Who favors a KISS approach likes this bill is because he's a repub looking for an accomplishment. And really, all the other initiatives this tax bill currently seems to provide the repub base, like putting ACA on life support and opening up public lands for drilling. It advances a purely partisan agenda, and I can see partisan repubs cheering about that.

What I object to most about your post is the continued Trump/Bannon sound biting of the word "swamp". There is no definition of "swamp" that really fits your statement, except the bullshit populist one. States get into these pension binds because they try to keep taxes lower. Blue or red, there are examples across the country of pols wanting to be reelected kicking cans down the road. This offhandedly populist use of "swamp", with no thought, drives these long term disasters of deferring benefits to public employees until they become unaffordable.

And I have to think you are chuckling yourself about poorer red states subsidizing rich swamp blood suckers like CT. Would you really like to get into a pissing match about who subsidizes who? You'd go down. Hard. States like CT and CA pay high SALT because they pay more services themselves (whatever you think of that politically). They also have far greater incomes and pay a much, much higher % of total federal collections than do MI, AL, KS, or WY. SALT cut a little slack for the state and local provided services that the states pay themselves. This bill removes that slack, and actually increases the amounts by which rich states subsidize the less fortunate, and generally red states.

Which is, you know, political bullshit. Not reform.