#trippingthetrumpfantastic | #WhatTheyVotedFor
“Usually, even the laziest of partisans aren’t quite so ridiculous when dealing with the legislative branch’s oversight role over the executive branch.”
Something goes here about striking decay. And something unfortunate about how that sounds about right. No, really: In what universe?
“The new Paul Ryan tax cuts make the Bush tax cuts look like socialism.”
Steve Benen frames the issue well enough:
House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) has largely pulled off an impressive public-relations gambit in recent years. The Republican leader has recast himself as an anti-poverty crusader, without making any meaningful changes to his far-right agenda, simply by using the word “poverty” a whole lot.
But it’s occasionally worthwhile to look past the rhetoric and focus on the hard data ....
.... Ryan’s tax plan is crafted in such a way as to give 99.6% of the benefits to the wealthiest of the wealthy by 2025. The other 0.4% would be divided up across the other 99% of us.
This is a feature, not a bug, of the House Speaker’s approach to economic policy. Ryan genuinely believes that massive tax breaks for those at the very top will spur economic growth that would, in time, benefit everyone. For the Wisconsin congressman, trickle-down policy, its track record notwithstanding, remains the most responsible course to broad national prosperity.
Earlier today, Emmarie Huetteman of The New York Times posted this tidbit:
House Republicans are not off to a strong start, Speaker John A. Boehner acknowledged on Tuesday.
Asked about the 11th-hour withdrawal of bills related to abortion and, most recently, border security — both of which were initially considered easy lifts for the emboldened Republican majority before intraparty divisions emerged — Mr. Boehner attributed it to attempts to fast-track the legislation without committee consideration to work out the disagreements.
“There have been a couple of stumbles,” he said.
To the one, we might expect such (cough!) “stumbles” from, say, new leadership. For instance, in the Senate, where new Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has much leadership practice, but not in governance or legislating, but doing everything he can to duck those obligations.
Oh. Right.
Still, though, it is not as if pulling bills because he does not actually know the whip count is anything new for Speaker Boehner; he’s done it twice before.
Then again, he’s got nothing on McConnell, who once filibustered his own bill.
Do be certain, please, to thank the next Republican you encounter for causing this.
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Huetteman, Emmarie. “Republicans Are Stumbling Out of the Gate, Boehner Admits”. The New York Times. 27 January 2015.
This Is 