Why else would he go after Obamacare?
It is popular and many people are highly reliant on it right now, and he wants to alienate even more voters?
Not only will he likely lose the Presidency for the GOP, he will likely cost them the Senate.
Which of course means that then then DEMs will spend the next 4 years trying to undo all of Trump's changes... :-) This country is crazy, but I love it !!! :-)
46 comments:
I am trying to figure out why Republicans want to take away health insurance from people in the middle of a pandemic.
==Hiram
Because ACA charges different citizens more so those folks can have health insurance.
Definitely a rob from Peter to pay Paul's health insurance premium system.
As I said, not good but better than the alternative.
Here’s what a second term of Trump would look like
Are you trying to convince me to vote for him or something? :-)
The bigger question is what stupidity could Biden unleash if the DEMs get the House, Senate and Presidency?
- ever more illegal and indigent people from all over the world?
- expectation free government benefits, cash and services
- more unnecessary federal departments, regulations, over sight, etc
- stronger public employee unions to resist change and improvement
Yep, our kids are likely screwed either way.
Sorry, but the question requires an answer. Why? Because Obamacare is unconstitutional, based SOLELY on the "penalty" being a "tax" according to SCOTUS, and the stupid Democrats forgot to write "severability" into the ACA, so that if any part of it is struck down, the whole thing has to be struck down. Now that the "tax" does not exist, it has no Constitutional basis to exist. And of course because it was terrible legislation to begin with. "Like your doctor keep your doctor" and "save $2500 per family"? Lie of the Year!
Once again, Trump does the right thing, and liberals are outraged!
"Lie of the Year!"
That's rich.
Moose
Moose, feel free to deny the actual media headline.
Lie of the Year
Laurie, I could not access your WaPo Opinion piece. But it's a WaPo opinion piece so... What I really want to see is Trump with a GOP House and Senate. Some of the big things still probably won't get tackled, but a lot of significant messes might be. Replacing O'care might be a top priority after the SCOTUS ruling, and not very difficult.
Moose,
Jerry was correct
Of course you are correct that Trump has more on the list
Jerry,
At the rate Trump is going he will give the whole government over to the DEMs gift wrapped with a bow. Oh well...
Post op ed piece:
Here’s what a second term of Trump would look like
President Trump in the White House Rose Garden on Wednesday.
President Trump in the White House Rose Garden on Wednesday. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)
Image without a caption
Opinion by
Paul Waldman
Columnist
June 26, 2020 at 11:25 a.m. CDT
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Presidential campaigns are often characterized as an extended job interview, an imperfect analogy at best. But imagine you were interviewing a candidate for a job, you asked him what he wanted to accomplish in the position, and he answered you the way President Trump did when Sean Hannity asked him on Thursday, “What are your top priority items for a second term?”:
Well one of the things that will be really great: You know, the word “experience” is still good. I always say talent is more important than experience, I’ve always said that. But the word “experience” is a very important word. It’s a very important meaning. I never did this before, I never slept over in Washington. I was in Washington, I think, 17 times, all of a sudden I’m president of the United States, you know the story, I’m riding down Pennsylvania Avenue with our first lady and I say, “This is great.”
But I didn’t know very many people in Washington, it wasn’t my thing. I was from Manhattan, from New York. Now I know everybody. And I have great people in the administration. You make some mistakes, like you know an idiot like Bolton, all he wanted to do is drop bombs on everybody. You don’t have to drop bombs on everybody. You don’t have to kill people.
“Thanks for coming,” you’d say to this job applicant. “Don’t call us, we’ll call you.”
Through this inarticulate stream of consciousness, there isn’t even the slightest attempt to answer the question: What does Trump want to do with a second term? Does anyone have any idea?
Because the president himself doesn’t appear to, let’s see if we can figure it out for ourselves.
While the president himself may not have much of a clue what he would do in a second term, the ideologues and grifters he has surrounded himself with certainly do. For instance, on the same day Trump held his “town hall” with Hannity, his administration filed a brief urging the Supreme Court to nullify the Affordable Care Act, an action that would snatch health coverage away from 23 million people, strip away everyone’s protections for preexisting conditions and throw the entire American health-care system into chaos. In the midst of a pandemic.
Full coverage of the coronavirus pandemic
Even if that lawsuit should fail, a second Trump administration would continue to undermine health security, seeking to remove as many people as possible from Medicaid by establishing onerous paperwork requirements, making it more difficult for people to enroll in the Obamacare exchanges, and generally advancing Trump’s vision of a system as cruel and unforgiving as possible, in which people with means have coverage, the middle class lives in a state of constant anxiety and poor people are shown how morally unworthy they are through a vigorous program of suffering and humiliation.
While Trump himself may find that pleasing, he has only the vaguest sense of the details of that agenda, which is designed and executed by the far-right dogmatists whom he installed in government agencies. In a second Trump term, we’d see that play out in department after department: The Environmental Protection Agency promoting more pollution, the Labor Department working to destroy collective bargaining and workers’ rights, the Commerce Department continuing its effort to manipulate the census, and so on.
The Supreme Court could have a 7-to-2 conservative majority at the end of a second Trump term, along with lower courts populated with hundreds more young far-right judges who could serve for decades.
Trump would just as enthusiastically pursue his (and Stephen Miller’s) vision of a re-whitened America, and so much more. Now that we have essentially closed our doors to asylum seekers and refugees, why not simply shut down immigration entirely? Or at least restrict it to a small number of people coming from northern Europe.
And of course, in a second Trump term, the president would be more sure than ever that he could get away with anything. He wouldn’t need to beg foreign governments to help him win reelection, so why not ask them to simply pay him in cash? If China wants a beneficial trade agreement, perhaps they could give him a billion dollars, funneled through a new Trump casino in Macau. Who’s going to stop him?
Certainly not Attorney General William P. Barr, who would no doubt stick around for the entire four years, intervening in every case that involves one of the president’s many criminal friends and associates, and purging the Justice Department of anyone who shows troubling signs of integrity.
One thing a second Trump term would not feature is any real legislating. Republicans would surely try to pass another round of tax cuts for wealthy people and corporations, but that would be difficult if they don’t have complete control of Congress.
And they won’t. If Trump does win in November, it will not be in a landslide election that sweeps Republicans in on his coattails. It will be by a hair — in fact, chances are that if he were to win, it would once again be by squeaking out an electoral college victory while millions more people vote for his opponent. Democrats would hold the House and could win the Senate, if not this year, then in 2022.
The Democrats would continue to investigate him, and he would continue to act as though Congress were inherently illegitimate and had no right to subpoena the administration, demand documents or compel testimony.
America’s influence and image in the world would continue to weaken, making it far more likely that China becomes the world’s preeminent superpower.
Throughout the country, social unrest would likely increase as Americans grow more and more frustrated with Trump’s toxic rule. And of course, he would do everything in his power to exacerbate division and promote hatred, not because he needs to in order to win another election but because it’s just who he is.
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His spectacular mismanagement of the coronavirus pandemic could result in the deaths of a quarter-million or so of us before the virus is brought under control. And if we’re lucky, there won’t be another crisis of that magnitude for him to screw up just as badly.
Back in 2016, Trump predicted that when he became president, “We’re going to win so much that you’re going to be sick and tired. You’re going to say, ‘Please, please, Mr. President, we’re sick and tired of winning.’”
He was right about one thing: We’re certainly sick and tired. Now just imagine how we’d feel after four more years.
--Hiram
Simply amazing that those who know the President the least know EXACTLY what he is thinking and what he will do with a second term, let alone tomorrow. They didn't even know he was going to win in 2016, nor that he would intervene in a case of Constitutional law. Apparently the ruling will not come until after the election, so this really is idle speculation.
Oh, and the first rule of the Obamacare "replacement" is "if you like your Obamacare plan, you can keep your plan." This will not be like the millions of people who lost their plan because Obamacare didn't like it.
Let me repeat... There is NO ACA Replacement plan... That has always been the GOP's problem.
EPI Assessment
CNBC Assessment
Kaiser Analysis
Health care wise, I am in favor of Trump's goals. Indeed, they are more radical than anything Democrats have ever been able to pass. The problem with Republicans isn't their policy goals, it's that they are against achieving them.''=
Republicans have gotten far to comfortable playing one of my least favorite political games. Republicans are way too often in support of something but only if impossible preconditions are met. They support measure x but only after snowballs freeze in hell first.
--Hiram
NGF Analysis
AP Analysis
YOU do not KNOW of any ACA replacement plan. It would not be that difficult to conjure one up in a week or two. Look at how quickly Congress moved to completely redefine "policing." And that had to be conjured out of thin air. Many elements of real health care reform have been floating around for years.
As for replacement, my question to you is: With what do you replace something that should never have existed in the first place?
As I said below, getting rid of popular programs is not a way to get re-elected...
"Jerry,
At the rate Trump is going he will give the whole government over to the DEMs gift wrapped with a bow. Oh well..."
It will be interesting to see what the DEMs do during the next 4 years.
YOU do not KNOW of any ACA replacement plan. It would not be that difficult to conjure one up in a week or two
Or a few hours, really. Which, given how easy it is to come up with a plan, invites the question, "Why haven't Republicans over the last couple of decades done that?" And the reason is that they can't marshal the support for any specific plan needed to get it passed. Obamacare is essentially a Republican approach, cobbled together from what Republicans did in Massachusetts. Republican opposition to a Republican plan was and is fierce.
Meanwhile, Republicans are trying to terminate health insurance for 23 million Americans in the middle of a pandemic. Think about that.
--Hiram
OK, "popular programs"... Surveys show a plurality likes the "Affordable Care Act." A similar plurality /hates/ "Obamacare."
And let me ask a question, before you decide Trump is toast: How is Joe Biden going to do in the debates?
Hiram, that is certainly the way Democrats will portray the simple fact that Obamacare never should have been, and now must go away on Constitutional grounds. Hardly Trump's, or any Republican's, fault. It won't come up until after the election and will be at most a minor issue until then. If Republicans control House and Senate, they will need a replacement, at least in name only, and that shouldn't be at all difficult with a "blank sheet of paper" that SCOTUS hands them.
The idea that the framers back in 1787 were making 21st century health care policy is perhaps one of the most bizarre fantasies current today. They simply weren't. The problem Republicans have always had with Obamacare politically is that any health care plan they came up with, would have been largely the same as Obamacare. That's because Obamacare is essentially a Republican approach to health care policy. Democrats, given their druthers, would have proposed something quite different. And a Democratic plan would not have had the objections Republicans have about Obamacare.
--Hiram
The judicial attempt to make health care policy is largely the reason I am so strongly in favor of repealing Article III of the constitution. Public policy should not be made by people whose only ambition in live is to secure a lifetime appointment to a job with absolute power, where they can also take summers off. I know of no Supreme Court justice today to whom I would want to make any important policy decision.
--Hiram
Jerry,
In 2016 there were millions of moderates like me that were willing to give Trump a chance in hopes that he would grow into the position.
Unfortunately "he did not. He kept lying, exaggerating, blaming, attacking, self serving, etc.
He is not getting our votes again, so it will be interesting to see how things go.
And of course, SCOTUS & ACA will be a huge deal. The anti-GOP folks will bring it out every chance they get... I hear the ads already.
"All you folks with pre-existing conditions, on medicaid, with kids <26 years old, etc will lose your healthcare because of this administration. And all you older folks are going see your premiums jump when the price controls are removed."
All those things you have just said are false, as I see it. Especially your paraphrased Democrat attack ad. Sure, that is what they will say, but it a damnable lie because they cannot possibly know that, and no Republican would allow such things to pass in a Republican Congress. Of course, Democrats could show Trump pushing Granny over the cliff again, and a lot of fools will believe it.
Jerry,
Trump has shown NO leadership in 3+ years...
Well other than:
- end agreements
- end regulations
- cut taxes, increase spending, increase deficits
- appoint judges
I don't expect him to propose or do anything of substance.
Jerry,
167 Mostly false, 283 false and 131 pants on fire statements support my claim.
"He kept lying, exaggerating, blaming, attacking, self serving, etc."
Unless you want to take me up on my offer to review some of them.
HIram, your concern for "absolute power" in the courts is a two-edged sword. The courts are /supposed/ to be a legitimate "check and balance" on the other two branches, but for too long they have /made/ law rather than adjudicate it on Constitutional grounds. Those "emanations and penumbras" are not "judicial restraint." On the other hand, remember that Obamacare was passed by the "absolute power" of Al Franken's [stolen] Senate seat, giving Democrats a 60-seat majority, which they exercised.
What does all this "lying" have to do with accomplishing a lot of very good things? If Democrats can lie through their teeth to advance their [bad for America, IMHO] agenda, must Republicans be held to a higher standard?
Lying? unlikely, in the dictionary definition. Exaggerating? Sure, or just oversimplifying. Blaming? highly appropriate. Name names. Attacking? tit-for-tat, and the Left can't stand a Republican that fights back. Self-serving? What does that even mean? He is giving away his salary and working for nothing. Etc.? You just have a personal animus against the fellow. He could cure cancer and you would blame him for putting oncologists out of work.
At least he hasn't claimed that 270 million of 330 million Americans are already dead of gun violence or Covid.
Jerry,
Rationalize voting for him however you wish.
He is going into the history books as one of the worst Presidents ever.
A 5 trillion dollar deficit and 150,000 citizens dead on his watch will pretty well assure that.
"rationalize" is such an unpleasant term. "Rational," on the other hand...
I point out Nov. 3rd presents a binary decision, between a man trying, and somewhat succeeding against implacable opposition, to do what's right for the country and another who has no idea what is going on in the country. How will you rationalize YOUR choice?
Sorry, Trump is not bright or organized enough to even have policy proposals.
He is not a Leader, he is just a bitter unhappy controlling manipulative old man.
It is unfortunate that you let him work your strings.
All Promises and No Policy
"Trump campaigned on repealing and replacing ObamaCare, though he has not presented his own alternative to the signature health law during his tenure in the White House. An effort to repeal ObamaCare failed in the Senate in 2017."
Oh, brother, how delusional can you be? Trump is not an ideologue nor a policy wonk. He is a problem-solver and ran for President to solve the problems he saw so clearly coming from DC. You want a "bitter, unhappy, controlling, manipulative old man"? Obamacare repeal was a done deal in the Senate until John McCain torpedoed it.
And you keep doddering on about the Obamacare "replacement." With what do you replace something that never should have existed at all? Trump has said PEC would always be covered, Republicans have said that the popular up-to-26 coverage would be included, so any charges to the contrary are lies. Besides, most states had Medicaid or alternatives (Minnesota's was better than Obamacare), and most states offered some form of PEC coverage, long before O'care. And what about O'cares' promises-- like your plan, $2500 savings, 45 million more covered? They were all massive lies, not to mention the millions who LOST coverage. Democrats and NeverTrumpers will lie about health care every chance they get, but their purpose isn't to solve the health care problem, it's to PREVENT Trump from solving it. It is unfortunate you see that as the virtuous approach.
With what do you replace something that never should have existed at all?
Good problem for a problem solver. Trump never showed any interest in addressing it, let alone solving it.
--Hiram
Anybody should be able to figure that one out, unless they are a Democrat. Hint: think null set.
Hiram,
I am with you on this one.
Trump is a wrecker... Not a problem solver...
A true problem solver would hire good people and propose good solutions.
He seems to be unable to do either based on his high staff turnover and lack of proposals.
An Interesting piece
Amazing: 26% still trust Trump's COVID comments
In terms of solving a problem, the first thing you have to do is to identify the problem correctly. With respect to the virus, Trump failed in the most fundamental way and that failure continues to this day. He sees the virus in political, not biological terms. He thought the virus came from countries, when in fact, it comes from human beings. He banned travel from China, a political entity, when instead he should have banned travel. He wants the virus dealt with on a state level. Viruses know nothing about states. He wanted to relax restrictions early to help his reelection prospects. Viruses don't vote, they don't even register. So now we have failed, in a way it seems no other country has failed, and people are dying as a result. The president's solution? Jail people for ten years for taking down racist statues.
--Hiram
Good assessment.
And yes he does love to try and distract from his failings, instead of acknowledging and learning from them.
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