There seems to be an amusing level of, you know, stress breaking out among both Republican money bags and Republican Congress folk as Republican “ideas” collide with, you know, reality.
Over at Politico, Alex Isenstadt and Gabriel Debenedetti report that “Angry GOP donors close their wallets”, while the Washington Examiner’s David M. Drucker tells us that “Mike Pence’s top aide threatens disloyal Republicans, and members fume”, so, yeah, whole lot a fumin’ goin’ on.
The one thing that Republican donors, Vice President Mike Pence’s chief of staff Nick Ayers, and Republican members of Congress don’t understand is that Republicans can’t pass the Republican “agenda” because it’s an unworkable crock o’ crap, a pseudo-edifice that collapses under the weight of its own self-contradictions whenever brought forth.
Donald Trump campaigned on Bernie Sanders’ health care program—Medicare for all, paid for by someone else. House Speaker Paul Ryan’s “plan” was to cut health care spending so that the rich could get a tax cut. Is it any wonder that no “compromise” was ever worked out? Trump blames Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and McConnell blames Trump, neither noticing that neither of them made any substantive health care proposal at all. He who proposes nothing passes nothing. Is that so hard?1
Republicans are heading down precisely the same road on tax “reform”. What they want to do is to cut taxes on corporations (which could be an actual reform) and the donor class, which would be a terrible idea. Furthermore, they don’t want to cut taxes on corporations sensibly, because that wouldn’t give rich people enough money. They also sort of don’t want to have to increase the deficit, or, rather, don’t want to be seen as increasing the deficit. Actually, they don’t give a damn about the deficit.
Naturally, they have to think up something for those middle-class morons commonly called Republican voters, though their heart isn’t in it. For one thing, there’s so damn many of them. You give each of them a nickel and you’ve already busted the budget without doing a damn thing about what’s important, like the estate tax.2
Again, this isn’t really Trump’s fault. I mean, his “ideas”, to the extent that he has them, are even worse than Ryan’s and McConnell’s, but so what? Just because a two-ton turkey can’t fly doesn’t mean that a one-ton bird can achieve liftoff. That no one in the Republican Party can understand this says a lot about the GOP.
Afterwords
The few in the Party who can understand, like Sen. Robert Corker (retiring) and Sen. Susan Collins (probably going to run for governor) are bailing, which means that what’s left will be even “purer” in their stupidity. The same thing happened in both the English Revolution that led to the protectorate of Oliver Cromwell and the French Revolution, which led, of course, to Napoleon. Move to Canada? Switzerland might be a safer bet, if you can afford it.
If you want context, I’ve previously railed, a lot, regarding Republicans and health care here.
- After the House passed a slapped together “bill” that was roundly ridiculed by the few—the very few—conservatives who take health care issues seriously, McConnell originally announced that the Senate would write its own bill. When that proved impossible—because Senate Republicans had no ideas—he took up the House bill, messed with it a little, and then essentially folded. It’s very easy to believe that neither Ryan nor McConnell wanted even to try to repeal and replace ObamaCare, because 1) they knew that 90% of their caucuses had no ideas or interest in the subject and 2) the 10% who did had ideas that were totally unacceptable to the other 90%. ↩︎
- Because God forbid that Treasury Secretary Stevie Mnunchin’s reason for living won’t be able to inherit hubbie’s millions tax free! ↩︎
