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Budget lands with thud

President Donald Trumps budget plan is hitting lots of congressional Republicans where they and their voters live, reports Newsdays Emily Ngo.

Rep. Peter King (R-Seaford), for one, doesnt like what he sees so far in the Homeland Security budget, which eliminates or reduces state and local grant funding by $667 million.

Any reduction to NY & LI is dead on arrival, he tweeted.

While many Republicans favor the sharp boost in military spending, some of the deep cuts to domestic programs --including widely popular items like medical research --are a harder sell to them and face strong Democratic opposition.

Big reductions for diplomacy and foreign aid also strike members of both parties as self-defeating for national security.

Budget chief Mick Mulvaney said, Folks who voted for the president are getting exactly what they voted for. He called Meals on Wheels the kind of social program that is just not showing any results --serving up a tasty sound bite to foes of the cuts.

The current U.S. defense budget, nearly $600 billion, is already almost as much as the next 14 nations combined. Yet experts at the International Institute for Strategic Studies see Russia and China closing the technology gap.

Trump now wants to commmit $54 billion more for the military, but how it is spent --and not wasted --holds the key to whether it would strengthen U.S. security, Newsdays Dan Janison writes.

For its plan to secure the Mexican border, the Trump administration has already called for more guns --thousands of additional law enforcement officers --and more money, including billions to start building the wall.

Now they want lawyers, too. Trumps budget calls for hiring 20 of them for legal efforts to acquire private land--seizing properties by eminent domain, if necessary --so there are places to build the barrier. Another 20 lawyers would be added for immigration litigation assistance.

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said Friday that military action against North Korea is "on the table" if the country continued to develop its weapons program.

Regardless of what table he may have been referring to, Tillerson issued the warning while visiting South Korea.

"If they elevate the threat of their weapons program to a level that we believe requires action then that option is on the table," he told reporters.

"Certainly we do not want for things to get to a military conflict," he added. "But obviously if North Korea takes actions that threaten the South Korean forces or our own forces then that would be met with an appropriate response."

The top Republican and Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee said they see no indications Trump Tower was the subject of surveillance by any element of the United States government either before or after Election Day 2016.

The statement by Sens. Richard Burr (R-N.C.) and Mark Warner (D-Va.) echoed those from House counterparts a day earlier.

But Trump isnt giving up on his accusation against former President Barack Obama. He stands by it, said Press Secretary Sean Spicer, who angrily read off a list of clippings --none of them with actual evidence for Trumps claim --as well as speculation by a Fox News commentator that Obama outsourced the surveillance job to Britains spy agency.

See Newsdays story by Tom Brune and Emily Ngo.

A key congressional committee narrowly approved a Republican health care bill Thursday, but three GOP no votes exposed GOP divisions over the plan to replace Obamacare, Newsdays Yancey Roy reports.

House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) has conceded the bill would have to be altered before winning congressional approval. Trump tweeted Thursday afternoon: Great progress on healthcare. Improvements being made --Republicans coming together!

There are many great Irish proverbs. After his White House meeting with Irish Prime Minister Endy Kenny, Trump celebrated the U.S.-Ireland friendship with one of the more obscure ones, with allusions to grudges and betrayal.

Always remember to forget the friends that proved untrue, but never forget to remember those that have stuck by you, Trump said.

Perhaps he forgot what he told Michigans Republican governor, Rick Snyder, a day earlier as the president coaxed him into a photo op, even though you didnt endorse me. As the cameras clicked, Trump added, I never forget.

Originally posted here:
Trump's budget gets the side-eye from plenty of Republicans - Newsday

New York Times

Why Republicans Keep Talking About Health Care 'Prongs' New York Times Here's why the prongs are crucial to the effort to roll back Obamacare: Republicans have chosen to pass their health reform bill using a special budget procedure that limits the policy changes they can make. That means that many of their key policy ... Republican policy takes aim at the middle class | Letters to the editor ...STLtoday.com Republicans' Obamacare repeal fight turning into battle over Senate ...Washington Examiner The Republicans' 3 prongs have 3 big problemsVox all 14 news articles »

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Why Republicans Keep Talking About Health Care 'Prongs' - New York Times

Ad will collapse in seconds CLOSE /health care March 15, 2017 03/15/2017 5:40 a.m. By Margaret Hartmann

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The Congressional Budget Offices estimate that 24 million people will lose health coverage by 2026 under the Republican health-care plan has kicked off a new phase in the effort to repeal and replace Obamacare: the hunt for a scapegoat. Vice-President Mike Pence and Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price spent Tuesday on Capitol Hill trying to rally support for the health-care bill, but more and more Republicans are coming out against the current version of the legislation and pointing fingers at each other.

The most obvious target is the man behind the bill, which fails to achieve the Republicans contradictory goals for the health-care system. Breitbarts escalating attacks on House Speaker Paul Ryan have added fuel to suspicions that chief strategist Steve Bannon hasnt given up on his goal of ending Ryans career.

But as the Washington Post notes, Breitbart is far from the only conservative outlet bashing Ryancare. Newsmax chief executive Christopher Ruddy even published a piece urging President Trump to abandon the current bill on Tuesday (though he went with the less catchy moniker Ryan Plan II).

Trump figures things out pretty quickly, and I think hes figuring out this situation, how the House Republicans did him a disservice, said Ruddy, a longtime friend of Trumps. President Trump is a big-picture, pragmatic Republican, and unfortunately the Ryan Republican plan doesnt capture his worldview.

Even Republicans who dont consider Ryan the enemy have expressed alarm about the American Health Care Act. The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday that at least a dozen Senate Republicans, including some who had previously kept a low profile in the health debate, have expressed serious doubts about the legislation making its way through the House. The report poured cold water on the theory that passage in the House would build enough momentum to get the AHCA though the Senate. Republicans cant afford to lose more than two Senate votes.

Since the senators objections range from concerns about depriving millions of affordable health insurance to claims that the bills tax credits amount to a Republican welfare entitlement, it seems modifying the legislation would only alienate another GOP faction.

According to the Huffington Post, Republicans may already be giving up on getting AHCA passed in the Senate.

The focus of House leadership has been more about getting a bill out of the House that is unchanged and in keeping with the Better Way plan, instead of truly seeing to potential roadblocks that exist in the House and Senate, said a Republican House member.

The Trump administration is said to be considering moving the bill to the right to appease the Freedom Caucus. The thinking is that moderates may be willing to get on board if they think AHCA will fail in the Senate anyway. Their vote would be merely another declaration of their opposition to Obamacare, and the Senate would be accused of dropping the ball.

One senior House aide was already calling out senators who claim to oppose the AHCA from the right, saying theyre actually opposed to the bill because Obamacare worked in their states.

The question people should be looking at is whether Republican senators like Tom Cotton and Rand Paul are actually interested in repealing Obamacare, or whether theyre sabotaging this to preserve the Medicaid expansion in their states, said the aide. These senators masquerading with conservative objections are too afraid to admit they want to keep Obamacare.

Of course, as President Trump has stated several times, the Republicans preferred Plan B is to keep blaming Senate Democrats. As the Huffington Post notes, theres a major flaw in that strategy:

In that scenario, voters fail to recognize that Republicans have the power to pass this bill without a single Democratic vote, and the ire over Obamacare doesnt dissipate even though voters have seen the GOP alternative.

Will voters remember that Trump promised an Obamacare replacement thats going to be better health care for more people at a lesser cost, then failed to put much energy into crafting that plan? Maybe, but blaming other people for his mistakes happens to be one of his strong suits.

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That would effectively double the number of U.S. troops in the country.

Auto execs asked Trump to review the rules and hes giving them what they want.

Seventeen House Republicans many from areas already suffering the consequences of climate change have signed onto a call for action.

Sometimes the world hears alarming things when America doesnt speak.

VIDEO: If he says great things about me, Im going to say great things about him.

There are no easy answers for the rise of right-wing populism. But attacking the GOPs grotesquely unpopular economic agenda may be the best we have.

The blizzard may have disappointed, but it was enough to handicap the MTA.

Wall Street sees Deputy Treasury Secretary nominee Jim Donovan as a check on Steve Bannons economic nationalism.

If Republicans are unable to resolve their problem over repealing and replacing Obamacare, their timetable for the rest of the year is in big trouble.

After the dismal CBO estimate, more Republicans are turning against AHCA and each other.

Senator Whitehouse says the FBI director suggested hed give them a clearer explanation of the bureaus activities by March 15.

Without the alternative minimum tax, which Trump wants to eliminate, he could have paid a rate of less than 4 percent.

Hey, America waited this long. Whats another 20 minutes?

His campaign is suffering, but, so far, he has refused to drop out of the race.

No flexibility for them. And they arent happy about it.

Republican Joe Barton of Texas made a request, and it was not honored.

The threat of a record-setting snowstorm became a slushy mess of about seven inches in Manhattan.

After helping make his state the target of boycotts over discrimination, Pat McCrory says hes facing a political purge.

In the 12 weeks after Trumps election, U.S. applications for Kiwi citizenship were up 70 percent.

They were rounded up after quite the chase, and a little help from the NYPD.

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Republicans Search for Someone to Blame for Trumpcare - New York Magazine

WASHINGTON U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Paul Ryan said on Wednesday the major elements of the Republican healthcare overhaul plan backed by President Donald Trump will remain intact despite conservative opposition to a bill whose prospects remain up in the air.

The White House and Ryan struggled to shore up support among Republican lawmakers for the legislation ahead of a key hurdle in the House Budget Committee on Thursday. Vice President Mike Pence was set to met with conservative House lawmakers and then the entire Republican House membership.

Ryan, who unveiled the legislation last week and is its main champion in Congress, said he was open to making "improvements and refinements," especially after an assessment on Monday by the Congressional Budget Office, which said millions of Americans would soon lose their health insurance under the plan.

Ryan indicated no appetite for wholesale changes, even as conservatives demanded major shifts relating to tax credits and the Medicaid health insurance program for the poor.

"Obviously, the major components are staying intact because this is something we wrote with President Trump. This is something we wrote with the Senate committees," Ryan told the Fox Business Network.

Senate Republicans voiced rising unease.

"As written, the House bill would not pass the Senate. But I believe we can fix it," Texas Senator Ted Cruz, a prominent conservative critic of the legislation, told reporters.

"It is mortally wounded," Republican Senator Lindsey Graham added on NBC's "Today" show, saying the bill was not good right now and that his party needed to "slow down" to get it right.

Ryan's comments follow Trump's promise on Monday of "a big, fat, beautiful negotiation" over the plan, the first major legislative initiative of his presidency.

Republicans control both Congress and the White House for the first time in a decade. But the bill, the Republicans' first major piece of legislation under Trump, remains in peril.

Democrats are unified against it, major medical providers have condemned it and conservatives oppose key elements.

The legislation guts key provisions of the 2010 Affordable Care Act, Democratic former President Barack Obama's signature legislative achievement popularly known as Obamacare. Obamacare enabled about 20 million previously uninsured Americans to obtain medical insurance.

Many conservatives call parts of the measure too similar to the law it is supposed to replace, want a quicker end to Obamacare's expansion of the Medicaid insurance program for the poor, and call the plan's age-based tax credits to help people buy private insurance on the open market an unwise new government entitlement.

Two House committees last week approved the bill's provisions with no changes, and the Budget Committee on Thursday will try to unify the plan into a single bill that would be sent to the House floor. Republicans cannot afford to lose more than three from their ranks on the committee for the measure to pass. Three committee Republicans are members of the hardline conservative House Freedom Caucus.

'LEGISLATIVE QUICKSAND'

Representative John Yarmuth, the committee's top Democrat, said the legislation "is in legislative quicksand."

"It is sinking of its own weight, and every time the Republicans try to move one way or another, it is sinking faster," Yarmuth said.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services released data showing that enrollment in the individual insurance plans created under Obamacare have declined to 12.2 million Americans.

The CBO, a nonpartisan congressional agency, forecast on Monday that the Republican plan would increase the number of Americans without health insurance by 24 million by 2026, while cutting $337 billion off federal budget deficits over the same period.

As of the end of January, enrollment in individual insurance plans created under Obamacare was down by about 500,000 people from 2016, it said. It is about 1.6 million people short of Obama's goal for 2017 sign-ups, the government said.

The data included people who selected or were automatically enrolled in an insurance plan between Nov. 1 last year and Jan. 31 either through the federal HealthCare.gov website or one of the state-based insurance exchanges. About one-third of the enrollees were new to the market.

Shares of hospitals traded broadly higher on Wednesday, with Community Health Systems rising 2.2 percent. Health insurer shares also gained, with Anthem up 2.8 percent after the insurer also backed its full-year profit forecast. After the release of the enrollment data, Leerink Partners analyst Ana Gupte said in a research note that: "While attrition is likely through the course of the year, the final enrollment points to a stable volume and bad debt outlook at least in 2017."

(Additional reporting by David Morgan, Lewis Krauskopf, Caroline Humer; Writing by Will Dunham; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama and Alistair Bell)

WASHINGTON A key Republican congressman said on Wednesday he has seen no evidence that the Obama administration wiretapped Trump Tower during the 2016 presidential campaign, adding pressure to FBI Director James Comey to provide evidence supporting or debunking Republican President Donald Trump's claim.

WASHINGTON Leaders of the House of Representatives Intelligence Committee said on Wednesday they do not believe Trump Tower was tapped during the 2016 presidential campaign and that FBI and NSA directors will testify at a hearing next week about that claim and any Russian meddling in the U.S. election.

WASHINGTON The U.S. Senate voted overwhelmingly on Thursday to confirm former Republican senator Dan Coats to be President Donald Trump's director of national intelligence and to approve Army Lieutenant General H.R. McMaster's transfer to become his national security adviser.

The rest is here:
Ryan foresees no major changes in Republican healthcare plan - Reuters

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 15, 2017, 10:05 A.M.

Seventeen conservative Republican members of Congress 10 of them in their first or second terms are bucking longtime party positions and the new occupant of the White House. They announced on Wednesday that theyre supporting a clear statement about the risks associated with climate change, as well as principles for how best to fight it.

Called the Republican Climate Resolution by supporters, the statement by House members takes about 450 words to mention conservative thought on environmentalism, support for climate science, feared impacts, and a call for economically viable policy. They pledge in general terms to support study and mitigation measures, using our tradition of American ingenuity, innovation, and exceptionalism.

Its essentially the same thing that was introduced in September 2015 by then-Rep. Chris Gibson of New York. Whats changed since then is that almost 200 nations agreed to work to bring climate change under control while America elected a Republican president Donald Trump, who seems determined not to and the challenge itself grows continuously worse.

With 17 co-sponsors, the resolution is oceans away from the number of votes it needs to pass the Republican-controlled House. But Republican climate bills are noteworthy not because one is likely to pass anytime soon, but because massive external forces markets, other governments, and climate change itself may eventually force it into the foreground.

The resolution is spearheaded by three Republican members of Congress: Elise Stefanik of New York, Carlos Curbelo of Florida, and Ryan Costello of Pennsylvania.

The bills co-sponsors hail from parts of the country on the front lines of climate change; three represent southern Florida. Others comes from northern Nevada and central Utah, where mountain snowpack has declined in recent decades. And the district of Rep. Mark Sanford, in eastern South Carolina, is seeing the rising sea level rise slowly eat away at its coastline.

Our Founding Fathers set up a political system that was to be reason-based, Sanford said on Tuesday. They didnt believe in alternative facts.

Curbelo represents Monroe County, which includes the Florida Keys, and part of Miami-Dade County. A leader in shaping the new resolution, hes also co-founder of the House Climate Solutions Caucus, a bipartisan group. The caucus, which has new members admitted in pairs, one Republican and one Democrat, was set up to explore climate policy. Eleven of its 13 Republican members are co-sponsors of the new resolution (six representatives are co-sponsors but do not belong to the caucus, according to a roster maintained by the nonprofit Citizens Climate Lobby).

Curbelo said in a conference call that the most critical participants in climate discussions-including major oil companies-are all moving in the right direction.

Congress, specifically the House Republican Conference, has to catch up to all of them, Curbelo said. Thats what were trying to do here.

The bill is this months contribution to Washingtons constant climate background hum. It follows Februarys splashy carbon tax-and-rebate announcement, developed by a group called Climate Leadership Council and endorsed by three former Republican U.S. Treasury secretaries. That initiative, like todays, is premised on the idea that, as CLC founder Ted Halstead, put it, There is no issue in America today where there is a bigger gap between the GOP base and the GOP leadership.

Sanford, who served as South Carolinas governor from 2003 to 2011, suggested that the future of climate resolutions or policies is up to voters. Theres been a level of energy that Ive never seen before in my time in politics, he said.

If that energy broadens beyond the dismantling of the Affordable Care Act, issues such as climate change might rise to greater prominence. In the meantime, Sanford said theres enough science and enough resonant anecdotal evidence. I think its dangerous, he said.

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17 Republicans break ranks, pledging to fight climate change - The Spokesman-Review