Let's start with the mess that is Puerto Rico and how once again, yours truly personally told the top figure in government evacuation plans that their plan won't work, and once again watched it fail for exactly the reason I outlined more than a decade ago. Help is not getting to where it needs to go because bureaucracy is hampering it (the Jones Act which prevent non-US companies from sending aid to the island nation), FEMA is stretched thin because of multiple disasters right now and private industry has all the oil supplies and no one to move it where it has to go. The latter one is something I have been warning officials for years that they need CONTRACTUALLY OBLIGATED DRIVERS for emergency situations. Evacuation plans for years have failed for this one reason that when drivers are needed, they disappear, most likely to help their own families. Without drivers that are mandated to show up for work under penalty of being fired, fined or even jailed, this will continue to happen, as it did with Katrina and now Puerto Rico. Idiots.
Trump has shown no ability to make people feel better and the fact that he thinks the island is in the Atlantic, somehow not knowing geography and that it is actually in the Caribbean, does not inspire confidence. His bungling of this will hopefully follow him around like Katrina did for Bush. Help is desperately needed for these poor people and hopefully they will get the aid they deserve. They certainly are getting any from Trump. Does anyone else find it odd that Florida and Texas, both Republican oriented got superior help, while the non voting state (which is messed up as they should be able to vote) filled with Hispanics got screwed? It's almost like Republicans are racist or something. NAAA. It can't be that can it? I think it is.
Then we have his failed health care bill to which he gave a super strange interview to CNN and others on the White House grounds. Trump stated he had the votes for health care but it couldn't go through because one the members, Thad Cochran, was in hospital, and if they had his vote, health care would have been a done deal. There is absolutely not one word of that that is true. Cochran is NOT in the hospital, they don't have the votes, and even if this was true and he couldn't make the vote, they still were at least one vote shy and likely a few more. Now he is saying they will revisit health care sometime next year where it should easily pass. How? They will need 60 votes to pass it, unless they commit political suicide by tacking it on to their onerous tax bill, which is already on life support and it has only been alive a few days. Plus, if they want to use budget reconciliation after that, it won't be until 2019 after the new Congress has been sworn in and that may include Democrats retaking the House and Senate, no longer a long shot according to new data seen. Health care is dead, dead, oh fuck what is this now?
Trump has insinuated he will EO health care now, allowing companies to buy insurance across state lines which is NOT a good idea. It could further tank the system by allowing companies to sell skimpier plans for less money to healthy people, meaning premiums will rise for everyone else. Fun. There are also a host of issues that will arise as each state has different rules when it comes to care so that could upend states rights something fierce. If he does, expect a dozen states or more to sue to stop it. This will then go to the Supreme Court where the ruling is unknown, thanks to Neil Gorsuch looking more and more like a rubber stamp for Republican ideals. Fuckwad. He will be giving a speech at Trump hotel today to GOP donors. Nothing suspicious about that right?
Lastly, we have the GOP tax bill which they are lying to us that it will help middle class families. It won't. Most of who it helps are the upper 1% who stand to make billions if enacted and cost taxpayers at least $1.5 trillion over ten years. This plan was already tried in Kansas and that went so badly the GOP congress there overrode the veto from idiot governor, Sam Brownback, who is also the least popular governor in the US, barely edging out other luminaries as Dannel Malloy and Chris Christie, whose approval rating is also underwater. This tax plan mostly helps the wealthy. Don't be fooled otherwise.
It may not matter as there are already signs this bill is doomed. They still have to figure a way to pay for this to even have a chance getting it through budget reconciliation rules which demands no increase after ten years which this bill does in spades. Good luck with that. 69 Republican Senators have already come out against a provision that would double people's taxes in states like NY, CA, NJ and Illinois, to name just a few. There is NO chance ANY Republican from any of these states votes for this provision because there is no way they get re-elected, let alone not get shot, if it passes. It would be impossible to deflect from the fact that their vote raised everyone's taxes 100% in the state. It would be a bloodbath and perhaps even a literal one.
Tax reform is way harder than health care in that to do anything, you have to take from one group to give to another. And when you take away from one group, they get pissed. If that group happens to be corporation, which is likely, they will spend millions attacking the candidate, severely hurting their chances for re-election. Citizen's United fucked over politicians too which I find funny. They can't get anything done now because corporations hold immense power over our government and can "free speech" anyone that they want back to the Stone Age.
Regardless of what Trump says or wants, this tax bill is likley going to be watered down to near nothing and even then, there may be no clear path forward. It is because of this that average Republicans are fed up with the establishment and thus people like Roy Moore get elected to run. Paul Ryan is in serious trouble next year as his numbers suck. I have a feeling a lot of politicians on both sides of the aisle are going to get primaried out next election. And that could help bring about either a better quality of politicians or more firebrands like Moore. Depending on what happens these next few months will decide that question for us.
No comments:
Post a Comment