The Hill | Republicans dismiss growing protests at home The Hill wrote in a letter to Republicans this week that they should not fear the vocal minority he says is grasping for relevance in communities across the nation. Some, like Rep. Dave Brat (R-Va.), are blaming the protests on a group called Indivisible ... |
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Republicans dismiss growing protests at home - The Hill
One of the less understood criticisms of progressivism is that it is totalitarian, not in the sense that kale-eating Brooklynites want to build prison camps for political nonconformists (except for the ones who want to lock up global-warming skeptics) but in the sense that it assumes that there is no life outside of politics, that there is no separate sphere of private life, and that church, family, art, and much else properly resides within that sphere.
Earlier this week, I expressed what seemed to me an unobjectionable opinion: that politics has a place, that politics should be kept in its place, and that happy and healthy people and societies have lives that are separate from politics. The response was dispiriting but also illuminating.
Among those who directed tut-tuts in my direction was Patti Bacchus, who writes about education for the Vancouver Observer. Thats one of the most privileged things Ive ever heard, she sniffed. Patti Bacchus is the daughter of Charles Balfour, a Vancouver real-estate entrepreneur, and attended school at Crofton House, a private girls school whose alumni include Pat (Mrs. William F.) Buckley. It is one of the most expensive private schools in Canada. I do enjoy disquisitions on privilege from such people. But of course her criticism is upside-down: It is exactly we privileged people with education, comfortable lives, and spare time who expend the most energy on politics. But there are other pressing priorities, like paying the rent, for poor people. If Ms. Bacchus would like to pay a visit to West Texas, Ill introduce her to some.
Another objection came from a correspondent who demanded: What if politics greatly impacts every facet of your life? That would be an excellent question if it came from some poor serf living in one of the states our American progressives so admire, such as Cuba or Venezuela, where almost every aspect of life is under political discipline, where government controls whether you eat and, indeed, whether you breathe. But if you live in the United States and politics greatly impacts every facet of your life, you have mental problems, or you are a politician.
(But I repeat myself.)
Esars Comic Dictionary (1943) contains two definitions of the word fanatic, often wrongly attributed (by me, among others) to Winston Churchill: First, A person who redoubles his efforts after having forgotten his aims. Second (my favorite), One who cant change his opinion and wont change the subject.
If you want to see fanaticism at work, try looking for a roommate in Washington or New York City.
From the New York Times we learn of the emergence of the no-Trump clause in housing ads in our liberal (which is to say, illiberal) metropolitan areas. The idea is nothing new I saw similar No Republicans Need Apply ads years ago when looking for apartments in Washington and New York but the intensity seems to have been turned up a measure or two: In 2017, the hysteria knob goes up to eleven. Katie Rogers of the Times offers an amusingly deadpan report:
In one recent ad, a couple in the area who identified themselves as open-minded and liberal advertised a $500 room in their home: If youre racist, sexist, homophobic or a Trump supporter please dont respond. We wont get along.
Thats a funny kind of open-mindedness it is in fact literal prejudice. It is also illiterate: Whatever Donald Trumps defects, to associate him with homophobia is a stretch to the point of dishonesty, inasmuch as Trump in 2017 is well to the liberal side of Barack Obama in 2008 on gay marriage. Trumps personal style is abrasive and confrontational, but he also is on the actual policy issues arguably the most moderate Republican president of the modern era, one who often has boasted of taking a more progressive view of such issues as abortion, gay rights, gun control, raising taxes on Wall Street, and what we used to call industrial policy. Given his history in and with the Democratic party, this is unsurprising.
But, as Robin Hanson put it, politics isnt about policy.
What it is about is tribe, which is what makes all that conflation of racism and bigotry with political difference so amusing. Political prejudice is not the moral equivalent of racial prejudice, but they operate in very similar ways, as anybody who ever has spent much time around a genuine racist or anti-Semite knows. Taxes too high? Blame the blacks. Not making enough money? Blame the Mexicans. Foreign policy seem overwhelmingly complex? Blame the Jews. Whataburger gave you a full-on corn-syrup Coke instead of a Diet Coke? Blame the blacks, Mexicans, Jews, subcontinental immigrants...somebody. Racism and anti-Semitism are metaphysical creeds, and those who adhere to these creeds see the work of the agents of evil everywhere. For them, there is no world outside race and racism.
In this, they are very similar to the Hillary Clintonvoting Manhattan balletomanes who seethe that they must endure being seated in the David Koch theater. David Kochs brand of libertarianism is mild and constructive, and it has about as much to do with ballet as Keith Olbermann has to do with astrophysics. But for the fanatic, even to hear the name spoken is unbearable.
Imagine being so mentally poisoned and so spiritually sick that you feel the need to organize a protest at New YorkPresbyterian Hospital because the institution accepted $100 million the largest gift in its history, being put to purely philanthropic health-care purposes from someone whose political views are at odds with your own. Imagine what it must be like to feel that doing that is a moral imperative. Imagine sitting down to listen to a Beethoven string quartet and being filled with paralyzing anxiety that the cellist might not share your views on the ArabIsraeli conflict.
(Ill bet Beethoven had really regressive views about gay marriage. And who knows what Bach or Bernini thought about tax policy?)
Imagine being willing to take a stranger into your home only on the condition that he did not vote for the man who won the 2016 presidential election. One of those Trump-excluding roommates mentioned in the Times insisted that this discrimination was in the interest of the Trump voters, too, who would be unhappy in a household full of raging liberals.
Meditate, for a moment, upon the word raging.
The people who believe that there can be no art, literature, culture, or life apart from politics are people who do not understand art, literature, culture, or politics, and whose lives are sad and sadly deficient.
A Buddhist writer once described two kinds of material unhappiness: the absence of what one desires and the presence of what one despises. But the Buddha was known to associate with worldly men and their unclean enthusiasms in much the same way that Jesus slummed around with prostitutes and tax collectors, instructing us by example to seek after lives that are as large as our love and not as small as our hatred. The people who close their doors against those who simply see the world in a different way, who scream profanities atBetsy DeVos or chant You should die! at Jewish musicians, are people who cannot rise far enough above their own pettiness to understand that the thing they fear is the thing they are.
Kevin D. Williamson is the roving correspondent for National Review.
Republicans were once married to balanced budgets and conservative money management, but now they have run off with something new: the seduction of tax cuts and budget deficits. They try to cover up the truth about their new relationship by cooking the books. Kansas own Dwight D. Eisenhower would be appalled.
Eisenhower presided over the last period when the U.S. ran budget surpluses for several years in a row. To fund this, the top tax rate for some high-earning Americans exceeded 90 percent. When President John F. Kennedy backed legislation to drop that rate to around 70 percent, Eisenhower spoke against it, arguing that it would explode the deficit.
A few decades later, President Ronald Reagan commissioned the W.R. Grace Commission Report, the first of a long series of warnings, reminding Americans to prepare for the impending (now current) retirement of the Baby Boomer generation, which would create (is creating) a demographic bulge straining Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid particularly long-term care and the nations overall health care system.
Then, Republicans ditched predictable old deficit-reduction policies for the sexy appeal of tax cuts and deficits: the real priority of Reagan, the second President Bush, and many Congressional Republicans from the 1980s onward.
Since Sam Brownback was elected governor in 2010, they have brought their new love to Kansas. Once, moderate Republicans like Robert Bennett, Mike Hayden and Bill Graves proudly presided over conservatively managed, balanced budgets. Today, Kansas budget is balanced in name only: trust funds have been drained, future payments leveraged and highway bonds misused to create the illusion of a balanced budget that may technically pass legal muster, but will spell disaster down the road. Honestly, the thrill is gone.
Now President Donald Trump proposes massive public works projects (including the border wall), plus cuts to top-tax rates. Trumps signature phrase perfectly describes the accompanying deficit increase: it is going to be huge.
Some economists like Arthur Laffer argue that tax cuts stimulate enough economic growth to pay for themselves: lower rates on a broadening base produce more revenue than higher rates on a small base. Alas, this only works when taxes are particularly high beforehand, as with the Kennedy-era cut. When they are not, disaster ensues, as we have learned in Kansas.
Critics counter by stating, We have a spending problem, not a taxing problem. Granted, dollar-for-dollar, government spending keeps rising, but this is misleading. Most federal dollars are already committed to entitlement programs like Social Security and Medicare or to interest on the national debt. At the state level resides another pernicious problem: the costs of providing government services increase each year.
Teachers and other government employees are not receiving more generous benefits. Rather, the cost of providing the same benefits goes up substantially each year, mainly due to those increasing health care and retirement costs. This has not been a problem until recently budget estimates factoring in these rising costs are readily available from the Legislatures own nonpartisan staff (but legislators may ignore them).
The anti-Brownback Republicans elected in 2016 are sounding some rather Eisenhower-like talk about a return to responsible budgeting. But, can they give up their partys love affair with deficit spending?
Michael A. Smith is a professor of political science at Emporia State University.
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Will anti-Brownback republicans end their party's love affair with deficits? - Hastings Tribune
Washington Republicans this weekend faced more protests at public events -- backlash that appears to be growing against President Trump and the GOP-led Congress for trying to dismantle ObamaCare and against other parts of their agenda.
On Saturday, for the second week in a row, Florida GOP Rep. Gus Bilirakis reportedly faced about a hundred people at a town hall meeting upset about Republican plans to repeal and replace the 2010 health care law, without a solid alternative.
The episodes -- like those faced by other House Republicans and by recently confirmed Education Secretary Betsy DeVos -- appear similar to those staged by the Tea Party movement in 2009. Members grassroots opposition to the increasing size of government under then-President Obama led to the 2010 wave election in which Republicans seized control of the House.
DeVos, a supporter of vouchers and other alternatives to pubic education, was temporarily blocked Friday when trying to enter a District of Columbia public school.
Go home, shouted a man holding a Black Lives Matters" sign. Shame, shame, shame.
The concerns raised Saturday in Bilirakis conservative Gulf Coast district were similar to those Utah GOP Rep. Jason Chaffetz faced a day earlier.
Chaffetz, chairman of the House Oversight committee, was met by frequent, deafening boos at a town hall event in which constituents asked a range of questions including ones on environmental and energy policies and whether he would hold Trump, a fellow Republican accountable.
Hold on, Chaffetz, repeatedly said. Give me a second.
My job is not to be a cheerleader for the president, he also said.
House Democrats earlier this week made clear their plans this year to attack Republicans on vows to end ObamaCare, which could leave a project 22 million Americans without insurance.
"We're going to keep stoking the fires," New Jersey Rep. Frank Pallone told Fox News on Wednesday in Baltimore, at the caucuss annual retreat.
He made clear that Democrats, in the GOP-controlled Congress, are not encouraging voters to disrupt Republican town halls, saying that is "not actually allowed."
However, others appear ready to continue to disrupt GOP events, while distancing themselves from the Tea Party movement led by fiscal conservatives.
One such group, or movement, is Indivisible: A Practical Guide for Stopping the Trump Agenda, started by former congressional staffers who say they are revealing the best practices for making Congress listen.
The group says its guide started as a tweeted Google document that has now been downloaded more than a million times.
Group organizers also say their funding comes from crowd sourcing and that they are still developing a long-term strategy.
Co-founder Ezra Levin acknowledge Saturday on CNN that the group is indeed similar to the Tea Party movement because it uses the same basic, Civics 101 tactics of going to town hall-style events and making phone calls.
However, he said his group doesnt espouse the Tea Partys 19th Century ideology.
Last weekend, California GOP Rep. Tom McClintock had to be escorted by police from a town hall event as protesters upset about potentially losing their insurance if ObamaCare is dismantled shouted, "Shame on you!"
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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Reverse Tea Party? Republican officials facing more protests across country - Fox News
Republican town halls are erupting with protests as Americans fret over the future of their health insurance. But listen to Lamar Alexander for a few minutes, and you might think not a single bad thing will come of the GOPs plan to rip apart Obamacare and stitch together a replacement.
The folksy Tennessee senator is quietly prevailing upon Republican lawmakers to take a deep breath when it comes to rewriting the health care law that controls a sixth of the American economy. His goal, in a nutshell: to reassure millions of Americans that Republicans arent trying to snatch away their health insurance.
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His message: As long as were smart and deliberate, it will all be fine. It might take awhile, but we got this.
There are a lot of generals in this administration theyre taught in the war college to think it all the way through, Alexander says. We ought to do that as we try to repair the damage caused by Obamacare. We need to think all the way through to the end.
Tamping down expectations about a quick fix let alone delivering a solution is a monumental task, of course. Its one Alexander is most comfortable leading in private. If theres a softer side to Republicans plans to gut the law, its best represented by Alexander, a lawmaker who so loves cutting a deal that he voluntarily left the top ranks of Republican leadership to better work with Democrats.
A former governor and two-time presidential candidate, Alexander stalks the halls of the Capitol with a small card filled with bullet points about the health care law, pressing it into the hands of Republicans to alert them to the scope of the problems with the nations insurance coverage. Just as he ran for governor by walking across the state in his trademark black-and-red checked flannel shirt, Alexanders goal is to buttonhole enough GOP lawmakers until the whole party is on the same page.
It hasnt been easy. Daily Senate Republican lunches regularly erupt in disagreement over strategy; its now mid-February without a clear path forward, after years of Republican show votes to repeal the law.
Which is fine by Alexander. Republicans came back to Washington in January ready to repeal Obamacare before Inauguration Day. The chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee was one of the first lawmakers to call on Republicans not to scrap Obamacare until a replacement is ready to go.
Thats now the GOPs mantra.
What Im trying to do is to make sure that we think carefully, Alexander said. Were moving from a position repeal and replace to governing. Its a little more complicated.
Still, its unclear how the GOP will respond to Alexander's more centrist approach. Conservatives inside and outside Congress have already grown frustrated with the GOPs plodding pace toward repealing the law.
While the knives have not yet been turned on Alexander, its clear the partys right flank is eager to follow through on its years-long vow to deep-six the health care law.
We need to move expeditiously to honor the promises we made to voters, said Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas). This election in many ways was a referendum on Obamacare.
But in a 30-minute interview with Alexander in his Capitol Hill office packed with artifacts from early settlements in Appalachia, from animal pelts to Sam Houstons walking stick he talks instead about a safe approach. Implementing a replacement in full, he said, could take as long as four years.
Rather than use the GOPs well-worn talking points, he has his own. Democrats and Republicans are fighting like the Hatfields and McCoys, he says, while relying on Obamacare will soon be like having a bus ticket in a town with no buses running.
He doesnt throw out red meat, either, a quality that makes some Democrats open, in theory, to working with Alexander, even though the repeal vote will surely fall along party lines. They like that Alexander tried to be productive during the Obama administration and has carried his pragmatism into the Trump presidency.
Hes one of the most thoughtful members we have, said Sen. Tom Carper (D-Del.).
While they respect Alexanders bipartisan bona fides, Democrats say his rhetoric about building a bridge from Obamacare papers over the reality of stripping health insurance coverage from millions of people.
Alexander is close with both Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, which along with his committee chairmanship gives him clout with both parties.
At a time when there is such tension in the chamber, Lamar is one of those people who can disagree with you without being disagreeable, Schumer said.
Still, there are nearly 300 Republicans in Congress who want a piece of the debate, and many are already competing for attention over their own replacement plans.
Alexander doesnt want to go that route. He says he wont even introduce his own bill. Instead he wants to see what Trump and Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price propose, then help craft a bill to reconcile the differences.
He also believes Republicans should focus on the biggest problems first. At the top of the list is flagging insurance exchanges, which are suffering from high premiums and low competition, even if they represent just 4 percent of those insured in the United States.
Thats where we need to send in the rescue team, Alexander says.
From there, he wants Republicans to turn to Medicaid expansion which Republicans will keep and potentially even broaden, he says before eventually addressing problems with the countrys patchwork of employer-sponsored health care plans. In essence, Alexander is trying to triangulate an approach that can become law.
One potential hurdle is Alexanders lack of a relationship with President Donald Trump, whom he met for only the second time this month. But he has deep ties with Price and House Speaker Paul Ryan: During the interview, Alexander repeatedly stressed that the three of them are on the same page. Those relationships have given other Republicans confidence in Alexanders role.
Thats the key guy, said Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.).
Of course, Capitol Hill is a very turf-conscious place. Alexanders committee has jurisdiction over only a small part of health care. The Senate Finance Committee controls the major levers, such as taxes, subsidies and Medicaid. The committees and their staffs have been working together but Finance Chairman Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) is protective of his jurisdiction.
Sen. Lamar Alexander wants to see what President Donald Trump and Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price propose, then help craft a bill to reconcile the differences. | M. Scott Mahaskey/POLITICO
He doesnt have much to do with it, Hatch said of Alexander. He takes a great interest in it, and Im glad he does, and I want to get his best ideas.
Hatch is urging the Congress to quickly repeal Obamacares taxes that fund subsidies for lower-income Americans on the exchanges. But here again Alexander urges caution: If Republicans repeal taxes now, how can they be sure theyll have the revenue needed to pay for their replacement plan?
Most Republicans are going to be reluctant to reduce taxes now and then raise taxes later, he said.
With enough divisions among Republicans to fill a book, the GOP is starting with almost entirely partisan tactics. Alexander and other powerful Republicans want to use budget reconciliation to repeal and replace as much of the law they can on a party-line vote in the Senate, while looking to Price to write regulations to begin changing the law.
Once Republicans have settled their own issues, eventually theyll need the cooperation of Senate Democrats to begin passing new insurance provisions. And the Senate is fraught with tension: Many Democrats are angry at Alexander for helping Trump confirm Betsy DeVos as education secretary, and theres almost no appetite for collaboration on health care.
Alexanders first hearing on the subject degenerated into a series of speeches. Democrats blasted Republicans for taking away peoples insurance. Republicans grandstanded about how bad Obamacare is.
The witnesses were good, but the senators were not that good, Alexander said. Its going to take awhile.
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The stealth Republican force behind Obamacare repeal - Politico