Tag: GOP congress

Poll: Majority disapproves of Trump, GOP’s handling of deficit

The following article by Julia Manchester was posted on the Hill website August 3, 2018:

A majority of Americans say they disapprove of how Republicans and the Trump administration have handled the budget deficit, according to a new American Barometer poll.

Fifty-six percent said they disproved of the handling of the budget deficit, which is set to top $1 trillion this year under the administration’s own estimates. Just 44 percent said they approved.

The survey, a joint project of The Hill and the HarrisX polling company, found that just 21 percent of Republicans, however, disapprove of the GOP’s handling of the deficit. Seventy-nine percent of Republicans polled said they approved of the work done by the administration and Republicans on the deficit.

View the complete article here.

Senate Republicans reject funding for election security

The following article by Caroline Orr was posted on the ShareBlue.com website August 2, 2018:

All but one Senate Republican voted against providing additional funds to secure state election systems.

Credit: AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite

Senate Republicans voted on Wednesday to reject a measure that would allot additional funding to states to upgrade election systems and defend against cyberattacks and hacking.

The amendment, which was introduced by Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT), would have provided $250 million dollars in grants to help states improve election-related cybersecurity, replace outdated equipment, and undertake other election security efforts like training and hiring additional personnel.

Only one Republican senator, Bob Corker, voted in favor of the measure. Three others — Richard Burr, Jeff Flake, and John McCain — were not present for the vote. Ultimately, the legislation got 50 votes, falling short of the 60 votes needed to pass.

View the complete article here.

🚨🚨 Republicans Eye Another ACA Repeal Vote 🚨🚨

Despite the fact that a majority of Americans oppose Trump and Republicans’ health care sabotage, Republicans are eyeing yet another Affordable Care Act repeal vote if the midterm elections go their way.

Republicans are eyeing another vote to repeal the Affordable Care Act if the midterms go their way.

Axios: “Republicans eye another ACA repeal vote if midterms go their way”

Axios: “Many Republicans assume their party will take another stab at repealing and replacing the Affordable Care Act if the midterm elections go their way, even though GOP candidates aren’t making a big deal about it on the campaign trail.”

A majority of voters oppose Trump and Republicans’ sabotage. It’s clear why voters trust Democrats more on health care.

  • Voters trust Democrats over Republicans and President Trump on health care by 13 points.
  • By an overwhelming 25 points, voters say they want to keep and improve on the ACA, not repeal it.
  • A majority of voters support a generic Democratic candidate who supports the ACA and wants to improve it over a generic Republican candidate who wants to repeal it.
  • Only 19 percent of voters support the Trump’s decision to join a lawsuit seeking to strike down the ACA’s protections for people with pre-existing conditions.

Trump Administration Mulls a Unilateral Tax Cut for the Rich Image

The following article by Alan Rappeport and Jim Tankersley was posted on the New York Timeswebsite July 30, 2018:

Credit: Doug Mills The New York Times

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration is considering bypassing Congress to grant a $100 billion tax cut mainly to the wealthy, a legally tenuous maneuver that would cut capital gains taxation and fulfill a long-held ambition of many investors and conservatives.

Steven Mnuchin, the Treasury secretary, said in an interview on the sidelines of the Group of 20 summit meeting in Argentina this month that his department was studying whether it could use its regulatory powers to allow Americans to account for inflation in determining capital gains tax liabilities. The Treasury Department could change the definition of “cost” for calculating capital gains, allowing taxpayers to adjust the initial value of an asset, such as a home or a share of stock, for inflation when it sells.

“If it can’t get done through a legislation process, we will look at what tools at Treasury we have to do it on our own and we’ll consider that,” Mr. Mnuchin said, emphasizing that he had not concluded whether the Treasury Department had the authority to act alone. “We are studying that internally, and we are also studying the economic costs and the impact on growth.”

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Trump doubles down on shutdown threat

The following article by Jordan Fabian was posted on the Hill website July 30, 2018:

Credit: AP, Susan Walsh

President Trump on Monday doubled down on his threat to shut down the government to secure enhanced border security measures.

“If we don’t get border security after many, many years of talk within the United States, I would have no problem doing a shutdown,” Trump said during a joint press conference with Italy’s prime minister.

But Trump would not say if he would veto a spending bill in September unless it included “full” funding for a border wall, saying, “I’ll always leave room for negotiation.”

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Republicans Are Doubling Down on Their Failed Tax Cuts

The following article by Leo Gerard of the Independent Media Institute was posted on the AlterNet website July 27, 2018:

Credit: USGovernmentDebt.us

Up is down. Would is wouldn’t. “What you are seeing and what you are reading is not what’s happening.” And a new round of GOP tax cuts, proposed this week, definitely will not result in damage to Medicaid, Medicare, or Social Security!

Definitely.

Republicans live in an Alice-in-Wonderland World where they can pass $1.5 trillion in tax cuts that won’t cost anything. They’ll pay for themselves! Just like a worker’s mortgage does every month. Just pays for itself! And then the GOP can propose another $1 trillion in tax cuts that also won’t cost anything! They certainly won’t increase the federal deficit!

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Trump to Dems: I’ll ‘Shut Down’ Government Over Immigration

The following article by John T. Bennett was posted on the Roll Call website July 29, 2018:

Shelby has told president new wall funding likely capped at $1.6B

Credit: Kevin Dietsch-Pool, Getty Images

President Donald Trump on Sunday threatened to shut down the federal government this fall unless Democrats give in to his border security demands, including by giving him billions more for his proposed southern border wall.

Should Democrats continue denying Trump his border barrier and other demands and the president make good on his high-stakes threat, it would be the third funding lapse of his tenure. It also would shutter the government just weeks before voters will decide which party controls the House and Senate — and the Trump-GOP agenda — come January.

“I would be willing to “shut down” government if the Democrats do not give us the votes for Border Security, which includes the Wall!” he wrote.

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‘That was not the deal’: McCarthy, Ryan renege on immigration vow

the following article by Rachael Bade was posted on the Politico website July 24, 2018:

The California Republican aiming to be speaker backs away from a promised vote on a guest worker program.

House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) has been asking members to support him for speaker next year, when Paul Ryan is set to retire. But the standoff on a vote McCarthy promised could alienate some would-be allies. Credit: Alex Wong, Getty Images

House GOP leaders are reneging on a vow to hold an immigration vote before the August recess, a move that puts House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy in a particularly awkward spot as he seeks to become the next speaker.

In June, McCarthy (R-Calif.) personally promised several rank-and-file members a vote on a new guest-worker program for farmers, an offer backed by Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.). The assurance was critical at the time: It persuaded Reps. Dennis Ross (R-Fla.) and Dan Newhouse (R-Wash.) not to sign on to an effort — which Republican leaders were desperately trying to stop — to force a vote on legislation creating a pathway to citizenship for Dreamers, the immigrants brought to the country illegally as children. The so-called discharge petition ultimately fell two signatures short.

But now, Republican leaders have no plans to take up the guest-worker program before the summer break, according to four sources in leadership. Ryan does not want to hold a vote that’s certain to fail, they said — though proponents of the guest-worker bill said McCarthy’s original promise to hold a vote was unconditional.

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As Trump’s latest lies implode, one party tries to smuggle out the truth

The following article by Greg Sargent was posted on the Washington Post website July 23, 2018:

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The release of new documents relating to the genesis of the Russia probe — and President Trump’s response to those documents this morning — throw the asymmetry between the parties that is the driving fact of our politics right now into perhaps its starkest relief yet.

Broadly speaking, many Republicans have tacitly enabled or actively aided in efforts to pervert the basic functions of government in service of preventing the full truth about Russian sabotage of U.S. democracy from becoming publicly known, all to shield Trump (and, increasingly, themselves) from accountability. By contrast, in many cases, Democrats have been doing all they can to smuggle out to the U.S. public and the world as much basic information that is being learned about that Russian sabotage effort — and about the Trump/GOP campaign to cover that up — as possible.

This morning, the New York Times’s Charlie Savage has a great piece on the White House’s decision over the weekend to release documents revealing the FBI’s application to a FISA court to run secret surveillance on former Trump campaign official Carter Page. The bottom line: The documents lay waste to much of the narrative about the FBI investigation pushed by Trump — and GOP Rep. Devin Nunes of California, the House Intelligence Committee chairman who enshrined that story line in his much-discussed memo — while largely confirming that Democratic efforts to correct that narrative have been offered accurately and in good faith.

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Do-Nothing Amendments Give Lawmakers Bragging Opportunity About Successes

The following article by Kellie Mejdrich was posted on the Roll Call website July 23, 2018:

Provisions have no real-world impact

The House adopted amendments on a two-bill spending package last week purporting to redirect sums ranging from $100,000 to study the impact of a mineral found to cause cracking in concrete home foundations, to $36 million for “public safety and justice facility construction” at the Bureau of Indian Affairs.

There’s just one catch: the provisions simply give the illusion of moving money around — with no real-world impact on agency funding priorities. The net financial impact of all 14 such amendments considered during debate on the $58.7 billion Interior-Environment and Financial Services measure — out of 87 total floor amendments on the bill — was precisely zero.

The standard language of this type of provision goes like this: “Page X, line X, after the dollar amount, insert “(reduced by $X)(increased by $X).” There’s nothing binding on the agency in question to spend the money a certain way. While ineffectual in practice, such amendments can hold symbolic value: they allow sponsors to tout their influence on the spending process, including in official descriptions circulated in advance of the vote and in floor speeches and news releases.

View the complete article here.