Trump signs new tax laws, and opens the Arctic Refuge to pay for them

Shortly before departing for his private club, Mar-a-Lago, President Trump signed the unpopular Republican tax bill—and you can bet it’s not just America’s middle class being sold out. Between pages of bad math and corporate tax breaks, the Senateinserted a mandate that the federal government slice up and sell leases of the treasured Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil and gas developers. “ANWR by itself would be a big bill,” boasted the president. But it wasn’t its own bill—for a reason. Republicans, who have tried and failed to open the refuge no fewer than 12 times since its establishment in 1960, tucked it into the tax measure to avoid a game-ending filibuster. The sacred refuge is home and respite to hundreds of species like polar bears, caribou, and migratory birds from every state. If the plunderer-in-chief gets his way, this wild tundra could be dotted in oil fields—and who knows, maybe plowed over for golf courses.