The Everything Is Truly Off The Rails Edition
Editor’s Note: I just can’t concentrate on the Gorsuch hearings. It’s a combo of there being too much other news going on and also my despair/frustration knowing that he will definitely be confirmed, and is likely to be as radical as Alito. I am thrilled the Dems are going to oppose him and filibuster, even if it forces the nuclear option.
BATTERED BUT NOT BROKEN: In an unbelievable (but non-permanent) defeat, the GOP was forced to pull its health care* bill from the floor today, canceling a vote scheduled for the 7th anniversary of the signing of Obamacare after it became clear Ryan did not have the votes [pro tip: click that link] to pass the bill. This came after a last-minute (literally) night-time editing session in which the conservatives demanded that the “essential health benefits” -- requirements that every health insurance plan cover basic things like hospitalizations prescription drugs, and doctor’s visits -- be stripped. This is both cruel and insane. As Chait explains, “A system without essential benefits would make the law’s protections for people with preexisting conditions meaningless. Insurers couldn’t turn you away if you had a pricy condition, but the only people who wanted to buy plans covering them would be sick and expensive, making covering their conditions unaffordable — just like before Obamacare existed.” It also begs scammers to take advantage of the federal government (and spend more of the government’s money). This is because, as Yglesias explains, “without the essential health benefits in place, there will be no requirement that insurance companies offer good insurance. You can just craft a cheap, totally worthless plan, spend a ton to market it, and scoop up government money.” Of course, these changes helped drive “moderate” Republicans away from the bill -- and even then, it was insufficiently cruel for the “Freedom Caucus” to get behind. (One reporter tweeted Thursday that the arch-conservatives are now demanding the repeal of the Obamacare regulations that affect all health insurance plans in the country are are VITALLY important, including a ban on yearly and lifetime caps; the end of community rating (ie, the rule that insurance companies have to charge everyone the same); standardized documentation (because who wants to be able to actually understand their insurance plans anyway); and the rule requiring insurance companies to spend 85% of premiums on health benefits and return the rest to consumers). Now it is being reported that Trump is “demanding” that the bill come for a vote tomorrow -- even if, apparently, there aren’t the votes to pass it. And if somehow the House does pass it, it’s still entirely unclear what version they would even be voting on tomorrow (as of writing, we still have no text of the bill; at 9pm tonight, the GOP voted en masse to waive the rule requiring that the bill exist for awhile before being voted on), and then less clear whether that version could pass the Senate, both because of the politics and because these last-minute changes may mean that it can’t be passed through reconciliation (and would thus require 60 votes). (A set of changes proposed Monday night would, as projected by the CBO, “reduce savings in federal spending by half as much as their original plan and would still cause 24 million more Americans to be uninsured.” Of course, there won’t be a CBO score of whatever bill is actually voted on tomorrow.) So now I guess we wait to see what happens Friday. Guys, this is nuts -- and it would be nuts for Republicans to pass this bill. (Also, read this great Josh Barro piece about the Republican chickens coming home to roost.)
*It is not a health care bill. It is a giant tax cut for the rich that distributes money from the poor to the rich, in which “[t]he typical family making less than $10,000 will lose $1,420,” while “the average family making $200,000 or more would gain $5,640.”
THE BEST THING ABOUT THIS: The most hilarious part about the GOP’s self-inflicted wound is that Trump has no understanding at all of why he is in this position. It seems like that’s because Paul Ryan has lied to him, telling him that he has no choice but to do health care repeal first. Trump believed it:
- Feb 17: “And we have to, as you know, statutorily and for reasons of budget, we have to go first. It's not like, frankly, the tax would be easier, in my opinion, but for statutory reasons and for budgetary reasons, we have to submit the healthcare sooner.”
- Feb. 22: "Before we do the tax — which is actually very well finalized — but we can't submit it until the health care statutorily or otherwise," Trump told reporters before a White House budget meeting.
- Feb 27: "Nobody knew that health care could be so complicated," Trump said. "And statutorily and for budget purposes, as you know, we have to do health care before we do the tax cut."
- March 20: “We want a very big tax cut,” Trump said, “but we cannot do that until we keep our promise to repeal and replace the disaster known as Obamacare.”
There is, of course, no “statutory” reason why health care has to go first. Instead, it’s part of Paul Ryan’s strategy to lock in enormous tax cuts for the rich that don’t expire. Chait explains that a budget bill can be passed with only 51 votes in the Senate, unless it increases the deficit after 10 years, in which case it can be filibustered. In 2001, Republicans avoided this by just having the tax cuts expire after 10 years. But that’s no longer good enough for Paul Ryan. So he needs to find a giant pot of money so that the tax cut doesn’t increase the deficit and thus can be passed with only 51 votes. “The Republican plan to repeal Obamacare would eliminate all the taxes that were raised to help pay for the benefits — about $1.2 trillion over the next decade. This would lower the baseline of tax revenue, meaning that Republicans would need to design a tax code that raises $1.2 trillion less in revenue in order to be “revenue-neutral.” That makes it crucial for them to repeal Obamacare before they cut taxes.” Of course, they could (and likely will) just pass a tax cut that explodes the deficit (just like the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts) without pretending that it is revenue-neutral. “They’ll look back and wish they hadn’t bled time and political capital on a reach goal that they wound up abandoning anyway.” The icing on the cake is that the GOP healthcare plan (even before it’s latest cruel and stupid changes) is enormously, unbelievably unpopular.
RUSSIA EXPLODES AGAIN: It is unbelievable that it is only Thursday night, given how much exploded in the Russia story this week. It started with the FBI’s confirmation on Monday that it is currently investigating possible collaboration between Trump associates and Russian hackers bent on influencing the 2016 election. This is a really, really big deal, even as the steady trickle of Russia-related news tends to lull us into forgetting what a massive thing this is. That was shocking enough. But then we had to suffer the spectacle of a Republican party working as hard as possible to avoid learning anything whatsoever about these possible ties -- or about Russian interference at all -- for an entire day, a display that was sad and pathetic. But even that was less depressing than watching the official twitter feed of the President of the United States lie in real time, about things that were happening right before our eyes. “This was not just campaign spin, or even presidential obfuscation. It was an official government communications arm of the executive branch with massive reach—something akin to a state-run media outlet—deliberately misreporting, in real time, what was happening on Capitol Hill.” Jamelle Bouie: “It’s difficult to describe the feeling of seeing the president of the United States lie, in the moment, about ongoing events and testimony. To watch the White House declare that you should believe it over your lying eyes, even as you witness reality unfold in real time. It’s not the usual spin or political dishonesty; it feels transgressive, like some critical line has been crossed, and a new world entered where Donald Trump and his allies contest the nature of truth itself, with the presidency as their platform for action.” And that was followed by the amazing moment where the FBI Director fact checked -- and corrected -- the sitting president’s tweets in the middle of the hearing. Zach Beauchamp writes: “We’re in the midst of what’s already a significant scandal — and one that could, depending on what the FBI uncovers, end up being the biggest political scandal ever in our history. And it’s not clear, judging by the behavior of the Republicans at the House Intelligence hearing, if our hyperpolarized political system is capable of handling it.”
I think it’s now pretty clear that the system is not capable of handling it. Two days after this unbelievable hearing, the Devin Nunes, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee -- which, recall, is supposed to be investigating Russian interference in our election, including whether Trump’s team worked with Russian hackers -- gave an extraordinary statement and press conference. In what appears to be an attempt to vindicate Trump’s (thoroughly debunked) assertion that Obama had wiretapped Trump Tower, Nunes announced that members of the Trump transition team had in fact been swept up in surveillance that was not related to Russia but was related to FISA warrants of some kind. This was shocking and bizarre, for all the reasons Lawfareblog explores here. For one, it’s totally unclear, more than 24 hours later, what he was actually trying to allege. And he never discussed this information with the committee itself or even with the ranking member, Rep. Adam Schiff, who as of Thursday morning had no idea what Nunes was talking about. And it was also super weird that Nunes ran over to tell the White House -- you know, the subject of his committee’s investigation -- about this stuff. And then on Thursday, Nunes refused to say that this “information” had not come from the White House itself, calling into question what the hell he is talking about and whether it’s actually real information he’s discussing. All of this led John McCain today, after calling the statement “bizarre,” to say that Congress “no longer has credibility to handle this alone” and that a select committee must take over the investigation.
That was all crazy. But then Schiff raised the stakes by declaring that the evidence he has seen showing collusion between Team Trump and the Russians is “more than circumstantial now,” a dramatic shift from his position as of Sunday that the evidence was only circumstantial.
But this is not all. On Wednesday morning, the AP reported that Paul Manafort -- Trump’s former campaign chairman -- had signed a contract with a Russian oligarch in 2005 to work for the “benefit of the Putin government” among the highest levels of the US government in exchange for $10 million. The relationship between Manafort and this oligarch continued until at least 2009. And then Wednesday night, CNN reported that “The FBI has information that indicates associates of President Donald Trump communicated with suspected Russian operatives to possibly coordinate the release of information damaging to Hillary Clinton's campaign. . . . The FBI cannot yet prove that collusion took place, but the information suggesting collusion is now a large focus of the investigation, the officials said.” It’s a carefully worded article with a lot of hedging, but it is potentially enormously explosive.
ALSO THIS: This morning Time Magazine published an unbelievable interview with Trump about his penchant for lying. It is frightening and insane and confirms that, to Trump, there really is no such thing as an objective truth. It’s not long, and you should read it. In his very first answer -- for an interview about why he lies all the time -- Trump he tells 5 obvious lies! (No one died in Sweden in the riot that was totally unrelated to the topic Trump had mentioned the day before; Weiner did not have any new Clinton emails on his computer; NATO “covered” terrorism before Trump’s presidency; our NATO allies do pay; and it is Trump who has no idea how NATO is funded.)
A Picture’s Worth 1,000 Words: Diversity!
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