Republican leadership 2017
Credit: The Christian Science Monitor

I am not the only observer who was surprised that the Republicans managed to get out of their own way and actually pass two versions of a relatively large change to the U.S. tax system. (What will happen as they try to agree on a final version is, of course, anyone’s guess.)

I was not, however, especially surprised by the added degrees of shamelessness and dishonesty that the Republicans were willing to bring to their effort.

After all, anyone who has been paying attention — and who is not either a partisan Republican or a diehard believer that both parties are always equally to blame — has seen this coming.

Each time a big policy debate has erupted over the past generation, the Republicans have outdone themselves and degraded our political system in ways that were once unthinkable.

Consider how well all of the Republicans stuck to their talking points during the current debate about taxes — and also consider just how delusional those talking points were.

Yet even with […]