I still think the Abomination of Desolation is going to pass and that the president* will sign it, the latter because, at this point, he’ll sign anything they put on his desk. But word’s got around about how bad this bill really is—when you’ve got a bill being compared to the Fugitive Slave Act, you’ve got a really dead fish on your hands—and the Republicans are now looking like such big fools in the gyrations they’re doing trying to pass it that they’re pretty much writing the Democratic commercials for 2018 every time they get in front of a microphone. Monday’s carnival act was Bob Corker, Republican of Tennessee, who’s retiring after this term and who, apparently, would like us to believe that he’s already checked out.

Corker, you may recall, opposed the original Senate tax bill because it will send the deficit spiraling into the Van Alen Belt, and he is what the pundits like to call a “deficit hawk.” Late last week, though, he came around and announced that he would be voting for the bill, which pretty much put paid to any Democratic attempt to jam things up, Lisa Murkowski having already been swayed by the vision of oil derricks against the Arctic sky and Susan Collins being god knows where from one moment to the next. However, at the last minute, a number of people—most notably, David Sirota and the crew at the International Business Times—noticed that a late revision in the bill would stand to make both Corker and the president* a pile of dough. From Bloomberg:

The change, which would allow real estate businesses to take advantage of a new tax break that’s planned for partnerships, limited liability companies and other so-called “pass-through” businesses, combined elements of House and Senate legislation in a new way. Its beneficiaries are clear, tax experts say, and they include a president who’s said that the tax legislation wouldn’t help him financially. “This last-minute provision will significantly benefit the ultra-wealthy real estate investor, including the president and lawmakers on both sides of the aisle, resulting in a timely tax-reduction gift for the holidays,” said Harvey Bezozi, a certified public accountant and the founder of YourFinancialWizard.com. “Ordinary people who invest in rental real estate will also benefit.” James Repetti, a tax law professor at Boston College Law School, said: “This is a windfall for real estate developers like Trump.”

As it happens, Corker also is heavily invested in real-estate holding companies, so cynical souls like me, and like anyone else who has a pulse, have begun to notice that Corker clipped his own wings as a deficit hawk to support a bill that will make him even richer than he is now. Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn then went on This Week With The Clinton Guy Shocked By Blowjobs and middle Corker quite nicely.

STEPHANOPOULOS: [This provision] apparently was added at the last minute. Why was that done? Why was it necessary to include that provision?

CORNYN: Well, we were working very hard. It was a very intense process. As I said, the Democrats refused to participate. And what we’ve tried to do is cobble together the votes we needed to get this bill passed.

OK, so Cornyn didn’t say flat-out that they were trying to tempt Corker off his perch but, as I always say, a nod is as good as a wink to a blind trust. Naturally, on Monday, Corker pronounced himself shocked—SHOCKED!—at the suggestion that he might have changed his position because he stood to profit handsomely from doing so. To his credit, he got back to the IBT. What he told them, however, depends mightily on your personal faith in coincidence.

In a series of rapid-fire telephone interviews, Corker asked IBT for a description of the provision, and then criticized it. But minutes later, he called back to walk back that criticism, saying he wanted to further study the issue, and that it was more complex than he initially understood it to be. Despite potentially holding the fate of the entire tax bill in his hands, Corker told IBT that he has only read a short summary of the $1.4 trillion legislation. “I had like a two-page summary I went through with leadership,” said Corker. “I never saw the actual text.” Despite not reading the bill -- and having time to read it before the final vote scheduled for this week -- he reiterated his support for the bill to IBT, support he announced hours before bill’s full text was publicly released on Friday.

Looked at in the best possible light, Corker’s conundrum illustrates the unseemly haste with which this transformational adjustment of the tax code was cobbled together in order to get the president* and the congressional Republicans a “win” before Christmas. At worst, it looks like Corker got bought off. (#CorkerKickback started trending almost immediately on your electric Twitter machine.) Corker’s current position is to loudly demand a probe into how this dubious provision that will enrich him found its way into the bill. To quote a film that seems to be all the rage:

“Your winnings, sir.”

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Charles P. Pierce Charles P Pierce is the author of four books, most recently Idiot America, and has been a working journalist since 1976.

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