Their giving up so easily communicates more than they know.
We are dealing with a corrupt #uniparty. Electing Trump was only the beginning of the war on these hypocrites.
I’m starting to wonder if the whole “repeal & replace” thing was just kabuki theater. Campaign hard on “repeal & replace”, and then shrug and say “well, we tried, please don’t blame us!”. Typical GOP(e).
Oh, and Trump now has work to do to convince me he’s not part of the problem.
When did “repeal” become “repeal and replace?”
They never have wanted to actually do it.
They just want to get you to believe they will so you will vote for them.
Lying liars. All of them.
It does smack a little of President B.J. Clinton’s lip-biting lament about how hard he worked for a tax cut in the first few days of his presidency.
I think its time for conservatives to start new massive uprising like the TeaParty or OWS. Remind Trump and the rest why we voted for them and what’s expected...
Probably not.
In his brilliant opinion piece today over at Townhall.com (well worth your time to read), Kurt Schlicter notes that Congress is sheduled to work only 8 days in April!
There is no way, no way, to fix health care in this nation until at least 60% of the population can face reality.
We want all people to be taken care of.
Great.
Who’s going to do that?
Who’s going to pay for that?
Because if the money for doing that isn’t just sitting around somewhere, then we are going to have to institute slavery to force people to do it.
Sorry.
That’s the truth of it.
Maybe we can all smoke some weed and not face reality.
That will help.
No--Trump getting elected royally screwed up their kabuki performance.
Yes that’s it, no they never intended to repeal it in the first place, yes you all got played for the last 7 years. Really folks, why is it suddenly news to you that the time you should trust a politician the least is when he’s saying things you want to hear?
Trump is doing his thing. Going to roll back Obama energy regulations tomorrow. Keystone pipeline approved last week. Plenty of jobs coming back into the country.
The republicans have almost 2 years to come back and try again, before the mid-term elections.
time to move on to something else. Ryan can’t lead, the Freedom Caucus is run by NeverTrumpers. We are going to end up with socialized medicine because we can’t work together.
Avoid the tragedy of clickbait posted by blogbot Sean Anthony. Full article here.
After seven years of telling us they would repeal and replace ObamaCare at the first opportunity, the Republican House worked on it all of 63 days before apparently deciding it could not do so - despite a Republican majority in the Senate (however small) and a Republican president prepared to sign the bill.
Did they ever intend to do this in the first place?
Paul Ryan declared at his press conference of defeat that the GOP will now move on to the rest of its agenda, and that ObamaCare “will be the law of the land for the forseeable future.”
President Trump declared that it’s time to focus on tax reform.
Wait. Wait. ******* wait.
That’s it? That’s the end? Barely two months after Trump’s inauguration, because they fell a handful of votes short of passing a bill in the House, the Republicans are simply giving up on repealing and replacing ObamaCare? The one thing above all else that defined the GOP agenda since 2010? The one thing they kept telling us - correctly - needed to be done to prevent a total collapse not only insurance markets but also of the federal fisc?
There’s now no point in trying any more to get rid of it because 63 days passed without success?
The way you deal with a setback like this is to regroup, start over, pull the relevant parties together and figure out how to approach it differently so you can actually get it done this time. Do that, ultimately get it right, and it really won’t matter what happened on Friday.
But if that’s about to happen, we’ve seen no indication of it since Friday’s failure. Ryan made a few vague statements that could be interpreted to mean the effort isn’t finished. But he certainly didn’t say or do anything determined, defiant or resolved. There was nothing to the effect of: Let there be no doubt. ObamaCare will be repealed and replaced. We didn’t get it done today but this is too essential to the nation and we simply must do it. So we’ll regroup, get it right and get it done.
Why not? Because it’s too hard? Because Republican caucus members are scared and don’t want to? Because of the polls?
When Democrats first crafted ObamaCare, it took all of 2009 and part of 2010 to get it passed. They worked through a myriad of legislative challenges. They overcame the loss of their filibuster-proof Senate majority. They defied bad poll numbers. They sucked up the likely political price of passing such a bill in an election year. Why? Because they wanted it that badly and they were not going to be stopped.
This is not a statement of admiration. What they did was awful for the country. But you have to grudgingly hand it to them for refusing to take no for an answer, and for being relentless in getting it done.
The best we can get from Republicans is 63 days of trying and failing? And that’s it? We’re stuck with ObamaCare forever? Even though they’ll have the White House, the House and the Senate for a minimum of 22 more months? It’s just over and that’s it?
And where is President Trump in this? Is this not really a priority for him? Why isn’t he telling Congress to get back to work and get this right? You can talk all you want about how other parts of the agenda need attention, but Congress has many committees who work on many issues, and is supposed to be able to walk and chew gum at the same time. Does Trump not really care about getting rid of ObamaCare after he’s told us again and again that it’s a disaster?
Trump and Ryan were less at fault for Friday’s failure than the impossible-to-satisfy House Freedom Caucus, who claim to be for less government but in the end protect big government by blocking anything that moves in the direction of smaller government, but doesn’t go all the way - whatever that would even look like. But Trump and Ryan were the ones who seemed so determined to do this quick, do it now, and left no option whatsoever for stepping back, putting more work into it and getting it right. We could still do that. But neither the president nor the Speaker is calling for it.
There is no reason the 115th Congress should not still repeal and replace ObamaCare. There’s lot of time to regroup and get it right. If they’re willing to give up this easily, then they were never really committed to it in the first place. And that goes for both Trump and Ryan. The House Freedom Caucus was the biggest problem here because every time one of their demands was met, they simply moved the goalposts and made new demands. It looks to me like they would rather keep big government in place and complain about it then actually chip away at it and be responsible for what that looks like.
But the responsibility of presidents and House Speakers is to work through such challenges and make good things happen. If Trump and Ryan are going to give up now because it’s harder than they expected, then there’s no reason to think this country can ever solve any challenging problem. Our leaders don’t want to. It’s too hard.