Tax Cuts to Die For: Our Visual Roundup of the Week

Getty’s @spencerplatt1 just posted this to Instagram in response to the impending GOP tax giveaway. Make room, friend. #newyork #taxbill #huddledmasses pic.twitter.com/AzKX6ka1qa

— Reading The Pictures (@ReadingThePix) December 1, 2017

Of course, Michael Flynn’s guilty plea has huge implications. In spite of the drumroll of dramas this week, however, we put almost all of our focus on the Republican tax plan, the one they finally jammed through the Senate late last evening. It is our sense, stated in plain terms here, that the legislation will do profound and far-reaching damage to the country and economic equality. In spite of the momentous scope and the dire consequences of the plan, it’s remarkable how little heed the media and the public paid to it. After middle-class taxes spike, basic health care is erased, the shortfalls crater state and local budgets, and Medicare and Social Security are stripped to offset these massive tax breaks for the rich, who will even remember Matt Lauer?

On the #MichaelFlynn beat this morning as he turns himself in. Not many pix yet, though simple Getty shot speaks to taking a fall. #pleadeal. 📷 @drewharrer @bloombergimages @GettyImages pic.twitter.com/dNHRPl3Vxz

— Reading The Pictures (@ReadingThePix) December 1, 2017

We talk about ways photos speak to power. It’s a prototypical shot of a strained Sen Casey and the family and kids that will pay dearly for the tax cut for the 1%. The twist, though, mindful of the deceit and the exploitation, is that finger. 📷@melinamara @washpostphoto @wpowdc pic.twitter.com/a5nhNYGSFU

— Reading The Pictures (@ReadingThePix) November 30, 2017

You want to look at a photo like this and believe you’re observing maximum accountability. Not that, when the moment really counts – and that’s where we are on this monumental, Trojan horse of a #TaxBill – the senator has been swallowed. @SenatorCollins
📷@ericthayer @bpolitics pic.twitter.com/3vgaJ3bCZ2

— Reading The Pictures (@ReadingThePix) November 30, 2017

A shockingly thorough sense of incapacity from Finance Committee Chairman Hatch, the Trump tax debacle pushed through by these old white men. By one of the best and most steadfast #photographers on Capitol Hill, @melinamara. @washingtonpost @wpowdc
https://t.co/tIHkc4Ba1P pic.twitter.com/1twWiZVw0p

— Reading The Pictures (@ReadingThePix) November 29, 2017

What’s so significant about this #taxbill protest photo? First, that you’re seeing it at all, given all the stealth and distraction. Second, that #gender issues and #women’s rights align with the tax hike protest, rather than compete with it for attention. 📷@somogettynews pic.twitter.com/kTMYHCsMFo

— Reading The Pictures (@ReadingThePix) November 28, 2017

Repeated publication of this GOP photo showcases @JeffFlake’s morality play, and whether he might finally translate his running opposition to Trump and the deficit sham into a conscience vote. @SenBobCorker (Center) too. #TaxBill https://t.co/iIrhPx6MdV pic.twitter.com/fRnXPAc0Zl

— Reading The Pictures (@ReadingThePix) November 28, 2017

What’s so striking about this photo of @SavannahGuthrie? Beyond the symmetry of the dress and tree, and the gifts left behind, it’s the dank and troubled quality of the news photograph vs those pix we’re fed by the infotainment shooters. #MattLaurer 📷 @AP_Images #TodayShow pic.twitter.com/MuPFnN2jZH

— Reading The Pictures (@ReadingThePix) November 30, 2017

Senate just expanded gun rights for convicts felons, among other homicide boosters. Far from advocacy, Dems/photo reduced to witnessing. https://t.co/dW4XzBIXk9 pic.twitter.com/Ll92zJhb6p

— Reading The Pictures (@ReadingThePix) November 30, 2017

Oh, does @JimWatson_AFP nail this: Outreach. pic.twitter.com/tMsLFiItUJ

— Reading The Pictures (@ReadingThePix) November 29, 2017

A speech, a Tillerson snub and a palace dinner — Ivanka Trump’s whirlwind India tour https://t.co/UcF9GgPPK4 pic.twitter.com/KJLHw0gzaT

— Anna Fifield (@annafifield) November 28, 2017

With the irony of Ivanka on top (long live the brand!), the gaggle of male officers below, and that placeholder-of-a-Secretary of State nowhere to be seen, visual rhetoric is a wonderful thing. https://t.co/XJinKzA9ov

— Reading The Pictures (@ReadingThePix) November 28, 2017

Look at how the “Official White House photo” of this debacle is one chosen at an angle that doesn’t show the portrait of Andrew Jackson… pic.twitter.com/2U8zM8HEFn

— Charles M. Blow (@CharlesMBlow) November 28, 2017

One more story we aren’t hearing much about, especially in that poisonous #AlabamaSenateRace. Like this Michigan town in the NYT today, tainted #water is a national issue, one skilled photographers are readily able to visualize. 📷 @alyssaschukar
https://t.co/Q7UALqTyr9 pic.twitter.com/oIAOPSeK92

— Reading The Pictures (@ReadingThePix) November 28, 2017

In a New York Times story investigating problems plaguing the New York subway, John Taggart photographed the chaos of commuting on a deteriorating transit system. Apparently, even the taggers have something to say about it. “666” has a hint of humor, until you think about how true it is. Riding the subway can feel like torture. Even the governor, Andrew Cuomo, dubbed this the “summer of hell” after a series of derailments, accidents and subsequent repairs. And if you look even closer, two googly eyes make a screaming face out of the first six. Scary. (-@SamanthaBrandyClark)⠀ ⠀ Photo: @jtaggfoto for @nytimes. Story link: https://buff.ly/2n5JraA #subway #666 #scary #infrastructure #metro #underground #6thavenue #nyc #newyork #speed #train #transportation #graffiti #tag #tagging #transit #googlyeyes

A post shared by Reading The Pictures (@readingthepictures) on Nov 27, 2017 at 9:33am PST

Photo: Spencer Platt/Instagram.