With all the talk about a possible government shutdown due to an impasse on immigration reform, no one seems to be paying attention to a story of even bigger long-term consequence. Congress is preparing a two-year budget that blows past bipartisan spending caps to the tune of $216 billion through 2019. These are the latest stunning tallies from an analysis by Congressional Quarterly. (See chart).

One premise of modern-day “progressives,” is that taxes don’t have much influence on how much and when people invest, how much they work and save, or where they live. Just Google “Taxes don’t matter” and you will find scores of academic studies and news stories assuring us that taxes have little or no effect on behavior.

Next week, the next round of negotiations between Canada, Mexico and the United States on the future of the North American Free Trade Agreement resume in Montreal. Rumors are swirling that if talks don’t go well, a frustrated Donald Trump may move forward with his threat to pull the United States out of NAFTA. That’s the doomsday scenario for the economies of all three nations.

The Senate-passed tax bill is a policy triumph that will provide a shot of performance enhancing drugs into the veins of the economy. It’s not perfect, but the combined effect of cutting business tax rates, eliminating the state and local tax deduction, and repealing the ObamaCare individual mandate tax, means we are at the precipice of the biggest conservative policy victory since the Reagan years.

Whenever I’m asked whether the Trump tax cut is for the rich, I say yes. It is a tax cut for the rich. It is a tax cut for the middle class. It is a tax cut for small businesses. It is a tax cut for the Fortune 100. If you pay federal income taxes, you will in almost all cases, be getting more take-home pay come January 1.

Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson has caused a bit of a hullabaloo by complaining that small businesses don’t get the benefits that corporations do in the Republican tax plan. Mr. Johnson has credibility here because he is one of those rare breeds in Congress who actually knows something about running a business — having done so for 30 years.

Republicans have long been known as “the stupid party.” They do stupid things, like waiting until mid-November to pass a must-pass tax cut that should have been done by April.

Democrats attacking the Trump tax cut have primarily voiced two objections: first, that it is a tax cut for the rich. And second, that it will blow a hole in the deficit.

Time Magazine’s cover this week is a classic. It blares: “The Wrecking Crew: How Trump’s Cabinet Is Dismantling Government.” Also last week The New York Times ran a lead editorial complaining that team Trump is shrinking at an “unprecedented” pace the regulatory state that was erected to new heights under President Obama. These and other media reports have had all the subtlety of a primal scream.

President Donald Trump has proposed what he calls “the biggest tax cut since Ronald Reagan.” He also wants vast simplification so that Americans can fill out their taxes on a postcard return. Let’s hope that part of this reform package will be to defang the IRS, which treats Americans as if they are guilty until proven innocent and invades the basic privacy rights of citizens.