Tax Reform, Bad Starts and Getting Immunity

(Bloomberg View) -- 1. Rick Hasen at Politico on states attempting to get at Donald Trump's tax returns.

2. At Vox, Sean Illing talks to presidency scholar George Edwards about Trump's awful start.

3. Nicholas Bagley on the lawsuit over Obamacare subsidies.

4. Alex Whiting on why Michael Flynn's offer to testify in exchange for immunity may be less than meets the eye. This all sounds correct to me, but not definitive. I agree it's likely Flynn is looking to Congress, but it's possible he may have valuable things to say and thinks he can get immunity from Congress -- especially from House Intelligence -- without actually spilling any beans he may have. So we'll just have to see. 

5. Elizabeth Spiers at the Washington Post on Jared Kushner and improving how government works. 

6. Jonathan Chait on tax reform versus tax cuts. One general point he doesn't make (and I left out earlier this week): Tax reform, which is basically a technocratic reform with (theoretically at least) broad benefits but specific, visible losses, is a natural move in periods of divided government, when neither party has any hope of getting its highest priorities enacted. So it's not just that there were moderate Republicans in 1986; what was perhaps more important was a period of divided government that most people believed would continue for years.  

7. And my Bloomberg View colleague Justin Fox on dumpster fires.  

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Jonathan Bernstein is a Bloomberg View columnist. He taught political science at the University of Texas at San Antonio and DePauw University and wrote A Plain Blog About Politics.

To contact the author of this story: Jonathan Bernstein at jbernstein62@bloomberg.net.

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Brooke Sample at bsample1@bloomberg.net.

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