The one big reason the Senate GOP passed its incredibly unpopular tax bill

Give the Senate Republicans credit: They had to overcome remarkable hurdles to get their tax bill passed. Approved of by just a third of the electorate, it was a poisonous bit of legislation, slightly more unpopular than even the 1993 tax hike under President Bill Clinton. The Senate had to pass the bill through reconciliation because no Democrat would sign up for massive tax cuts for the wealthy. This meant the GOP had to patch together an enormous pile of tax code changes, deals, and...