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One week after he lost the most expensive congressional contest in American history, after getting some sleep, Jon Ossoff had a message for his fellow Democrats.

They were on the right track.

Democratic turnout was extremely strong, Ossoff said in his first interview since the race ended in Georgias 6th Congressional District. In an off-year special election, we got general election-level Democratic turnout, and I think thats been lost in the coverage.

Ossoff, who at age 30 raised close to $30 million for his first-ever campaign, was destined either to be his partys latest star or latest martyr. A margin of fewer than 10,000 votes made him the latter as well as the star of hot takes about how the party needed to reboot.

[Analysis: Ossoff chose civility and it didnt work. How do Democrats beat Trump?]

Some Democrats said it was time to oust Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), the House minority leader who starred in most of the races Republican ads. More criticized Ossoff for a runoff race that swerved from attacks on President Trump to economic development in Atlantas suburbs. A spot in which local businessmen described what tax credits could do for the district was compared to ads for DeVry University.

Nobody forced Ossoff to dismiss single payer, or held a gun to his head and made him use dog-whistle language about both parties in Washington wasting taxpayer dollars, wrote D.D. Guttenplan in the Nation.

What the critics miss, Ossoff said, was that the Democratic base did come out after hearing his message. I missed an outright win in April by less than 4,000 votes, then we added 32,000 votes, he said. Democratic turnout and excitement were high, and we won the majority of independents thats a testament to our economic message. I was talking about bringing more jobs and opportunity to Georgia.

Was it necessary to run ads about deficit reduction but not the Republicans push to repeal the Affordable Care Act? News flash: The federal government is not the most efficient institution in the world, Ossoff said. Taxpayers know that. Folks across the spectrum wants more efficient management of their tax dollars.

The Georgia race, said Ossoff, did not develop into the Trump referendum (or health-care referendum) that critics said that he lost. None of the messaging battles that dominate national discussion of Democratic politics were rearing their heads here, he said.

Despite the attacks on his area of residence slightly outside the district, to make life easier for a fiance finishing medical training Ossoff argued that most Republican attacks fell flat. His campaigns polling found his favorability rating staying high, above 50 percent, through the runoff.

That speaks to how weak and soggy their attacks were, said Ossoff. Democrats were united, and we beat a coalition that included most independents in the districts.

Pollsters who had him winning saw the same numbers. The mistake they made was in missing a Republican turnout surge, which at least one local Republican official credited (in part) to the shooting of Rep. Steve Scalise (R-La.), which had Republicans doubling down on the message that a vote for Ossoff was a vote for radicalism. One of the final crucial days of the race was spent on coverage of white powder sent to Handels home, with a threatening message the origin of which has not yet been determined.

Ossify declined to gauge the impact of the shooting on his race. I honestly dont know, he said, dropping the subject. It was a neck-and-neck race all the way through.

He was also unmoved by theories that began to spring up before the election that crackdowns on the voter rolls or archaic voting machines might take the election away from him.

I have no reason to doubt the integrity of the election, he said. I did hear anecdotal reports of robocalls misinforming people about Election Day, but I have faith in Georgias election infrastructure.

The inarguable factor in his loss, said Ossoff, was the gush of Republican money that came in to help Handel. It came in the form of paid door-knockers who got out soft Republican votes and in an ad barrage that matched what Ossoff had on the air. Some of those ads attacked Ossoff for being funded by out-of-state donors.

If you watch the first debate, thats how I counterpunched that her campaign was being bailed out by Washington super PACs, he said. Look, we demonstrated here that small-dollar fundraising can go toe to toe with the power of right-wing super PACs funded by mega donors and the lobbyist cartel in Washington. I know it was ironic that mega-donor-funded outside groups were funding those attacks, and it speaks to the structural challenge that Democrats have.

Ossoff has not yet decided whether hed be part of the pushback in 2018. He would make no decision about where he lived, he said, until his fiance finished her education next year.

This campaign demonstrated the potency of a grass-roots political model that will allow people power to counter special-interest power, said Ossoff. The national right-wing apparatus just had to spend nearly $20 million defending a seat that was supposed to be safe. I dont think they should take much comfort in that. Trump and [White House adviser Steve Bannon] were sweating over this race, and they should be sweating into 2018.

Original post:
Jon Ossoff reflects on his race: Republicans 'should be sweating' - Washington Post

The Congressional Budget Office estimates twenty-two million fewer people would be insured by 2026 under the GOP's proposed health care plan. USA TODAY

WASHINGTON Ohio Gov. John Kasich ripped Senate Republicans on Tuesday for crafting a health care bill that would cause an estimated 22 million Americans to lose their health insurance.

They think thats great? Thats good public policy? an incredulous Kasich said at a news conference in Washington on Tuesday. What, are you kidding me?

Kasich was referring to an analysis released Monday by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, which estimated that the Senate GOP bill to repeal and replace Obamacare would increase the ranks of the uninsured by 22 million by2026, compared to current law.

Hours after Kasich's remarks, Senate Republican leaders decided to delaya vote on their bill, essentially conceding they did not have enough GOP supportto pass it.Five Republicans were already on the record opposing the bill, while several others were uncommitted.

That left Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky.,well short of the 51 yes votes he needed to get the bill through the Senate this weekas he had initially hoped. McConnell said Tuesday that he now hopes to hold a Senate vote on a revamped bill after lawmakers return from their July Fourthrecess.

Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, was publicly undecided on the bill until Tuesday, whenhe announced his opposition after McConnell agreed to yank it from consideration. Portman said he was "committed to continue talking with my colleagues about how we can fix the serious problems in our health care system while protecting Ohios most vulnerable citizens.

Portman has expressed concerns thatthe GOP plan, as currently written, would hurt Ohios low-income residents and undermine the states efforts to expand addiction treatment amid the currentopioid epidemic. He has pressed McConnell to add $45 billion for opioid treatment over 10 years, as a way to cushion the bill's changes to Medicaid, which has become a lifeline for addicts seeking treatment.

Kasich urged Portman not to support the bill even if McConnell agrees to beef up funding for opioid treatment, because that would not be enough to make up for the GOP bill's proposed cuts to federal Medicaid funding.

"I told him if they hand you a few billion dollars on opioids ... thats like spitting in the ocean," Kasich said. "I've talked to Rob a million times. He knows exactly what my concerns are."

Kasich has made his opposition to the GOP bill clear before, but Tuesday he ratcheted up his criticism at a joint news conference with ColoradoDemocratic Gov. John Hickenlooper.

Kasich said congressional Republicans should try getting their own health care through Medicaid or purchasing insurance with the miserly subsidies the GOP plan offers.

Why dont we have those folks go and live under Medicaid for a while? Kasich said. Why dont we have them go live on their exchange where they can get two, three, four thousanddollars a year to cover their health care exchange costs.

Kasich didnt reserve all his ire for his own party. He also blasted lawmakers of all stripes for acting like a bunch of fifth-graders.

We have a health care civil war going on, he said. Its all about recrimination.

He said Republicans should jettison their current bill and start over, while Democrats should stand and challenge the Republicans to negotiate with them.

Democrats have said they would work with Republicans to fix Obamacare if they stop their efforts to repeal or gut the law.

Read more:

Senate health care bill would lead to 22 million more uninsured, CBO says

Health care bill winners (wealthy) and losers (Medicaid recipients), according to the CBO

Senate GOP leaders face growing opposition to health care bill

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John Kasich on Senate Republicans' health care bill: 'Are you kidding me?' - USA TODAY

After weeks of working in secret, Senate Republicans finally unveiled their Punch Every American in the Stomach bill, legislation that will result in every American being punched in the stomach. Here are the details:

Every American will be punched in the stomach.

It will be a hard punch.

The punch will happen when you least expect it.

Two for flinching.

Seniors get punched three times.

Americans whose income is below two hundred per cent of the federal poverty level get punched five times.

Members of Congress and their families and staff are exempt from being punched in the stomach.

Only U.S. citizens are eligible to be punched in the stomach. If it is discovered that a non-citizen has illegally taken advantage of stomach-punching services, he will be punched in the stomach.

It is estimated that it will take ten years and cost nearly nine hundred billion dollars to punch every American in the stomach.

The stomach punching will be funded by massive cuts to Medicaid and Social Security.

The stomach punching will be carried out by private contractors, who will work with no oversight.

The bill does not provide funding to keep track of who has already been punched in the stomach. However, once you have been punched in the stomach, you can simply give your Stomach Puncher your address and Social Security number, pay a modest convenience fee, and, in three to four weeks, you will receive a notarized letter certifying that you have already been punched in the stomach. Be sure to keep this letter on you at all times if you wish to avoid additional punchings. That said, because the bill states that you will be punched in the stomach when you least expect it, you may not be able to produce your letter in time to avoid being punched in the stomach again.

Americans who die after the bill has been passed but before being punched in the stomach will be dug up and punched in the stomach.

States that wish to provide services beyond stomach punching can opt to receive funds for noogies, wedgies, and wet willies.

Senate Republicans have described this bill as a vast improvement over the version passed several weeks ago by the House of Representatives, which only required ninety per cent of Americans to be punched in the stomach.

In an attempt to win support from Democrats, the bill stipulates that the President will be punched in the stomach, too. One top Democrat, who asked to be quoted anonymously, said of this provision, Oooooh, thats almost worth it.

Getting punched in the stomach replaces everyones health insurance.

Americans in the top income brackets will be punched in the stomach, but they will also receive a massive tax cut.

Read the original here:
Details of Senate Republicans' Punch Every American in the Stomach Bill Revealed - The New Yorker

Greg Walden recently was riding comfortably in his Subaru Outback, the cruise control guiding his car, when a big black bird a crow, he suspects swooped down in front of him. The car braked on its own, the Oregon congressman recalled. Of course, my wife woke up. Startled in the passenger seat beside him, she asked if he was tired. She didnt believe him when he said no.

To Walden, though, the minor incident illustrated a point. Compared to his old Dodge van, it reacted before I reacted, he told Recode in an interview. Braking assistance is hardly some new, gasp-inducing feature in sport-utility vehicles, but Walden said it helped crystallize for him how more-advanced technology fully self-driving cars might someday prevent more harrowing traffic incidents.

Fast forward to Tuesday, as a committee in the U.S. House under Waldens watch debated a total of 14 bills that Republican lawmakers believe might someday clear the roads for more driverless vehicles. Lawmakers like Walden believe their early efforts are a boon for safety, not to mention U.S. business. We lose 30,000 to 40,000 people a year in highway fatalities, he explained, adding: What can we do to set standards that will make sure that innovation is taking place in the United States?

Chief among Republicans offerings is a bill that would permit the likes of Google and Uber to test their self-driving cars around the country, scrapping a current system in which states from New York to California have pitched varying, if conflicting, rules on how and where autonomous vehicles can operate. The idea is sure to satisfy the tech and auto industries, which have lobbied extensively in Washington, D.C., to push the policy boundaries for self-driving cars.

Some lawmakers, however, sounded an early note of caution Tuesday that Congress itself might be at risk of speeding. We need to figure out a responsible way to keep innovation moving forward, while ensuring safety at every stage, said Rep. Jan Schakowsky, D-Ill.

For the moment, at least, theres no single, overarching, autonomous-vehicle-specific law on the federal governments books nothing that says where companies can test their tech and what sort of safety standards might apply in vehicles that someday might not even have steering wheels.

Before President Barack Obama departed office, his administration worked with tech and car companies on a set of voluntary safety standards for driverless cars. But much remains unresolved, and in a rare break from the norm on Capitol Hill, theres bipartisan interest in working through the issues: Senate Democrats and Republicans recently signaled they also planned to start debating self-driving car rules in the coming months.

One concern for Republicans: Lacking federal standards, 22 states have imposed some sort of regulations, according to a tally by the National Conference of State Legislatures, often in an attempt to address safety concerns with a technology they believe is in its infancy.

To Walden and his GOP colleagues, the flurry of state-level activity marks a break with a longstanding division of labor, one that sees the federal government determining national safety and driver standards while leaving only the logistics, like approving licenses, to the locals.

From the front bumper to the back bumper whether its a pickup truck or a car or a van how the vehicle works and is designed should be the province of the federal government as has been the case for more than 50 years, said Rep. Bob Latta, who convened the Tuesday hearing.

Preempting the states would be a boon for tech giants like Google and Uber and automakers including Ford and Volvo; one of their lobbying groups, the Self Driving Coalition for Safer Streets, offered lawmakers its stamp of approval during testimony on Tuesday.

One of its aides, David Strickland, the former director of the National Highway Transportation and Safety Administration, said 50 states ultimately adopting 50 different safety standards for self-driving cars would amount to a disaster.

But some in Congress seemed reticent to strip states self-driving car laws from the books. Schakowsky, for one, said Stricklands former agency, NHTSA, needed to adopt a federal standard for autonomous vehicles before Congress could replace existing state safety regulations. Trouble is, that agency still has no full-time director under President Donald Trump a fact that rankled one of Schakowskys colleagues, New Jersey Rep. Frank Pallone.

We should not be moving bills out of the committee until we hear from the administration, said Pallone, the committees chief Democrat.

Another Republican proposal would allow the government to designate as many as 100,000 self-driving cars to be exempt from existing federal motor safety rules, even though those guidelines which govern everything from steering wheels to airbags were written many years before that technology existed. A third would set up a federal board to study the cyber security of autonomous vehicles.

And still a fourth proposal would allow the manufacturers of those vehicles to share data, including information about crashes, with the U.S. government in a way that appears to make it impossible for reporters and watchdogs to obtain that data through record requests. There, the aim is to protect carmakers confidential information about their technology. To consumer watchdogs, however, it may ultimately serve to undermine the publics trust in a technology still coming to market.

Im not opposed to these vehicles, Im not opposed to testing, but we need somebody to look at this material other than NHTSA and the auto companies, said Alan Morrison, a leading faculty member at The George Washington University Law School, during the hearing Tuesday.

Other terrain remains uncharted territory for the committee. By design, its a different portion of Congress that deals with heavy trucking a major area of disruption in the realm of self-driving cars, and one that could leave many drivers out of work if companies like Uber succeed.

Nor has the committee tackled broader issues, like privacy, that affect the industry, despite the clamor from consumer protection advocates that cars, like smartphones, have become warehouses of knowledge about their owners.

And Walden said its too soon for Congress to wade into philosophical questions about the complex decision-making algorithms powering the forthcoming fleet of self-driving vehicles in the first place questions like, does a self-driving Google Prius or Uber ride kill its owner in order to spare more lives?

I think Congress will have a role in that. I think were a ways away from that ... When you get to the point when you have no steering wheel, I think a lot of those discussions will be had, Walden said.

Youre going to lose some people because of what autonomous vehicles do, he continued. But if you can cut that loss to a 10th or a half or name the number [from what it is now], it has to improve overall, and I think thats what we have to keep our focus on whats the overall good here?

Read more from the original source:
Republicans want to open US roads for companies testing self-driving cars - Recode

Threading the needle of getting defense hawks, fiscal conservatives and those steering tax reform within his own party has been a difficult task, but House Speaker Paul Ryan has reminded House GOP members that this year's budget is critical for getting top priorities like tax reform through both chambers.

It's unlikely any Democrats will back the fiscal blueprint, so Republican leaders are locking down support from the various factions of their conference. They plan to hold up the proposal as evidence they are following through on the promise of GOP control of the White House and the Capitol intent on reshaping the federal government.

The fiscal blueprint is expected to propose more than $1.1 trillion for the next fiscal year and would provide more money for the military and domestic spending than President Donald Trump requested in his budget, which he sent to the Hill in May, according to several congressional aides familiar with the proposal.

Republicans reached an agreement on the discretionary funding levels for the Pentagon and domestic agencies, and the last sticking point Republican leaders had to overcome was over how much deficit-reduction should be taken out of mandatory programs like Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.

The budget plan would provide $621.5 billion in base defense spending, as well as $75 billion in war funding, known as Overseas Contingency Operations, sources told CNN. That's $28.5 billion more than the President requested $18.5 in the base budget and $10 billion extra in war dollars.

The House budget blueprint would set domestic discretionary spending at $511 billion, an increase compared to the Trump administration's $462 billion budget request, which proposed deep cuts to agencies like the State Department and EPA.

When President Barack Obama was in the White House, final spending deals in recent years included equal increases for defense and domestic spending, but Republicans are trying to move away from that construct now that they control the legislative and executive branches.

While the budget agreement will likely will have enough votes to get those spending bills through the House, Senate Democrats are likely to filibuster them, making a final deal uncertain ahead of a September deadline to keep the government from shutting down.

This emerging budget deal lays out the GOP wish list, but an agreement that funds federal agencies will be tougher to hammer out. Republicans have had to rely on Democrats to pass those in recent years, so they may need to give in on the split between defense and other domestic programs.

Another problem the House faces with the emerging budget agreement is that the defense funding violates spending caps established by the 2011 Budget Control Act. The defense cap for 2018 is $549 billion, and if the cap is not changed, the Pentagon would be subject to across-the-board cuts known as sequestration.

Republican defense hawks want to repeal the budget caps for defense, as Trump has requested, but Democrats won't go along unless the cap is also removed for domestic spending.

For defense hawks, the $621.5 billion topline for defense is a compromise, as House Armed Services Chairman Mac Thornberry and Senate Armed Services Chairman John McCain have been pressing for at least $640 billion for the military.

The difficulties in creating a budget deal in the House have also made for a topsy-turvy process crafting individual authorization and appropriation bills. Both Thornberry and Rep. Kay Granger, the chairwoman of the House defense appropriations subcommittee, were preparing their defense bills at different levels Thornberry's at $37 billion more than the Trump request and Granger's at the same level as Trump's.

But with a budget deal near, the House's defense authorization and appropriations bills were finalized at the same level as the emerging budget agreement.

Thornberry told reporters last week that he was willing to come down from $640 billion, but he would need assurances there would be future growth for military spending in future years.

The final sticking point to getting House Republicans on the same page was negotiating how much money the plan would cut from the mandatory side of the ledger. Programs like Social Security and Medicare that are funded through mandatory spending account for about two-thirds of the total budget, but they are difficult to reduce because any change requires Congress to pass a new law.

With divided government in recent years, Republicans in Congress have been unable to make a dent in this area. But House GOP members are looking to get some significant savings from changes to some programs that fall under the Agriculture Department, like food stamps, or other welfare programs.

The House GOP budget is expected to direct several committees to come up with roughly $200 billion in deficit savings. Some in the House Freedom Caucus were hoping they could get a significantly higher number, and House Budget Chair Diane Black also appealed to top GOP leaders to make those savings a major component of the final deal, according to several House Republican sources.

Rep. Mark Meadows, the leader of the Freedom Caucus, said there was not a budget deal he could agree to yet.

Meadows said he wasn't concerned with the numbers in the agreement, but rather the details when it came to how the deficit reduction was achieved.

The budget proposal does not provide details on how each committee could achieve these savings targets, but including the provision in the budget resolution gives Republicans in Congress the ability to say they are following through on their pledge to reduce the size of the federal government.

Ryan, a former budget chair, has been sympathetic to those pressing for major deficit reduction, but he is also balancing the challenge of shepherding a major overhaul of the tax code through the House. Leaders wanted to reach agreement on a savings number they felt was manageable for the House Ways and Means Committee to meet as it evaluates what various changes to the tax rates and exemptions will mean for the overall budget.

Republicans don't need to pass a budget the various spending bills that detail how much each agency will get for federal programs are the measures that keep the government operating. But as they did with health care, GOP leaders are using this vehicle so they can use a tool known as "budget reconciliation" to pass a tax reform package through the Senate with a simple majority, avoiding a Democratic filibuster.

Democrats are expected to be united against the package.

Kentucky Rep. John Yarmuth, the top Democrat on the Budget Committee, hasn't seen the details, but is already arguing that it's the same as the Trump administration's version sent to the Hill in May.

"The reports on the Republican budget proposal indicate that they are embracing much of the Trump budget," Yarmuth said in a written statement to CNN. "Instead of investing in American families and the future of our nation, it appears they are prepared to undermine our country's economic progress, health security, and safety just so they can give massive tax breaks for millionaires and corporations. We will fight this irresponsible proposal every step of the way."

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House Republicans put final touches on budget deal - CNN International