Republicans in Congress are trampling the democratic process.

Instead of holding an open and transparent conference committee detailing the compromises GOP lawmakers reportedly have reached on the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, Republicans refused to discuss any aspect of what would be included and excluded in the largest change to tax policy in three decades. Instead the public was treated to three hours of big-picture political posturing.

It was an affront to transparency and to the American public. Shame on President Donald Trump, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and House Speaker Paul Ryan for disregarding the fact that they work for the American people — we pay their salaries and the least we ask of them is to not hide what they do while being public servants.

Sadly, Republicans probably got the idea from Democrats, who in January of 2010 attempted to rush through the Affordable Care Act without holding a conference committee and instead hammered out the negotiations behind closed doors.

We wrote then: “Political bickering, wheeling and dealing, and fact-twisting are inherent parts of government, but Americans must be part of the process — even if it is just watching the madness through a camera lens.”

There were huge differences between the House version of the tax-overhaul bill and the Senate’s. What the final bill looks like will be very different depending on these closed-door negotiations.

Now the public is left relying on the good work of top-notch journalists in Washington, D.C., who are leaking the details of the final version in chunks. This is America. Public policy shouldn’t be top-secret information gathered through anonymous sources.

We’re told the bill will be unveiled Friday. Votes are expected in the House and Senate early next week. For the sake of comparing despicable acts, Democrats didn’t cast their final vote on the Obamacare bill until March of 2010, giving at least some time for the public to process the back-room deal.

This editorial board will wait to pass judgment on the final product until we’ve seen the entire bill on Friday.

This whole episode is a wonderful reminder of the important role the non-partisan staff in Congress plays. Without the side-by-side analysis of the differences between the House and Senate bills created by the Joint Committee on Taxation, everyone would be even more in the dark. This document gives us a clear picture of policy differences between the two chambers and the potential cost of each decision.

We can only hope that as Republican leadership considered this list, they erred on the conservative side. To ultimately support this measure, we’d need to see a final version that makes hard choices to ensure it actually stays within the absurdly high limit of increasing the national deficit by a combined $1.5 trillion over 10 years and doesn’t give away more tax dollars to appease big donors.

Obviously the preferable alternative to the rush, as well as through the questionable reconciliation process that only requires a simple majority vote in the Senate, is a bipartisan bill that could garner 60 votes on its merits. It’s a dire time for the American public when such a fantasy is too laughable to even utter in serious company.

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