By a 2-1 margin, Americans oppose the Republican tax plan and say it favors the rich over the middle-class.

Just wait until the massive spending cuts arrive, and programs like Medicare are squeezed dry to cover the costs of this misadventure.

That's right. It turns out Congress once gave a damn about the national debt, and established rules to keep it in check. One of those rules -- known as "pay-go" --imposes automatic and immediate cuts when Congress passes legislation that would increase the debt.

Which programs would be cut? The Congressional Budget Office just put out its list, and the big loser would be Medicare, which would be cut by $25 billion this year, and by larger sums each year for a decade. Students loans would take a hit as well, as would spending on border security and Obamacare.

That is the Republican plan: First, cut taxes in a way that mainly benefits big corporations and super-rich families like the Trumps. Next, cut spending that the middle-class depends on.

"We've got a lot of work to do in cutting spending," Speaker Paul Ryan said at a recent town hall.

With help from Democrats, Congress can vote to ignore the rule on deficits, and to allow the debt to grow instead. It did that when President George W. Bush signed his tax cuts, a move that led to sharp increases in deficit spending.

But the debt back then was equal to about 30 percent of our annual economic output. It's ballooned now to 77 percent. So, even if Congress avoids this speed bump, the tax cuts will hasten the day of reckoning.

"Tax cuts will need to be financed, sooner or later," says Ed Lorenzen, a senior advisor at the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. "If Congress blocks a pay-go sequester, it will still need to enact cuts at some point in the future."

And for what? This tax plan does nothing to fix our decrepit infrastructure, or advance public health or education. It does almost nothing for the middle-class, and even increases taxes on low-income families, according to the Joint Committee on Taxation.

It is one thing to ask Americans to sacrifice for the common good. It is quite another to ask for sacrifice on behalf of the super-rich.

But that is what Rep. Tom MacArthur (R-2nd) just voted to do. And he had help from Rep. Rodney Frelinghuysen (R-11th), who supported this in the crucial early stages. His change of mind at the last minute was fake, an attempt to contain the political damage, a strategy he discussed with party leaders.

Republicans are still peddling the discredited nonsense about trickle-down economics, the theory once described as a belief that feeding horses better food will ensure that the birds eat better, too. Give the rich more, we are told, and they will use it to give their workers a raise.

Pope Frances addressed this thinking in 2014, in a speech on economic justice: "This opinion, which has never been confirmed by the facts, expresses a crude and naive trust in the goodness of those wielding economic power."

The economic royalists are on a rampage in Washington these days. Cutting taxes on the rich is only the start. Next up, they will go after programs like Medicare.

If they expect this to give them a political boost, they could be in for a nasty surprise.

More: Tom Moran columns

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.