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If you've clicked on this article(thank you), you're probably thinking: Wait. I thought Republicans' attempts to repeal Obamacare crashed and burned a few days ago.

You would be correct. It died earlier this week. But in the past 24hours, it kind of came back to life, mostly on President Trump's insistence.

And Thursday, thanks to yet another Congressional Budget Office analysis, we get news that further ensured its demise: Republicans can't write a bill that won't leave millions uninsured, which means Republicans can't write a bill that will get approved by 50 of 52 of their ideologically diverse members, which means Republicans have no health-care bill.

This isn't for lack of effort. Republicans have spent the past couple of months trying to come to a consensus, piecing together a couple of different versions of the same bill.

The latest CBO estimate is their third report on a Senate version of legislation, and its predictionis similar to the last two: Senate Republicans' plan would leave 22 million more people uninsured over the next decade than if Obamacare remained law, and it would raise premiums on the most vulnerable.

The second version of the bill pours millions more into health insurance subsidies and Medicaid and opioid funding. But the CBO wasn't convinced that would make any difference on the insurance rate, said Paul Ginsburg, a health policy expert and director of theUSC Brookings-Schaeffer Initiative.

So leaders made the second versionless tenable for conservatives, and it did nothing to assuage moderates' concerns.

Here's a reminder of what CBO found in its estimate on the first version of the bill.

From the first to the second version, there is no significant change to how many people will be covered under their plan and, thus, no change to who votes for it. And, thus, no deal.

So far, Republican leadership and the White House haven't found a piece of health-care legislation that can get 51 votes, said Alex Conant, a GOP strategist whose public affairsfirm represents health-care clients.

Perhaps most telling: Senate Republican leaders have already given up on trying to get this legislation passed.

While President Trump was dining with supporters of the legislation on Tuesday, two conservatives, Sens. Mike Lee (Utah) and Jerry Moran (Kan.), threw a grenade at the legislation by becoming the third and fourth GOP senators to oppose it.

In frustration, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) decided to let the Senate vote on a straight repeal of Obamacare, even though policy experts said itwould be disastrous to the insurance markets and, potentially, Republicans' political future. That plan died a couple hours later, felled by three female GOP lawmakerswho had been left out of an all-male negotiating process: Sens. Lisa Murkowski (Alaska), Shelley Moore Capito (W.Va.) and Susan Collins (Maine). It is unclear when Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), who announced he has been diagnosed with brain cancer, will return, leaving McConnell with one fewer possible vote in favor of repeal.

(Also not helping senators go to the mat for this: It's historically unpopular.)

But, politics. Before McCain's announcement, Trump got everyone together for a photo op on Wednesday and vaguely told the Senate to figure something out while vaguely threatening some of the senators who have opposed this legislation. GOP senators then huddled Wednesday night and afterward vaguely said theyhad figured something out.

As he hosted Senate Republicans for a health-care meeting at the White House, July 19, President Trump said "most of the people in this room never saw" the GOP health-care bill that collapsed on July 17. (The Washington Post)

The plan is to have a vote Tuesday on the House-passed version of the bill, and there was a faint possibility that enough senators had agreed to amend it in a way that could pass by the skin of its teeth.

Failure, after all, is a powerful motivator.

And then, the CBO score was released, reminding the senators who hated the House bill (which CBO estimated would leave 23 million more uninsured over the next decade) why they hate this Senate bill.

Bottom line: Health-care experts and political analysts say if a bill that could pass the Senate as the Senate stands now, it probably would have already manifested.

I don't think it can pass, said Alice Rivlin with the Brookings Institution. And they will have to at some point just say: 'Okay, we tried. And we're moving on.'

Republican senators could always come back to this later. In Congress, phoenixes have been known to rise from the ashes.

But that requires a little lot of magic. And this CBO score isn't going to help create any.

See the original post here:
Republicans' health-care overhaul is even deader now - Washington Post

Republican lawmakers in the House and Senate have introduced bills calling for the repeal of a just-announced regulation that would make it easier for consumers to bring class-action lawsuits against banks.

The rule unveiled last week by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau would ban banks and other financial institutions from using arbitration clauses to block customers from bringing or joining class-action suits. Republicans had immediately pledged to unwind the rule before it takes effect next year.

On Thursday, GOP members of the House Financial Services Committee and Senate Banking Committee introduced resolutions that would do just that. The resolutions call for using the Congressional Review Act, which allows Congress to new regulations created by federal agencies.

Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R-Texas), chairman of the House committee and a vocal opponent of the CFPB, said the rule is anti-consumer and should be thoroughly rejected by Congress.

Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), one of the sponsors of the Senate bill, called the CFPB a rogue agency and said theres no need for this anti-arbitration, anti-business rule.

Banks and other companies often include language in consumer contracts that forces customers to resolve disputes in private arbitration rather than in court. The CFPB rule would allow that practice to continue, but would ban arbitration clauses that also ban consumers from bringing class-action suits.

Such suits, CFPB Director Richard Cordray said last week in introducing the new regulation, allow consumers who have suffered relatively minor harms to join together to hold a big bank accountable and to bring bad practices to light.

Wells Fargo successfully used its arbitration clause to stymie consumer lawsuits over its creation of unauthorized accounts. The bank ultimately agreed to settle nearly a dozen class-action lawsuits for $142 million after its practices created a scandal. But consumer advocates argued that if an arbitration clause had not been in place the banks practices might have been uncovered sooner.

Rep. Maxine Waters of Los Angeles, the ranking Democrat on the House committee, called Thursdays action an outrageous move that would harm consumers.

Republicans should think twice before taking away consumers rights to be heard in a court of law, she said.

Republicans, business groups and attorneys for the finance industry have said that the new CFPB rule would result in a bevy of frivolous class-action litigation. They also argue that, if banks cant use arbitration to block class-actions, they will likely drop arbitration programs, which would mean that bank customers would have to go to court to settle even minor, individual disputes.

Theyll say, If a customer has a claim against us and it doesnt get resolved informally, let them sue us, said Alan Kaplinsky, a finance attorney who pioneered the use of arbitration clauses.

The challenge from Republican lawmakers is just one of the ways the arbitration rule could be scrapped or delayed. Keith Noreika, acting head of the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, a key bank regulator, has said the rule should be put off while his agency studies whether it could harm the banking system.

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james.koren@latimes.com

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Read more here:
Republicans introduce bills to scrap new bank arbitration rule - Los Angeles Times

Some Republican senators, like Dean Heller of Nevada, should be gearing up for fights with Democratic challengers next year, but instead are trying to duck primary threats inspired at least in part by a president of their own party.

The professional deficits have been topped with dejecting personal tragedies. Senator John McCain, the Arizona Republican who has spent the better part of the last six months racing around the world defending a generation of American international positions, announced Wednesday night that he had brain cancer. The third-most-powerful House Republican, Representative Steve Scalise of Louisiana, lingers in a hospital bed, recovering from gunshot wounds sustained during a mass assassination attempt this summer.

Instead of preparing for a month at home of crowing about the accomplishments of a unified government, Republicans have been diminished to trying to confirm relatively minor nominees Democrats are stalling them and getting a spending bill or two passed. They have been forced to cut their August recess short, all because they have nothing particularly positive to celebrate.

Even former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, who was seen gliding through the Capitol on Thursday, normally loquacious on all matters of party strategy, politics and the possibilities of moon colonization, had nothing to say. He started straight ahead when asked about Republican woes.

Things are starting to feel incoherent, said Senator Bob Corker, Republican of Tennessee, reflecting on the health care efforts, which have turned many Republican senators against one another as efforts to negotiate the future of the Medicaid program have caused large rifts.

With no small measure of understatement, Mr. Corker conceded, Theres just not a lot of progress happening.

While Congressional Republicans problems stem largely from the chaos at the White House, many reflect fissures within their party over government spending, social issues, immigration and the role of America in the broader international order.

And once again, rather than trying to forge bipartisan alliances with moderate Democrats, Republican leaders appear determined to go it alone with one-party bills that must unite the hard right with the center right.

For example, a spending bill passed by House appropriators that would provide millions of dollars for Mr. Trumps proposed wall on the Mexican border sets up a potential fight on the floor with Republicans in the Senate, who earlier this year rejected a similar effort.

A nearly $700 billion appropriations bill that would fund the Pentagon faces an impending battle over an amendment, championed by Representative Vicky Hartzler, Republican of Missouri, that would end the Obama-era practice of requiring the Pentagon to pay for medical treatment related to gender transition. (Transgender service members have been permitted to serve openly in the military since last year.)

The same measure narrowly failed on a broader defense policy bill passed recently by the House, as some Republicans joined Democrats to reject it.

Some members of the House Freedom Caucus, many of whom won their original elections on a platform of reigned-in federal spending, have said they will not vote for a bill that does not include substantial wall funding, as well as the transgender amendment, drawing fault lines around Mr. Trump within the party.

What we havent been able to figure out is how to meld people with such different policy positions together to get the consensus, the majority it takes to pass bills, Representative Bradley Byrne, Republican of Alabama, said.

Republicans blame Democrats for many of their woes: for slowing down nominations with procedural tricks because of their ire over health care, for not helping them to repeal the Affordable Care Act and for passing it in the first place. But increasingly, Republican senators are suggesting it would be better to work with the minority party to fix the laws flaws.

Even in the House, Republicans and Democrats joined, at least momentarily, over the issue of Congressional approval for authorizing war. The effort was led by Representative Scott Taylor, Republican of Virginia and a former Navy SEAL, who joined forces with Representative Barbara Lee, Democrat of California, demonstrating that foreign policy in the Trump era has provoked even more desire for a legislative role.

I feel very strongly that Congress is handing over its war making authority to the executive branch, said Representative Tom Cole, Republican of Oklahoma. It did so under Obama, and it is doing so under Trump. In their desire to spare their members from tough votes, the leadership of both parties have weakened the power of Congress. This belief is widely shared by the rank and file in both parties.

Appropriators in the Senate are also working in a friendly and bipartisan manner on bills, but it remains to be seen how the process will play out on legislation that will require 60 votes to pass. Still, some Republicans are using optimism as oxygen as they head home after yet another week of chaos and disappointment.

We will continue to focus on the priorities that restore hope and create opportunities for the economically vulnerable, Senator Tim Scott, the ever-buoyant Republican from South Carolina, said. Our focus, not as Republicans or Democrats but as Americans, is our future.

Read more:
In a Cruel Summer for the GOP, 'Things Are Starting to Feel Incoherent' - New York Times

Rep. Mark Sanford (R-S.C.) (Jonathan Ernst/Reuters)

After a 12-hour slog of deliberations on Wednesday, the House Republican budget looked readyto make it out of committee. It would be a minor victory for Republicans on a day when very little had gone right and the Senate's Obamacare repeal had gone spectacularly wrong.

Then Rep. Mark Sanford (R-S.C.)spoke up, sayinghe had a most ungentlemanly request:Id like to offer an amendment.

This wasn't supposed to happen. As Sanford himself noted, Republicans had a gentleman's agreement to pass the budget out of committee without any fuss and without any amendments.

But he broke the deal anyway,anothersign of how much disagreement there is in the GOP, even over taxes and spending. It's a big part of the reason that President Trump is six months into his presidency and has zero major legislative achievements.

Sanford's amendment would forbid Republicans from enactingthe controversialborderadjustment tax (BAT), a proposal totax U.S. importers and give tax breaks to U.S. exporters.

The BAT is supposed to encourage companies to make more stuff in the United States (and hopefully hire more American workers). It would also raise about $1 trillion over the next decade, according to the Tax Foundation, a think tank.

Big retailers are lobbying hard against the BAT, as companies like Walmart that are major importers would be forced to pay the tax, likely passing the added costs on to consumers.

On the flip side, companies that export a lot such as Boeing and Caterpillarlikethe BAT. So do many small manufacturers who want to see Trump take action to make goods from overseas more expensive. Supporters point out that most other countries, including China, Germany and Canada, have a BAT or something very similar to it.

Rep.Diane Black (R-Tenn.), chair of the budget committee, grimaced as Sanford was speaking. She jumped in quickly to remind him, in a stern tone, his amendment wasn't preapproved and thus wouldn't be voted on.

Black has spent months carefullycrafting the 2018 budget blueprint so it would satisfy the moderate wing of her party that didn't want dramatic cuts to programs that benefit seniors and the poor and the Freedom Caucus, which wants deep spending reductions to pay for tax cuts for businesses and individuals.

Sanford is a member of the Freedom Caucus. He's also a former South Carolina governor andrepresents the city of Charleston, a major U.S. port that is thriving because of goods arrivingon ships from Europe, China and elsewhere.

I have a range of concerns about the BAT, Sanford said. This amounts to a $1.2 trillion tax that ultimately would be borne by the consumer.

Black refused to allow the amendment to be considered, shooting it down on a technicality. She got her wish and the House Republican budget did pass out of her committee last night (Sanford voted yes).

But the BAT spatisn't over.It's just headedto a bigger arena: the full House of Representatives.

The budget does not explicitly mention the BAT. But it also doesn't rule it out. The language in the tax section is purposefully vague.Republicans need money for their tax cuts. The BAT is one way to get it, and several GOP leaders, including House Speaker Paul D. Ryan, like the idea.

Trump has promised large tax cuts (the biggest in U.S. history, he claimed). But House Republicans insist that any tax cuts won't add trillions to America's debt. They want deficit neutral tax reform.

The only way to make that math work is massive reductions in spending or finding new ways to generate massive amounts of new revenue including, possibly, viathe BAT.

The failure of the Republican health care plan makes the math even more complex. House Republicans were already counting the reduced costs from slashing Medicaid in their budget. Now they have to plug that hole as well.

Expect a lot more ungentlemanly battles.

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Republicans got 'most ungentlemanly' with each other over the budget last night - Washington Post

Republicans have a problem. It's called governing.

For the past three elections, Republicans have rallied support to take over Congress and the White House by blaming President Barack Obama and Democrats for everything. The excuse of the Obama presidency and Democratic control of Congress is over.

Now Republicans have no one to blame but themselves. Six months into the year, not a single piece of major legislation has passed. If Republicans cannot produce and pass meaningful legislation on health care, tax reform, deficit and debt reduction, regulatory reform and strengthening the military they will answer for it at the ballot box next year.

This week, the Senate's substitute for the Affordable Care Act, the Better Care Reconciliation bill, died before ever making it to the Senate floor. Four Republican senators two conservatives, one moderate and one libertarian announced they would not support the measure. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell responded by saying he would bring to a Senate floor vote a simple repeal bill, which would not take effect for two years, giving lawmakers time to craft a replacement. Even though Senate Republicans passed a similar bill in 2015, that effort died as well when moderate senators voiced their opposition to repealing without replacing. With a two-vote majority, McConnell has little room for error.

To those of us who served in Congress during the original Obamacare debate, it is not surprising that moderate Republicans oppose repealing the expansion of Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act. Once an entitlement program is received by the public, taking that benefit away is hard political sledding. Fiscal conservatives argued at the time that the United States could little afford a costly new program with a federal government $12 trillion in debt (today the debt is $20 trillion!).

Support for that position was found last week in a little-covered report by the trustees of the nation's largest entitlement programs. The trustees announced Social Security will be exhausted in 17 years (2034) and Medicare in 12 years (2029). Think that 2029 is far away? Does 2005 seem that long ago? Under current law, when the Social Security trust fund runs out, benefits will be slashed by 25 percent. In other non-headline-worthy news, the federal government managed to run another $90 billion in the red for the month of June even during a pretty good economy.

What should Senate Republicans do?

Split the replacement package into single-issue reforms and work to gain a consensus of 50 Republicans on each. For example, call a vote to abolish the taxes imposed by the Affordable Care Act. Call another vote to repeal, in whole or in part, Medicaid expansion. To soften the blow to states that have expanded Medicaid, consider limiting the expanded coverage to one year, much like an unemployment benefit, to encourage people back into the workforce. Call another vote to shore up the exchange to reduce premium increases. This single subject approach may garner 50 votes (with the vice president putting the measure over the top). A few moderate Democrats may even lend their support. Partial reform would be a better result than leaving the failing Affordable Care Act in place.

Having made some progress on health care, Congress could move on to the more important issue of tax reform and deficit reduction. Americans need a modern tax code that encourages business creation, hiring and expansion. The result would be more Americans working, rising wages and greater receipts by the federal Treasury to move us toward a balanced budget. The federal government is headed toward a fiscal crisis with 2 percent annual GDP growth and exploding entitlement costs (42 percent of federal spending!). The solution is for America to grow its way out.

Congressional Republicans would be wise to work through the August recess instead of heading home empty-handed. There is scant time for Republicans to post some legislative wins before next year's election cycle starts. It's time for Republicans to step up, or Americans will move them out of the way.

George LeMieux served as a Republican U.S. senator, governor's chief of staff and deputy attorney general.

LeMieux: Republicans need results or risk losing in 2018 07/20/17 [Last modified: Thursday, July 20, 2017 3:01pm] Photo reprints | Article reprints

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LeMieux: Republicans need results or risk losing in 2018 - Tampabay.com (blog)