax are eliminated, to the delight of millionaires everywhere.

    6. Itemized deductions are eliminated except for all the ones that matter: mortgage interest, charitable giving, the EITC, retirement accounts, and education accounts. Off the top of my head, I think these account for about 70 percent or more of all itemized deductions.

Oh, and it was a 2-page plan.  Two pages.  Seems a little short on details.

• What Trump's plan says: "The framework shrinks the current seven tax brackets into three - 12%, 25% and 35% - with the potential for an additional top rate for the highest-income taxpayers to ensure that the wealthy do not contribute a lower share of taxes paid than they do today."
  
• What that means: There are currently seven tax brackets, and this changes it to three. Trump did not reveal the cutoffs for the brackets, but some people in the current lowest bracket, which is 10 percent, could actually see a two-percent tax hike. And the highest earners, people who make more than $418,400 a year, will have their taxes cut from 39.6 percent to 35 percent. That could save a $500,000-a-year executive $23,000.