The Republican tax bill eliminates deductions for a bunch of odd things: tuition debt, mortgage interest, alimony, medical expenses, state and local taxes, gambling losses, tax prep expenses, moving expenses, and a few others. Several of these are obviously designed to punish blue states especially hard. I suppose the gambling thing is a sop to evangelicals. Alimony is…hard to figure out. Ditto for moving expenses and tax prep. None of these are going to raise much money, so I’m not sure what the point is.

But there are two sizeable ones worth looking at. The first one is the bill’s expansion of the child tax credit. Netted together with other changes, this benefits families with lots of children. Here’s where those families live:

No surprise: red states tend to have a higher percentage of children who will qualify for the tax credit. Once again, the tax bill is biased in favor of red states.

But then there’s medical expenses. This is a little tricky to figure out, but I wanted to test my intuition that this actually hurts red states more than blue states. The deduction for medical expenses helps families with big out-of-pocket costs as a percentage of their income, so I used Urban Institute data on average spending among those with the highest medical expenses. Note that “top 10%” refers to those with the highest medical expenses, not to well-off people in general:

This time it’s red states that suffer the most. This makes sense, since red states have higher levels of uninsured residents and, often, higher medical costs thanks to less competition in rural areas.

So why is this deduction being killed off? It seems like it came out of nowhere, and it’s not as if the tea party has been outraged by it or anything. One possibility is that a deeper dive would show that it’s mostly poor people in each state who have big medical expenses, and who cares about the poor? Another possibility is that this is some kind of subtle attack on Obamacare that I can’t quite get my hands around. Or maybe I’m not using the right data to really see what’s going on here. It’s mysterious.

The Republican tax plan caps the mortgage interest deduction at $500,000. The Washington Post today has a lovely chart showing which states this hits most heavily:

Blue states are footing nearly the entire bill for this. But maybe it’s just a coincidence. I decided to try my hand at a couple of more charts. Here’s the state and local tax deduction:

Blue states again! Go figure. The GOP plan also ends the deduction for student loan interest. I don’t happen to have data for that by state, but I do have the percentage of each state’s population with a bachelor’s degree. That’s probably a decent proxy:

Blue states are the big losers again. Needless to say, this is a double whammy since students themselves are heavy Democratic voters. I’m afraid to look at the distribution of deductions for adoptions and medical expenses, which have also been axed in the Republican plan.

Has there ever been a tax proposal in recent history so obviously aimed at punishing voters of a particular political party? I sure don’t remember one.

NOTE: All of these charts use percentages, not raw numbers. Blue states aren’t getting screwed just because they’re bigger. They’re getting screwed because they have bigger shares of expensive housing, high wages, and educated residents.

Marian has curated today’s lunchtime photo. This is Moll’s Gap, a beautiful valley smack in the middle of southern County Kerry. The top photo shows the gap in daylight. The bottom photo, taken from a different spot, shows the gap at dusk with storm clouds gathering. The purple coloring is authentic, not the result of me playing around in Photoshop. I am mystified about where it comes from.

I know I shouldn’t bother with this, but—oh hell, I’m just a weak man. Here is our president today:

Would love to send the NYC terrorist to Guantanamo but statistically that process takes much longer than going through the Federal system…

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 2, 2017

…There is also something appropriate about keeping him in the home of the horrible crime he committed. Should move fast. DEATH PENALTY!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 2, 2017

Yesterday Trump said we needed much quicker and much stronger justice, and that’s why he thought the civilian justice system was such a joke. Today, suddenly the civilian justice system is “statistically” faster than military justice and is fully able to hand down the death penalty. In fact, the civilian system is probably better because…New York. Or something.

I can’t keep up.

Tom Fox/TNS via ZUMA

This is yesterday’s news, but I never got around to highlighting it. However, it’s worth noting, if only for the historical record:

Effective immediately, scientists who receive EPA funding cannot serve on the agency’s three major advisory groups…. “We want to ensure that there’s integrity in the process and that the scientists that are advising us are doing so without any type of appearance of conflict of interest,” EPA head Scott Pruitt said at a press conference announcing the directive.

The effect of this order is pretty obvious. Scientists who receive EPA funding are mostly academics who study climate change, dangerous chemicals, endangered species, and so forth. Get rid of those folks, and you can stock up the advisory groups with scientists hired by corporations, homebuilders, and coal companies. As near as I can tell, there’s barely even a pretense that there’s any other reason. Just a bit of obvious blather about conflicts of interest, along with some dog whistles to evangelicals.¹ And with that, the deed is done.

Those of us of a certain age have grim memories of James Watt, Reagan’s first secretary of the Interior. Scott Pruitt appears to be his identical twin separated at birth. Watt was eventually forced to resign, but not because he wanted to blanket every acre of wilderness with coal mines and oil drilling. It was because he told a racist joke. Unfortunately, Pruitt probably learned from that and will limit his actions to making America safe for fossil fuels.

¹In this case, it wasn’t really a dog whistle. Pruitt just straight up quoted from the Book of Joshua for no real reason. But in case you don’t know, the key word to watch for is “stewardship.” It sounds benign, but among evangelicals it’s the go-to word that describes the Lord’s plan: namely that he provided us lots of coal and oil and timber, and by God we should use it.

The Republican tax plan is out!

The plan establishes three tax brackets, 12, 25 and 35 percent, and also keeps a top rate of 39.6 percent for the highest-earners, collapsing the total number of brackets from seven.

So…that’s four brackets? No, no: it’s three brackets plus a special top rate. In other words, four brackets? No, you don’t get it! Liberals never get it! What’s wrong with you?

Fine, let’s move on:

After much nail-biting debate, the House will not make any changes to the pretax treatment of 401(k) plans. “Americans will be able to continuing making both traditional, pretax contributions and ‘Roth’ contributions in the way that works best for them,” the talking points say.

But there’s also this:

One of the biggest flash points will be proposed changes to the popular mortgage interest deduction. Under the Republican plan, existing homeowners can keep the deduction, but future purchases will be capped at $500,000.

Fascinating. The House boffins apparently decided that retirement plans were more untouchable than the mortgage interest deduction. The most likely reason is that capping mortgage interest is, like state and local taxes, something that will mostly affect folks in blue urban areas. In Los Angeles, $500,000 for a house is right smack in middle-class territory. Lots of Angelenos will be affected by this. But in Memphis or Indianapolis? Only someone pretty well off buys a house that expensive. There’s also this:

Republicans used at least a few budgetary maneuvers to squeeze the plan inside its constraints. For instance, different inflation measures limit some costs….The proposal repeals an itemized deduction for medical expenses, a crucial provision to households with extraordinary health-care costs. It also repeals the tax credit for adoption and the deduction for student-loan interest.

They’re screwing students? That’s some serious hardball. And repealing the medical deduction is very odd. I can’t quite figure out why they decided to target this. Is it some back door way of damaging Obamacare?

The rest of the plan appears to be pretty much as predicted. The estate tax is eliminated after six years and Republicans have doubled down on their plan to screw residents of blue states, but otherwise it’s mostly what we expected. On the corporate side, the basic rate goes down to 20 percent; the pass-through rate goes down to 25 percent; and capital costs can be expensed immediately instead of depreciated.

However, despite what the Washington Post reported last night, the bill doesn’t appear to expire after eight years. They’re shooting for a permanent change.

Like the leaves of autumn, the Republican tax bill will be a glorious but fleeting sight. Corporations are advised to enjoy it while they can.Yin Bogu/Xinhua via ZUMA

This is going to be a helluva tax bill that Republicans plan to unveil on Thursday. In addition to the motley collection of spit and duct tape already holding it together, House leaders have tossed in yet another last-minute switcheroo:

In a late switch, they now say the initial version of their bill will not contain one of President Trump’s major promises. House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Kevin Brady (R-Tex.) said Wednesday that the bill he will introduce would not permanently lower the corporate tax rate to 20 percent. Instead, the cut would be temporary, and that reduction would expire in around eight years, according to a person briefed on the planning who wasn’t authorized to disclose details.

….“It’s going to take several steps through the process to achieve” permanence on the corporate rate, Brady said, citing what he termed “those awfully funny” Senate rules.

Even Republicans used to agree that a temporary corporate tax cut would be all but useless, but I suppose that goes out the window now. The entire noise machine will be dedicated to the proposition that a temporary cut will be a huge economic boost. In fact, why stop there? Maybe the new party line will be that this is even better than a permanent cut.¹

Alternatively, maybe Donald Trump will promise to veto anything temporary and send Republicans into total chaos. These days, who knows?

On the bright side for the super rich, I assume that repeal of the estate tax will continue to be permanent. There are limits, after all.

¹For reasons to be invented later and then hastily confirmed by Greg Mankiw and John Taylor.

Earlier today, Donald Trump blasted the way the civilian justice system treats terror suspects: “What we have right now is a joke and it’s a laughingstock.”

Three hours later, a reporter asked press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders about this. Her answer: “That’s not what he said. He said the process has people calling us a joke and calling us a laughingstock.”

Trump’s comments were broadcast on national TV. They’re on tape. They’re on YouTube. But only a few hours later, the White House blandly denied he ever said it. Is there even a word for this?

Donald Trump may be furious about the Mueller investigation, but Gabe Sherman reports that Steve Bannon thinks he’s still not taking it seriously enough:

Bannon’s sense of urgency is being fueled by his belief that Trump’s hold on power is slipping. The collapse of Obamacare repeal, and the dimming chances that tax reform will pass soon—many Trump allies are deeply pessimistic about its prospects—have created the political climate for establishment Republicans to turn on Trump. Two weeks ago, according to a source, Bannon did a spitball analysis of the Cabinet to see which members would remain loyal to Trump in the event the 25th Amendment were invoked, thereby triggering a vote to remove the president from office. Bannon recently told people he’s not sure if Trump would survive such a vote. “One thing Steve wants Trump to do is take this more seriously,” the Bannon confidant told me. “Stop joking around. Stop tweeting.”

When Steve Bannon thinks you’re being too outrageous and need to rein it in, things are getting ugly. Sherman also reports that one of his sources tells him that “Dina Powell and Gary Cohn said they’re making sure to leave rooms if the subject of Russia comes up.” In other words: Please don’t subpoena me! I don’t know anything!

This is the Mott MacDonald building in London, located off Ludgate Hill near St. Paul’s Cathedral. Mott MacDonald is a “global engineering, management, and development consulting firm focused on guiding our clients through many of the planet’s most intricate challenges.” It’s one of those outfits with (allegedly) so many areas of expertise that it has to break them up into alphabetical groups on its web page. Seriously.

In any case, one of their areas of expertise is façade engineering, and this façade is indeed pretty cool.