A reality based independent journal of observation & analysis, serving the Flathead Valley & Montana since 2006. © James Conner.

20 December 2016

Democrats! We’re at legislative DEFCON 1 —
Focus on Congress, not Trump’s damn cabinet

Yes, most of President-Elect Trump’s nominations and appointments are, from a progressive’s perspective, awful, and in some cases downright scary (Gen. Flynn, I’m looking at you) — but not one of these men and women can introduce or vote for legislation, or sign a bill into law. Only Congress and the President can do that.

And do that they will, straight from the gitgo.

Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell will try to ram through bills to lower taxes on the rich, gut the Affordable Care Act, convert Social Security to a means tested welfare program (and cut benefits bigtime), privitize Medicare and Medicaid, cut nutrition assistance, keep the minimum wage at a rock bottom minimum. And that’s just the first act.

Don’t expect cooler heads to prevail. There aren’t any.

Here’s Ed Kilgore at New York on 9 November:

One of the things that bothered me in the run-up to this shocking election night was the general feeling that even if Republicans won Congress, President Hillary Clinton would stop them from wreaking havoc just like President Obama did — and that if Donald Trump somehow became president, Congress would stop him from doing much harm, at least on the legislative front.

That last assumption is probably dead wrong. With Trump in the White House and the GOP controlling Congress — the condition that will prevail in January, based on the results of Tuesday’s election — Republicans are now in a position to work a revolution in domestic policy. It will likely be at least as dramatic as anything we’ve seen since Ronald Reagan’s first year in office, and perhaps since LBJ and congressional Democrats enacted the Great Society legislation that is now in peril.

For all the talk of “feuding” or even “civil war” between Trump and congressional Republican leaders, they are actually on the same page on a lot of very radical ideas. These include, of course, the linchpin of Republican domestic policy: a big upper-end tax cut rationalized by the imaginary economic boom it will be advertised to create. Beyond that, however, there is a big increase in defense spending that both Trump and congressional Republicans have promised, and then the decimation of the low-income safety net. Every analysis of Paul Ryan’s various budget proposals — quite likely the building block of what Republicans will try to enact — indicates savage consequences for poor people. Think the expanded Medicaid coverage created by Obamacare will survive? Hah! The bigger question is whether Medicaid itself survives, since both Trump’s platform and the Ryan budget would dump the program on the tender mercies of the states through a block grant sure to bleed funding regularly.

The radical Republicans who control Congress plan a legislative first strike. They’ve already tipped their hand. We know what’s coming. They’ll get away with it, too, unless Democrats wrench their eyes from the cabinet freak show, and get organized for legislative combat … get organized double damn fast. Congress convenes in two weeks, and the bills to repeal the ACA, the Great Society, and the New Deal are already written. Therefore, don’t become distracted by his personnel choices. The greater and more immediate danger is the Republican legislative agenda. Act accordingly.