>>Chalk up another $13 Billion for the tax cut.

So between 2 companies that's $81B tax in year 1 compared to $0 had corporate tax not been cut to only slightly more than the EU average. Enough to pay for seven Gerald R. Ford aircraft carriers in 2018 dollars with a few bill left over for a small war somewhere. (Thought you'd appreciate that metric ;-) )

Now might be a good time to admit that I share your misgivings about leaving it to free-wheeling privateers to share wealth among stakeholders. Today a way is found to make their best interests coincide with US taxpayers' and workers', but they won't always. My sense is that Congress (and Senate) needs to be highly reactive when it comes to antisocial behavior by corporates. If they can't be reactive then Congress needs to authorize POTUS in language not subject to reinterpretation by activist judiciary. Knowledge that after the soft talking, the big stick *will* descend on transgressors who dump on average Joes to achieve unnatural short-term profits, makes it very likely that corporates and public can fill each other's dance cards forever. ;-) Of course that assumes that future POTUS isn't part of or beholden to the swamp. On that topic, de Maistre correctly observed that toute nation a le gouvernement qu'elle mérite, every nation gets the government it deserves.

Interestingly in the Fake News age, de Maistre also observed that "les fausses opinions ressemblent à la fausse monnaie qui est frappée d'abord par de grands coupables et dépensée ensuite par d'honnêtes gens qui perpétuent le crime sans savoir ce qu'ils font" - false opinions are like counterfeit money, initially struck by terrible villains and then circulated by honest folk who perpetuate the crime without knowing what they are doing.