Senator Susan Collins & colleagues:

Congratulations on passing the Senate Tax Bill. You have taken an important step in assuring that (to paraphrase Abraham Lincoln) "that government of the rich, by the rich and for the rich shall not perish from this earth".

By throwing a few bones to the populace, you distracted them from realizing that you have created virtual feast for the wealthiest. Once again, the GOP has been successful with its "trickle down" con job that has never worked yet. Not under Reagan (as David Stockman, his Budget Director testified), and not in Wisconsin nor in Kansas more recently. P.T. Barnum would be proud of you.

I guess the vast majority will have to be satisfied with "bread and circuses." Oh wait, the next step is cut the social safety net under the guise of "fiscal responsibility." So much for the bread part. And, as far as the circuses, repealing net neutrality will take care of that, making entertainment less affordable, too.

All this was done in record time so that actually reading the 500-page bill was neither necessary nor feasible. Again, congratulations on a masterful job.

Dennis McGuirk lives in Camden