The House and Senate, fresh from passing separate tax bills, are now moving to make the combined product even worse.

It's quite an accomplishment. Both bills loot New Jersey's middle-class, explode the deficit, and engorge the rich. On that much, Republican leaders are in full agreement.

But the two bills are not identical. The Senate bill would repeal the mandate under Obamacare that requires everyone to buy insurance, while the House bill would not. That's the single biggest difference.

On Tuesday, we learned that the House is likely to surrender on this. That prediction came from Texas Rep. Kevin Brady, the chairman of the House Ways and Mean Committee, who drafted this monstrosity and will lead the effort to reconcile the two bills.

So, add it to the list. The Congressional Budget Office examined this, and found that 13 million Americans will lose coverage, and the rest of us will see premiums bump by 10 percent.

This fits with the continuing Republican crusade to widen the gap between rich and poor. The plutocrats are making their move, and it is brazen.

For the poor, it scatters a few crumbs, and then sets those provisions to expire in a few years. The result, according to their own official scorekeepers at the Joint Committee on Taxation is that most families earning under $75,000 will pay more in the end. It's a tax cut bill, but not for them.

The repeal of the Obamacare mandate will save $338 billion over the decade, since many of those who will drop care would qualify for a subsidy to purchase insurance. They are betting they won't get sick, driven to desperation by the cost of covering even their own share.

That $338 billion will cover about one-third of the cost of the corporate tax cut in the end. Shareholders and CEOs win, and low-wage families lose.

The bills are packed with this kind of provision that shows the same tenderhearted concern for those of limited means. Families who are forced to borrow big sums to pay for college will take a hit, and so will graduate students who work to reduce their tuition payments. Who needs all that upward mobility, anyway?

To look at the impact on the rich, consider Donald Trump himself. We don't know exactly how fat his bounty will be, because he still refuses to release his tax returns. But it's hard to imagine a bill that is more fine-tuned to benefit him personally.

Forbes recently put his net worth at $3.1 billion, so eliminating the estate tax, as the House bill does, might save him more than $1 billion. The Senate would keep the tax, but scale it back.

Trump also operates dozens of "pass through" entities that will see their taxes cut by about one-third. And the House version eliminates the Alternative Minimum Tax, which cost Trump $31 million in 2005, the only year of his tax returns that has been made public.

All that was clear when Trump spoke about the bill two weeks ago in Missouri, and decided to flat-out lie again. "This is going to cost me a fortune," he said. "This is not good for me."

Is there no shame?

In 1986, Ronald Reagan signed a bipartisan tax reform that cut corporate taxes deeply. But he worked on it with Democrats, including our own Sen. Bill Bradley, for over a year. They spread the benefits far and wide, and made sure it would not increase the national debt.

Today's nasty piece of work shows how broken our politics have become. It is a money grab by the rich, and polls show that the public knows that. It was done in haste and secrecy. It will leave us more divided, by region and by class. And it proves beyond doubt that the Republicans don't give a damn about the national debt after all.

Special thanks go to Rep. Tom MacArthur (R-3rd), the lone Republican from New Jersey who supported this; and to Rep. Rodney Frelinghuysen (R-11th), who voted for it in the crucial early stages.

Tom Moran may be reached at tmoran@starledger.com or call (973) 836-4909. Follow him on Twitter @tomamoran. Find NJ.com Opinion on Facebook.