Trump’s threat?
Note I put a question mark after the word “threat.”
Here’s the story as it’s being reported:
… a frustrated White House told a group of GOP lawmakers meeting in the Capitol basement Thursday evening that negotiations were “done” and a vote would take place Friday.
If the bill is defeated, Trump threatened to simply leave the current healthcare law in place and move on to other issues, according to a message delivered by the president’s budget chief, Mick Mulvaney, according to Rep. Chris Collins (R-N.Y.).
“The message is tomorrow it’s up, it’s down ”” we expect it to be up ”” but it’s done tomorrow,” Mulvaney said Thursday night.
It remained unclear whether Trump’s extraordinary ultimatum was real or a pressure tactic designed to bringunruly Republicans in line.
What are we to make of this “my way or the highway” pronouncement by Trump through his representative?
First: if it was indeed said that way, it wouldn’t be a surprising example of Trump’s negotiating style, in which he has stated before that one of the tactics is to threaten to walk away.
Second: note the fourth-hand nature of the report: according to a message delivered by the president’s budget chief, Mick Mulvaney, according to Rep. Chris Collins (R-N.Y.). With games of telephone, the message can get garbled. Why do I call it fourth-hand? Well, first we have Trump, then Mulvaney, then Collins, and then the reporter writing the story.
Third: when last I checked, Congress was a separate branch of government than the president, and able to pass or not pass whatever legislation it wants to take up. It doesn’t have to follow a president’s lead, and in fact often presidents are of different parties than Congress. As far as I can see, Congress could pass a bill anyway that differed from the one Trump wants, now or later, and put it before the president—who, in order to make good on his threat, would have to veto it. Is that what Trump is saying? That if Congress passes any bill on health care reform other than his approved bill, he’d veto it? If so, talk about declaring war on Congress, and on the American people and your own voters as well! Of course, if the GOP leaders of Congress agreed with Trump (either because of threats or for any other reason), and failed to allow a vote on any other bill, then Trump would have gotten their cooperation and no vote would occur.
Right now, the bill is being debated. Whether it will be voted on today is anyone’s guess.
Whatever the truth or falsehood of Trump’s reported message is, I am of the firm opinion that pushing this bill today is a bad move. There’s no all-fired rush, and a week or two more of negotiation and fine-tuning certainly would make sense.
[ADDENDUM: As I’ve said before, Trump will be judged by results (by most people, anyway). If a bill passes and it ends up being a good one for the vast majority of people affected, he’ll get credit. If it isn’t and it doesn’t, both he and the GOP will lose favor.]
Congress should repeal Obamacare, send it to Trump, and dare him to veto it. If he did, say goodbye to a second term.
Despite the fourth hand nature of the story, I do believe it because it is likely to be the outcome if the vote fails today. If it fails, what reason should anyone have that a later bill will ever pass the House and Senate? I would say there is none, and Obamacare will continue until it collapses the exchanges after another round of 20+% premium increases next year.
You’re dealing with a MASTER negotiator.
Donald has put a FUSE to the issuie.
That’s for sure.
This vote could come off today… or Monday.
That’s how significant legislation is passed.
The New Democratic Party
Where is the Democratic party? The party of political giants like FDR, LBJ and JFK is missing in action along with the letters that defined its heroes. This is now the party of Obama, Schumer, Pelosi – a facsimile of the past and a party without direction and policy guidelines.
America needs a two-party system. Differences are desirable within a Constitutional framework. Parties have served the nation well; albeit exceptions abound.
However, in my opinion, the nation has entered a new phase in party history. The Democratic party has become the party of NO. It stands against Trump, but it offers almost nothing of substance. A party that was the incubator of ideas is now bereft of them. More importantly, the Democratic party is intent on using any method in its quiver to hurt Republican counterparts. Politics may not be bean bag, but it wasn’t a bloodsport until recently. Now Democrats view Republicans as the “enemy” and, of course, enemies must be defeated.
There was a time when Republicans were merely “foes” and “rivals.” Those days have passed. Now lies, character assassination and personal vindictiveness are fair play. Anything goes in a world where winning is all that counts. What this means, of course, is that partisanship makes it far more difficult to govern.
During the 2012 campaign Senator Harry Reid said Mitt Romney did not pay his taxes. This claim was a bald faced lie. In fact, Mr. Reid admitted as much. Yet he also claimed this tactic was acceptable. For Reid, it shows something about political verve. What it shows is that lying is okay as long as it undermines the enemy.
This is the path to a political nightmare in which crushing the opposition is all that counts. But politics is not Vince Lombardi football; the opposition stays in the halls of Congress, continues to play a role and may be needed to get legislation passed even after electoral defeat. How can a modicum of cooperation be engendered in the present environment? Moreover, Democratic leadership has made up its mind that the present anti Trump strategy will be to resist. Tom Perez and Keith Ellison, the two newly named heads of the Democratic National Committee, have made it clear that they will resist this president even before a political offer is made. This is the politics of preemption. Reject even those offers that might benefit your party and could benefit the country.
As we all here know, Trump is not a conservative. On this issue, I suspect he somewhat favors taxpayer funded health care for the poor. Which Obamacare already does at least to some degree. He wants to move on to the issues he cares about and by pushing for RyanCare now, he resolves the political issue, for him.
If passed, he can say they’ve started the process of repeal with future progress Ryan’s responsibility. But if shot down, Trump can place the blame on Congress… stating that as soon as Congress stops playing games and sends him a bill that fulfills his pledge, he’s ready to sign it.
In either case it’s off the table and he can move on.
Fox says the vote has been stopped and that Ryan will give a presser at 9.
Ryancare is dead for now. I was surprised that Fox’s Chris Steyerwalt said that he thought that this would be for the best.
My preference would be a straight 100% repeal of Obamacare to start. If we could get past the Byrd/McConnell filibuster, I’d really like to see if McCain, Graham, Collins, and Snow would vote for it.
If socialized healthcare is here to stay, will medicare for all be cheaper and more beneficial than ACA?
I don’t really buy Neo’s concern that Trump is engaging in too much strong-arming of Congress. Heck, I hoped he would fail in this case. And I respect the separation of powers and believe that Congress has already lost too much of theirs. But seriously, there is so much sloth in the country-club Republican congress, it is amazing that they function at all.
On this topic, how is it that the Dems can muster such unity? What goes on behind closed doors? Remember the Clinton’s big tax increase? It passed the House by one vote; the vote of Ms. Margolies-Mezvinsky who promptly lost her seat.
Now her son is Mr. Marc Mezvinsky-Clinton. He’s the guy that started his own hedge fund, pulled in 10’s of millions, skimmed his 20% I’m guessing, and quickly lost it all.
To defeat obamacare, medicare for all is the only option. The choice is simple, if socialized healthcare is inevitable, that Americans have overall accepted Healthcare is now an entitlement that the fed is responsible for, strategy wise it is much more beneficial for conservatives that we are the one implementing it and have our name associated with it instead of the democrats and obama, at least we will have more controls on how this “socialized” healthcare will be run, we can make it as fiscally responsible as possible. Sometimes in life choosing the less evil is the only option.
Now that the bill has been pulled, I view it as a good thing. To me, it looks like the legislative process is working as intended. Yes, all the fighting is on the Republican side, but so what? It’s better to wait, and get a bill that works for everyone rather than rush through something in the first 3 months.
I keep contrasting this to what the Dems did with Obamacare. As is their practice, they all moved in complete lockstep. I think the last of independent thinking inside the Democrat party went away with Joe Lieberman.
Dave, you pretend to be a conservative concerned about health care, and post inane comments that amount to little more than concern trolling. With this insistence on Medicare for all you show yourself as a Democrat or Democrat stooge. Medicare for all is single payer, which is exactly what the left wants. You are not convincing anyone.
Well kiddies, once you turn 65 you are on ‘socialized’ healthcare, and then have to pay for supplemental insurance that partially covers what Uncle Sam does not cover. The boat sailed long ago. At best we can expect entitlements to expand until they are no longer supportable when interest on the debt requires 50% of GDP.
Yes, I realize many will think I am nuts.
Artfldgr Says:
March 24th, 2017 at 1:27 pm
You might enjoy this piece by Wm. Voegeli.
http://www.claremont.org/crb/article/the-democratic-partys-identity-crisis/
physicsguy Says:
March 24th, 2017 at 4:55 pm
Now that the bill has been pulled, I view it as a good thing. To me, it looks like the legislative process is working as intended. Yes, all the fighting is on the Republican side, but so what? It’s better to wait, and get a bill that works for everyone rather than rush through something in the first 3 months.
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In agreement:
http://libertyunyielding.com/2017/03/24/punting-ahca-vote-2017-declaration-independence/
http://libertyunyielding.com/2017/03/24/trump-gop-play-smart-kill-care-bill-advance-vote/
parker Says:
March 24th, 2017 at 9:45 pm
Well kiddies, once you turn 65 you are on ‘socialized’ healthcare, and then have to pay for supplemental insurance that partially covers what Uncle Sam does not cover.
* * *
Which is why The Dems were able to “sell” ACA at all – because we are already conditioned with Medicare and Medicaid.
My preference is to totally eliminate every single government program and regulation on health insurance (not necessarily health care) and start over from scratch.
Grandmother in anyone over 55 to the existing system if they can’t be transitioned to a new one, and phase it out completely.
Tax-exempt HSAs and Whole Health Insurance should be available to everyone beginning at age 18 (they can vote, they can pay; even if they get the $$ from Mom&Dad) – level premiums so that the early “overpayments” fund the later “over uses” just like Whole Life.
Parker, no you are not “nuts” by any stretch, but what you say is the problem in a nutshell. Demographics and the Ponzi scheme that is Medicare (and Social Security) will someday soon come to an end. Extending national medical care to the general population only makes things worse and hastens the crisis. You and I have lived long enough to know what to expect, and have prepared accordingly.