slade's Link
July 13, 2017 Is the GOP serious about governing? By Brian C. Joondeph
We are now almost six months into the new administration with Republicans controlling both houses of Congress and the White House. There is plenty of activity at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. A conservative Supreme Court justice. Regulation roll backs. Renegotiation of lopsided trade deals. Walking away from nonsensical global warming treaties. Reassertion of American and Western values. Putting the brakes on a reckless, destructive immigration policy. And finally, a long overdue, well deserved beat back of a hostile, partisan media.
What’s happening across town in the hallowed halls of Congress? Obamacare repeal and/or replace? Tax reform? Infrastructure? Anything?
Congress too has had six months to work, to create legislation. Meaningful bills that the President is likely to sign into law. Unlike the past six years where anything from Congress would be struck down by the Obama veto pen.
Anyone need a reminder? Congress couldn’t stop the Democrat agenda without first controlling the House. Delivered. Then they told us they needed the Senate. Delivered. But wait, everything we pass will be vetoed by the White House. Delivered last November. So now what? I thought the GOP was serious about what they needed in order to govern.
Now we hear about the filibuster excuse. The Senate needs 60 votes to overcome the filibuster. Which they could do away with easily should they choose via a rule change. Anyone want to bet that there would be a new excuse if the Republicans were fortunate enough to have a 60-seat majority after the 2018 midterms?
The House, to their credit, did pass something in an effort to get rid of Obamacare. Not quite the repeal and replace they campaigned on. More of hair trim and blow dry rather than an extreme makeover. But I give them at least a small bit of credit for doing something. Unlike their teammates in the Senate.
From the Senate, we hear excuses and whining. Rather than excitement over fulfilling a campaign promise while holding once in a lifetime majorities in both the executive and legislative branches of government, all we hear is pessimism.
Hand it to the Democrats. When given the majority, they got stuff done. Tax increases and Obamacare. And they are ready should good fortune smile on them again in the future.
The party of "CAN'T" lives up to it's reputation. Or is it really "won't"??
Like a dog barking and chasing after a car they have no idea what to do once they do when they catch it.
Being a fellow Pennsylvanian .....Toomey is a RINO ass, always was. ( From the link)
"" Mitch McConnell Employs Backroom Deals to Pass the Senate Healthcare Bill
The revised Senate healthcare bill, known as the Better Care Reconciliation Act (BCRA), contains several new handouts designed to entice moderate senators to support the healthcare bill""
slade's Link
""Twenty-four Republicans banded together on Thursday to defeat an amendment which would have ended former President Barack Obama’s 2016 policy of funding “gender-reassignment” surgery for soldiers who want to live as members of the opposite sex. The amendment to the 2018 National Defense Authorization Act was offered by Rep. Vicky Hartzler (R, Mo.). It would have prohibited the use of taxpayer dollars to pay for the non-military medical task of converting healthy soldiers into “transgender” soldiers who face lifelong dependence on hormones and surgery.""
Have to say he's solid on point with this thread.
x2
The dog that caught the car is a pretty good analogy..... or like a guy that shot a moose and is standing there looking at it and saying..... "now what?".....
Simple and easy are two different things.... Much in life condenses down to simple answers, but seldom easy, that's the hard part..... you roll up your sleeves and get at it.... no matter what it takes..... even if the only thing to get it done is with a knife and fork.....
Why indeed? Obamacare was passed in 2009 without a single Republican vote. Everyone who paid attention to its details knew it was designed to fail, miserably. Obamacare architect Jonathan Gruber bragged about how getting it passed depended on the stupidity of the American people. But people would not be able to keep their own doctors as promised. No one's premiums went down by $2,500. They all went up and up and up. Those who are paying for it cannot afford to use it because the deductibles are too high. It is a monstrosity of catastrophic proportions. The insurance companies were on board; they knew they would reap billions of taxpayer dollars and they have. They have been subsidized with billions in government largesse and still have jacked up the cost of premiums each year. The insurance companies loved the plan despite the fact that it was built as well to be fraud-friendly, like Medicaid and Medicare. It was and remains a giant boondoggle. For eight years, Republicans have campaigned for office in order to repeal it. The House voted repeatedly to repeal it.
Now they have the House, the Senate, and the White House and suddenly cannot do what they have promised to do all these years despite having all the power to do it. The range of their fatuous excuses and infighting is too much to bear. Suddenly, all those Republicans who once held conservative ideals are conservative no longer. Medicaid, which provides little if any actual medical care, now must be expanded, not cut! Where does all that money go? Not to doctors. Not to care for the indigent. Susan Collins, for example, should admit she is a give-it-all-away Democrat. She does not advocate for personal responsibility or reducing government spending. Not one bit. Every word out of her mouth is a statist, big-government mantra.
Sen. Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania let the cat of the bag as to the Republicans' pathetic inaction at a recent townhall; "We did not expect Trump to win." So, these Republicans who have been promising to repeal Obamacare once they achieved maximum power were just faking it. They had no plan to actually repeal Obamacare and it appears now that they never had any intention to do it. They did not really want to wield the power they now have! They preferred being underdogs; they are, most of them, lazy. The Democrats, statist scoundrels all, would never be so pathetically weak. They have no power but are still running the show because the establishment Republicans are so infuriatingly inept. Because Trump did win, the Republicans in Congress have been caught in a poisonous spider's web of their own making. Now we all know that they are weak, sycophantic do-nothings who would rather fight amongst themselves than solve a problem or actually legislate. They are like a clan of meercats staring vacantly in the same, unfocused direction. Paul Ryan and McConnell, the alleged miracle workers of vote-whipping, are failures. On purpose? Who knows. Seems like it.
Texas Sen. Ted Cruz's idea that an Obamacare plan remain available to anyone who wants it is brilliant. But no, can't have that. Direct care, the most obvious solution, is a non-starter with our cowardly representatives in Congress. No, no, no. We cannot possibly advocate for personal responsibility and affordable health care that allows individual Americans to choose their own doctors or their own insurance plans, according to their own needs. There are so many ways to care for the truly needy, and for those with pre-existing conditions, without bankrupting the nation, but our wimpy Republicans are too scared to go there. It is cowardice that characterizes the party; cowardice and contempt for their own president because he is not one of them. To this day, they cannot accept that fact he won precisely because he is not one of them. But can they learn and embrace the man? No. They are trying to sabotage him. And for this they are earning the contempt of the voters who put them in office.
They are cowards too when it comes to defending their president. Like Toomey, none of them expected Trump to win, but he did. But so afraid of actually supporting the man who is now the leader of their party, nearly all of them are cowering in the corners of Congress. So afraid of the leftist media, they are trying to become a minority again themselves. Who among them has passionately called out the nonsense that is the media's obsession with Trump-colluded-with-Russia"? Not even Cruz or Gowdy or Rubio or Lee! What is wrong with these people? What on earth has become of the Republican party? If they do not begin to stand up to the vicious media and conspiratorial left, we will be left to the devices of shameless pols like Schumer, Adam Schiff, Nancy Pelosi, Maxine Waters, etc., etc. There are too many Democrats who are non compos mentis yet the Republicans are letting them have their way with us all.
By now, eight months into the Trump administration, conservatives have to admit that their elected representatives in Congress do not actually represent them. They are excellent at one thing, capitulation to the left. These yellow-bellies who are pretend conservatives need to either step up to the plate or resign and let new and legitimate conservatives take their places.
Fulldraw, ...with all due respect that IS the problem. Nobody cares about anything anymore. Everything is OK. Guess what, as has now been proven.? The people in this country are far from OK, to allow itself to run rampant, unchecked under the guise of their "rights" supported by the constitution. Changes must be made post haste because its matters not who is in power Democrats or Republicans. This is coming down to the "People vs. Government vs. Sanity" period. The Rock
- Could not agree more, TD.
Azzhat!
By Daniel John Sobieski
It might concentrate the minds of reluctant Republicans wonderfully, and perhaps some Democrats as well, if they were subject to the rules and regulations of the rotting dead fish known as ObamaCare. Then they might see the pitfalls and hardships of their constituents who lost their doctors, lost their plans, have premiums larger than mortgage payments, and deductibles so high their insurance cards are worthless.
As Heather R. Higgins, CEO of Independent Women’s Voice and head of the Repeal and Reform coalition, notes:
If President Trump is serious about repealing ObamaCare—about delivering a better policy with more choice and lower costs—there’s a simple move he could make that wouldn’t require congressional approval. It would align the interests of lawmakers and their staffers with the interests of voters.
Congress is essentially unaffected by the high costs of the ObamaCare exchanges because of a special exemption crafted under the Obama administration. The Affordable Care Act required members of Congress and their employees to participate in the health-insurance exchanges it established. They should have lost the generous coverage they had in the Federal Employees Health Benefit Program and instead bought one of the government-mandated options offered on the ACA exchanges.
In late 2012, staffers and members figured out what was about to happen and begged the Obama administration for relief. Just as Congress was going into its August recess in 2013, the Office of Personnel Management ratified the fiction that the House and Senate each have fewer than 50 employees, and thus qualify as “small businesses.” That enabled OPM to establish a system of special subsidies and exemptions, sparing Congress the embarrassment of a self-serving vote.
Many staffers are exempted and allowed to remain on their old insurance plans. Members of Congress and their designated “official office” staff are insured through the District of Columbia’s small business exchange—but they receive a one-of-a-kind subsidy from their employer (taxpayers) of up to $12,000, or about 70% of their premiums.
Do as I say not as I do, says one of the largest collection of millionaires on the planet, including Republicans who voted repeatedly to repeal ObamaCare when they knew anything that did pass would be vetoed. Now these profiles in porridge have wimped out panicked at the prospect of actually KEEPING THE PROMISE THEY MADE THAT WON SUCCESSIVE ELECTIONS TO GAIN CONTROL OF THE House, the Senate, and the White House wher President Trump waits with “pen in hand”.
It didn’t occur to Republicans to just pass 2015’s HR 3762, the Restoring Americans’ Healthcare Freedom Reconciliation Act. Introduced by then-Rep. Tom Price, now HHS Secretary, the bill passed the House on October 23, 2015 by a vote of 240-189. The Senate, after making changes to make it more robust, passed their version on December 3 by a 52-47 vote. A vote to override President Obama’s veto failed on February 2, but the onus was on him and the Democrats. Voters, knowing that a Republican President would have signed the bill, elected one, Donald J. Trump. So what’s wrong with reintroducing a bill that passed both the House and the Senate?
Granted, it was not a full repeal and place, but it was a better starting point than the Rube Goldberg legislation that just died in childbirth, doing many of the things everyone, including the Freedom Caucus, said they wanted:
The House version of H.R. 3762 included repealing the individual mandate, the employer mandate, the medical device excise tax, and the "Cadillac tax"" on expensive employee health insurance premiums.
It also included a measure to eliminate federal Medicaid funding for Planned Parenthood for one year. But it called for increasing funding for community health centers by $235 million/year for two years (a 6.5 percent increase over the currently scheduled funding).
The House bill also allowed people to use their Health Savings Accounts to buy over the counter drugs. Outspoken AHCA opponent Rand Paul voted for the Senate version. Freedom Caucus members Rep. Mark Meadows and Rep. David Brat voted for the House version.
The latest version which has passed the House is not a perfect repeal and replace, but it does have the Cruz amendment offering expanded Health Savings Accounts that could now be used to pay insurance premiums. It would allow insurance companies to sell plans tailored to consumer needs as long as they sold ObamaCare’s one-size-fits-all mandate laden policies. That would give consumers health care choices they can actually use. And if Sen. Rand Paul still thinks it is not the full repeal he seeks, then he can offer his repeal as an amendment on the Senate floor, can’t he?
But to focus their minds, subject these pompous bloviators to the rules and regulations of ObamaCarew. As the Club for Growth urged in a letter to President Trump:
On behalf of millions of taxpayers who are members and supporters of our organizations, we urge you to direct the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) to rescind the Obamaera rule (78 Fed. Reg. 60653-01) that allows Congress to masquerade as a small business in order to force taxpayers to pay for their health insurance.
This ongoing fraud improperly allows Congress and its staff to avoid the pain the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (“Obamacare”) is inflicting on millions of other Americans. When Congress was debating Obamacare, the American people demanded that Congress subject themselves and their staff to the new system they were imposing on their fellow Americans.
Those demands worked, and before Obamacare passed the Senate in 2009, Section 1312(d)(3)(D) was included. That section requires members of Congress and their staff to buy health insurance through an Obamacare exchange, and unlike an earlier proposed version does not authorize an employer contribution toward their premiums.
The provision was set to take effect in 2014, causing panic on Capitol Hill. Members of Congress and their staff were desperate to keep their taxpayer-funded, gold-plated health care rather than go into Obamacare and pay their own way, as the law required.
After a meeting with Senate Democrats in March 2013, then-president Barack Obama personally committed to illegally exempt Congress from this provision of Obamacare. And he did. Obama directed OPM to issue a rule purporting that Congress, which has thousands of employees, is a small business and therefore: “the DC Health Link Small Business Market administered by the DC Health Benefit Exchange Authority, is the appropriate SHOP from which Members of Congress and designated congressional staff will purchase health insurance in order to receive a Government contribution.”
Congress is not a small business and should not be exempt from ObamaCare. But ObamaCare is a plague on real small businesses, and large ones, on their customers, their employees, and the American people. If you don’t want to repeal and replace ObamaCare, Congress, why don’t you try living under it
Before he was defeated by unknown economist Dave Brat, then Minority Whip Eric Cantor led the charge to repeal Obamacare. Day in and day out, the GOP Rep. railed against the disastrous healthcare plan, using the hot button issue as ammo to drum up political support and boost fundraising efforts.
In a stunning admission, Cantor now admits the GOP was never serious about repealing the healthcare bill. It was all a charade.
The Washingtonian reports:
Cantor helped create that perception. Earlier that summer—after many failed attempts over the years to shred the law piecemeal—Cantor promised colleagues that the House would vote on a “full repeal.” But even after it did, the measure was dead on arrival in the Democratic-controlled Senate. Cantor—in Congress 13 years and, fairly or unfairly, once thought to be above electoral reproach—paid the price. His 2014 avenger, now-congressman David Brat, bludgeoned him for being soft on Obamacare, among other things. But the failure to make a dent in the law landed a bigger blow on the party. After seven years of pledging they could dismantle Obamacare, if only they had control of Congress and the White House, Republicans—at last in charge of both—have faced deep divisions over a replacement.
Asked if he feels partly responsible for their current predicament, Cantor is unequivocal. “Oh,” he says, “100 percent.”
He goes further: “To give the impression that if Republicans were in control of the House and Senate, that we could do that when Obama was still in office . . . .” His voice trails off and he shakes his head. “I never believed it.”
He says he wasn’t the only one aware of the charade: “We sort of all got what was going on, that there was this disconnect in terms of communication, because no one wanted to take the time out in the general public to even think about ‘Wait a minute—that can’t happen.’ ” But, he adds, “if you’ve got that anger working for you, you’re gonna let it be.”
It’s a stunning admission from a former member of the party leadership—that the linchpin of GOP electoral strategy for the better part of a decade was a fantasy, a flame continually fanned solely because, when it came to midterm elections, it worked. (Barring, of course, his own.)
Cantor isn’t the only one who believes repealing Obamacare is a charade. The Gateway Pundit reported in the past week, former Speaker Boehner said the prospects of repealing Obamacare were non-existent.
Former House Speaker, John Boehner said the GOP won’t be able to repeal and replace Obamacare at a closed-door tradeshow in Las Vegas, NV Friday.
John Boehner told a private crowd that Obamacare will never be repealed or replaced by the GOP because Americans and state officials are used to it in, a video obtained by The Washington Post.
Boehner also warned that Republicans will get annihilated in 2018 midterm elections if they fail to pass healthcare and tax legislation.
“Here we are, seven months into this year, and yet they’ve not passed this bill. Now, they’re never…they’re not going to repeal and replace Obamacare. It’s been around too long. And the American people have gotten accustomed to it. Governors have gotten accustomed to this Medicaid expansion, and so trying to pull it back is really not going to work.”
Boehner suggested that if the GOP can’t get rid of Obamacare completely, to at least eliminate the mandate and some of the taxes.
Uh....I think they mean "WON'T"! Lyin' sonsabitches.......
If they don't do this, you are watching the death of the GOP. They won't be toast, they'll be powdered carbon.
-Funny, the cause of the GOP's failure is that FAR too many of them believe in collectivism and central planning as much as the Dems. They just have to achieve their objectives in differing modalities of wretchedness, namely, cowardly ineptitude.
