First-Time Mom Edition
FIRST, A GIANT THANK-YOU: Let’s pause to give a huge round of grateful applause to Substitute Extraordinaire Roger Low, who so ably (and thoroughly!) filled in for me these last three weeks. I loved reading his take on the news, told with his biting sarcasm and wit -- and written in shockingly error-free prose! Aside from annoyingly showing how easy it is to not fill these things with typos, Roger’s missives were incredibly smart, incisive, and funny. We are all lucky to have gotten to enjoy his writing! Hopefully, Roger will be gracing us with his humor and intellect in some guests posts in the future!
POTENTIAL HEALTH CARE COMPROMISE?: This week, Democratic Senator Patty Murray and Republican Senator Lamar Alexander announced a bipartisan compromise bill that would shore up the Obamacare marketplaces and, most likely, put the Repeal and Replace shit to bed once and for all. The proposal is billed as a short-term stop-gap measure to fund the cost-sharing reduction (CSR) payments, which “reimburse insurance companies for lowering deductibles, co-payments and other out-of-pocket costs for low-income customers.” (Trump announced he would end those payments last week.) The bill would also give some increased flexibility to the states to allow crappier insurance plans (low-premium, high-deductible “Bronze Plans”), but (according to Andy Slavitt at least) it explicitly protects those with pre-existing conditions, continues Obamacare’s essential health benefit requirements, and does not touch Medicaid -- all incredibly positive developments from the GOP’s previous repeal efforts. Please read this short and very clear Sarah Kliff piece that explains how, by refusing to pay the CSRs, Trump is ensuring that the government has to spend more money to insure fewer people and result in higher premiums for higher-income enrollees.
In all, this seems like a real, bona fide compromise and an actual good bill that we should support. Of course, whether this can pass is an open question at this point. Today, Murray and Alexander announced 12 Democratic and 12 Republican co-sponsors, meaning that if every Democrat supported it (which is likely), there would be over 60 votes for its passage and the GOP would not be able to filibuster (assuming, of course, that McConnell allows it to get to the floor for a vote, which is something we should probably not assume). But the House seems opposed to the compromise effort; Paul Ryan let it be known yesterday that he would not let the House take up the compromise. And characteristically, Trump has been all over the place. On Tuesday, he sounded supportive of the compromise. But by Wednesday, it sounded like he had turned against it. Today, he offered this utterly incoherent word salad from which it is nearly impossible to divine a position. But for now he has settled on the line that he does not want to “bail out” insurance companies who have “made a fortune” off of Obamacare -- a contradictory proposition already. This is nonsense, but it sounds like something and so it may be enough to doom the entire effort. In the end
I CAN’T EVEN: From the Washington Post: “President Trump on Thursday said the federal response to hurricane-ravaged Puerto Rico deserves a grade of 10 out of 10 as he met at the White House with Ricardo Rosselló, the governor of the U.S. territory. ‘It would say it’s a 10,’ Trump said, arguing that the destruction wrought by Hurricane Maria ‘was in many ways worse than anything people have ever seen.’ . . . ‘I think we did a fantastic job, and we’re being given credit,” Trump said. “We have done a really great job.’” Meanwhile, in reality, more than 80% of Puerto Ricans remain without electricity, and about 30% of the island lacks municipal water service. (Adding fuel to my fireball of rage at this story is the way the Post reported it: It quoted Trump, and then said that his comments were “at odds with public polling” showing that most people disapproved of his handling of the crisis -- instead of providing any stats about actual recovery efforts on the ground.) AAAAAAGGGGGHHHHHH SO MUCH RAGE.
IS THE REPUBLICAN TAX CUT EFFORT ALREADY DEAD?: Well, not yet. But passing their giant tax cut is not going to be easy. On Tuesday, the Senate passed a motion to open up a 2018 budget resolution, “a prerequisite for getting tax cuts out of the upper chamber with only 51 votes.” This means that the tax cuts will pass only if both chambers can agree on and pass an actual budget -- an achievement at least slightly in doubt. Rand Paul says he will vote for the budget only if millions of dollars in military spending is removed (something the rest of the party will refuse to go along with). Without Paul, the Senate GOP can lose only two votes, and Thad Cochran (a reliable conservative) is increasingly fragile, senile, and ill. And then there are the larger ideological differences within the party, in both chambers, as Eric Levitz points out: “While everyone wants giant tax cuts, the party’s right-wing wants to partially offset them with reductions to social spending; the mainstream Republicans wants to do so by ending various tax deductions; and a small, but potentially decisive faction, wants to fully offset them with some combination of the two.” And then you have the problem of making the math work out. “The House budget mandates $203 billion in cuts to domestic spending. The Freedom Caucus wanted more than double that; the Senate resolution mandates approximately $0.00.” And the Senate resolution allows for increasing the deficit by only $1.5 trillion, but the tax plan as it exists now is projected to add $2.2 trillion to the deficit, even assuming the plan will generate $1.3 trillion in revenue (an iffy proposition). Levitz traces the various demands coming from different factions of the party -- no increases in middle class taxes; a minimum corporate tax cut to 20%; no increases to the deficit; slashes to food stamps, Medicaid, and other programs for the poor, etc -- to show the nearly impossible minefield the party leadership faces in trying to pass this plan. He concludes:
So: If everything goes according to plan, House and Senate Republicans will soon agree on a budget resolution — and find themselves with a trillion-dollar math problem. Mitch McConnell would then need to devise a means of making the president’s tax plan more than $1 trillion less generous, while losing a maximum of two Republican votes (assuming Democrats don’t break ranks) — or one, should Cochran’s health sideline him again.
All of these maneuverings are going on as Trump continues to engage in bald-faced lies about what his tax plan is. Even though he has been corrected many times, he continues to state that the U.S. is the highest-taxed nation in the world. It is not. This week, reporter Mike Sacks asked him why he kept repeating the lie, and Trump said that he knew it wasn’t true but it was true enough, or it felt true, and other people were agreeing with him, but also it is true if you look only at “developed” countries. This answer is both a word salad and also a lie. “In fact, it’s even more false than the original statement.”
Maybe it’s hard to get this thing passed because it is, you know, terrible policy that is also wildly unpopular. Instead of passing something popular, like a middle class tax cut, the GOP is determined to pass tax cuts for the wealthy -- but equally determined to lie about it. On Wednesday, Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin declared that it was mathematically impossible not to skew tax cuts heavily for the wealthy. As Chait puts it, “Apparently not giving rich people a huge tax cut is a technical problem our best minds have yet to crack.” Of course, this is insane. “It is possible to reform the tax code without passing a net tax cut. And it is possible to enact a net tax cut without cutting taxes for the rich.” One place to look is the payroll tax, which is heavily regressive and constitutes the majority of what most Americans pay in taxes. But the GOP barely considers payroll taxes real taxes. Instead, they are laser focused on those scourges of the middle class: the corporate income tax and the estate tax. If you’re intent on slashing those taxes, of course, then it really is quite tricky to do it without slashing taxes for the people who actually pay those taxes -- the wealthy.
GOOD NEWS -- TRAVEL BAN 3.0 BLOCKED BY THE COURTS (AGAIN): “In a 40-page decision granting the state of Hawaii’s request for a temporary restraining order and blocking Trump’s order nationwide, Watson wrote that the latest ban ‘suffers from precisely the same maladies as its predecessor: it lacks sufficient findings that the entry of more than 150 million nationals from six specified countries would be ‘detrimental to the interests of the United States.’” A judge in Maryland came to the same conclusion, writing “that President Trump's own tweets helped convince him that the latest policy is an ‘inextricable re-animation of the twice-enjoined Muslim ban’ that Trump called for on the campaign trail and is therefore likely to be found unconstitutional.”
YET AGAIN, TRUMP DISRESPECTS GOLD STAR FAMILY: Honestly, I have neither the patience nor the stomach to go through this inane, disgusting controversy in detail. But it was a big story this week so it feels like I have to talk about it. Here’s the basic rundown (note that I’m too lazy to look for links to support all of this, but here’s Vox’s explainer on this story). About 4 weeks ago, four US soldiers were killed in murky circumstances in Niger, a country where most of us probably did not even know hosted American soldiers. The White House never said anything about the soldiers or the circumstances of their death. On Monday, during an impromptu press conference, Trump was asked about what happened in Niger and, in characteristic fashion, made the question all about him and his response to their deaths. He defended his silence on their death by falsely claiming that President Obama and other prior presidents never called or wrote to the families of those killed in action. This was a lie, and even Trump seemed to know it; when another reporter asked him where he got that information, he pretty quickly backed down. He then declared that he would be calling the families “at the appropriate time.” Still, he continued to impugn Obama by telling the press that Obama had failed to call Chief of Staff John Kelly when Kelly’s son died in Afghanistan. (In fact, the Obamas invited the Kelly family to the White House for an event honoring Gold Star families, where John Kelly was seated at Michelle Obama’s table. Also, how disgusting for Trump to try to score political points off of the death of the son of his chief of staff.)
On Tuesday afternoon, he called the pregnant wife of La David Johnson, one of the four soldiers who had died. Congresswoman Frederica Wilson (D-FL) was apparently in the car with Johnson’s wife when the call came in, and heard the call. Wilson then told the press that Trump said on the call that Johnson “knew what he signed up for,” but that it was still sad. Wilson said Johnson’s wife was in tears after the call, and said that Trump had referred to her husband only as “your guy,” suggesting he did not know his name. On Wednesday morning, furious at Wilson’s accusations, Trump took to Twitter to declare that Wilson had made it all up and that he had “proof” that she was lying. But then that afternoon, spokeswoman Sarah Sanders all but confirmed that he had said the comments Wilson attributed to him, but said that Johnson’s wife had just interpreted them wrong.
All of this came to a pathetic and disgusting culmination today, when Kelly took to the podium today to express his indignation that a congresswoman “listened in” on the call to Johnson. That’s right: He did not dispute that Trump said the things he is accused of saying (and that Trump falsely denied saying). Instead, he blamed a widow for allowing her congresswoman -- a woman who mentored Johnson and had known him since his childhood -- from listening to the call. What. The. Fuck. Is. Wrong. With. These. People??
(Oh, there’s more to this: The AP and the Washington Post tracked down other families of those killed in action during Trump’s presidency. Half had not heard anything from the White House. One father said that Trump had promised to send him $25,000, but had failed to do so. When reporters asked Sanders about that yesterday, she trotted out the good ol’ White House indignation to decry the press’s audacity in asking about this and making a “political” issue about it. Of course, as a surprise to absolutely no one, Trump had indeed failed to send the check but then apparently sent it yesterday after the press asked about it. Again -- WHAT IS WRONG WITH THESE PEOPLE??)
You know, when I was a kid growing up, a lot of things were sacred in our country. Women were sacred, looked upon with great honor. That's obviously not the case anymore as we see from recent cases. Life -- the dignity of life -- is sacred. That's gone. Religion, that seems to be gone as well. Gold Star families, I think that left in the convention over the summer.
Who in God’s name does he think he is working for. He believes women are “sacred,” but works for a man who declared he can grab them by the pussy? He insists life and “religion” are sacred, from a man who declared that avoiding STDs was his own personal Vietnam and who is almost cartoonishly immoral and unreligious? Gold Star families are no longer sacred after “the convention” this summer?? You mean, after your boss went on a days-long tirade against a Gold Star family who had the temerity to point out that his proposal to ban Muslims from America was unconstitutional?? SERIOUSLY -- WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH THESE PEOPLE??
Endorsements:
- This Lindy West NYT op-ed about sexual harassment and “witch hunts.” Holy crap this is a good piece. Read it!
- You think you’ve read enough about Weinstein and sexual harassment. You think Lindy said it all. But you’re wrong. You haven’t read enough and not all has been said. Alexandra Petri adds more fire. Really, READ IT.
- Jonathan Chait on John McCain’s final act as Trump’s chief nemesis. He provides some good context on McCain’s career and his positioning (for example, I had forgotten/did not know that McCain voted against both of the Bush tax cuts and sided with Dems on their major Bush-era domestic policy initiatives). You will enjoy reading it. Book recommendation: Little Fires Everywhere, by Celeste Ng, is the best new novel I’ve ready this year. You should read it!
- My husband Drausin, whose birthday is today. He’s great! Lyra and I are big fans!
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