OK, it’s clear where this is going. President Donald Trump and his Republican swampmates are about to pass their “middle-class tax cut plan.”

Who benefits? Most analysts agree the plan heavily favors the 1 percent and corporations, with only small direct relief for the rest of us — something like a margin of 80 percent to 20 percent. Benefits for the rich are permanent while those for everyone else will expire in the near future. This is our middle-class tax cut?

How about this — flip that ratio to 80 percent for the rest of us and 20 percent for the wealthy. Make the middle-class cuts permanent and those for the rich the ones set to expire. Do this and then you can call it a middle-class tax cut.

But wait, they say, tax cuts for the rich will benefit us all. How? Well, because of that favorite magic wand in the Republicans playbook called “trickle-down economics,” based upon the premise that most of us live on the crumbs that fall from the wealthy’s table. Therefore, the rest of us can best be served by feeding the rich bigger meals. How well has that worked lately? The income gap between the rich and poor has soared to unprecedented heights. Anyone else sick of this yet? But here we are again with a trickle-down tax plan brought to us by Trump and the Republican Party, the party of the rich, by the rich, for the rich.

Oh, I guess now it’s also the party that favors political expediency over the realities of sexual harassment. My fellow Republicans, is this really what you stand for? And all you poor dears who “voted for change” — is this the change you voted for?

Roy Estabrook

North Monmouth