Republicans should thank Barack Obama. For eight years, he allowed them to pretend as though they cared about the American people.
The former president served as a convenient scapegoat for everything that’s wrong with our country, while Republicans in Washington portrayed themselves as the party with all the answers. The only thing stopping them was Obama’s veto pen.
The biggest hoax was that the GOP actually had a sensible replacement for Obamacare.
Now that Obama is no longer around to hold them at bay, we’re beginning to see these Washington demagogues for who they really are — a party all too willing to give working-class Americans the shaft while looking out for big business and special interests.
House Speaker Paul Ryan seems more than willing to push through Congress a poorly crafted bill that cuts individual subsidies for people who can’t afford to purchase health insurance while giving a tax credit to those who earn more money.
The Republican bill likely to be passed in the House this week would leave 24 million people uninsured over the next 10 years, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office. Much of that will occur because the Republicans plan to severely reduce health care subsidies for the poor and working class.
If you are old and poor, you get hit with a double whammy.
Ryan has described it as giving Americans freedom of choice. But what it really amounts to is no choice at all for the most vulnerable Americans.
I’d like to see how Republicans explain that to the more than 6 million people — in the states that Trump won — who could lose their health care subsidies. According to a report by the Kaiser Family Foundation, some of the states with the highest number of people currently receiving subsidies are Florida, Texas, North Carolina and Georgia — all represented by GOP senators and all that went for Trump. That doesn’t even include the red states that have expanded Medicaid.
This time around, the GOP is hoping it can hide behind Trump, by quietly standing by as he steps to the forefront and rolls out his list of controversial policies, some of which Republicans have always wanted but were too scared to implement themselves.
The political priorities of Trump and establishment Republicans such as Ryan and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell could not be more different. In fact, they probably don’t really like each other. It’s one of the oddest trios we’ve seen in modern politics.
Yet Ryan and McConnell appear to have made a pact with Trump to give him what he wants long as he gives them what they want. It’s the old Washington adage “you scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours” at its finest.
Ryan is almost giddy over his newfound power. During an interview with Chris Wallace on Fox News Sunday, he had to stop for a moment and take a breath while talking about the opportunities Trump’s presidency has afforded Republicans. He could barely contain his excitement over Trump’s leadership on the health care bill, calling the president a “great closer.” This from a man who endorsed Trump for president but refused to be seen with him on the campaign trail.
How opinions change when politicians need someone to scratch their backs. And Trump appears perfectly willing to offer his hand in order to get his first budget through Congress.
Trump needs Ryan to shepherd through his $1.1 trillion budget proposal, which adds $54 billion to defense spending while cutting the same amount from domestic programs.
Ryan, on the other hand, knows that he cannot accomplish two of his biggest goals — making cuts to Social Security and Medicare — without Trump’s support. During the campaign, Trump insisted that he would never touch the two programs. Now, the president seems to have softened his stance.
McConnell, who gave Trump a tepid endorsement during the campaign, is now acting like he’s the guy the Republicans always wanted in the White House. It’s sickening to watch McConnell beam when he appears with Trump in public, how he tries to act as though whatever Trump is saying makes sense when it is clear to many that the president has no idea what he’s talking about half the time.
McConnell easily agreed to spend billions to help Trump fulfill a campaign promise, even though it is clear that the U.S. shouldn’t be spending a dime on that silly Mexican border wall the president wants to build. Trump reportedly is asking for $2.6 billion for the wall
Ryan acknowledged Sunday that Trump, who’s expected to release a spending plan this week, likely will get much of what he’s asking for in his budget.
“At the end of the day, I believe we will honor these priorities,” he told Wallace.
Because that’s what back-scratchers do.
I don’t have any sympathy for Trump, but he ought to watch his back. These guys will turn on him as soon as the political winds start blowing the other way.
Once they’ve gotten what they want from him, Trump will be as worthless to them as a Democratic voter in Mississippi.
Twitter @dahleeng
