You Can’t Take the (W.) Bush! Out of the Jeb!

Jeb! Bush has an exciting plan to turn around his flailing campaign. It involves courting favor with every supply-side crackpot and charlatan under the sun:

Jeb Bush has raised fantastical sums from Republican donors, yet he finds himself trailing badly against a demagogue who has taken populist stances on taxing the rich, social insurance programs, immigration, and the donor class in general. Bush’s solution? Suck up more to the Republican donor class. Robert Costa and Ed O’Keefe report that Bush is meeting with the high priests of the Voodoo Economics cult: The Wall Street Journal editorial page, Steve Forbes, Larry Kudlow, Stephen Moore, and Arthur Laffer, along with various wealthy New York Republicans. Bush reportedly “hopes his tax offering will jumpstart his candidacy” and is sending “a signal to the party’s business wing that in spite of the rollicking race so far, Bush is mounting an aggressive fall campaign built around traditional GOP principles.”

The result, needless to say, is that Jeb! has developed a platform for people who feel that his more politically skilled brother did not funnel enough money to plutocrats:

Bush’s plan, unveiled in a Wall Street Journal op-ed, would replicate his brother’s program in extremis. Like Dubya, Jeb would reduce income taxes at the bottom of the earning scale. Dubya reduced the estate tax; Jeb would eliminate it entirely. Dubya cut the top tax rate to 35 percent, while Jeb would lower it all the way to 28 percent. Unlike his brother, he would also slash corporate tax rates, from 28 percent to 20 percent.

Hopefully, the Republican race will be won with someone with a more serious, less ridiculously crankish agenda, like Donald Trump.