Posted on 03/23/2017 2:28:23 PM PDT by Kenny
I was reading an article on how Paul Ryan is schooling President Trump on politics. My first reaction is always to defend the president, but as I read it, I realized it's true. Paul Ryan's behind the wheel; President Trump's in the passenger seat.
Proof that Ryan's in the driver's seat is his health care bill. Paul Ryan has managed to get the president on board for a bill that is essentially Hillarycare. During the campaign, Trump promised to repeal Obamacare; Hillary wanted to keep it and fix the bad parts. Well, hello!
How did we get here? How did the most powerful man in the world, a genius, a man devoted to the American people, get conned into working on Hillary's plan and worse, promoting it as his own?
President Trump went to Washington an outsider – no knowledge of congressional process, no time to learn. To compensate, he surrounded himself with "experienced politicians" to guide him through the legislative maze. That was his first mistake.
His second mistake was to embrace said establishment, to accept them into his inner circle. Paul Ryan, Mitch McConnell, and others in leadership are part of the GOP establishment (GOPe) that worked to defeat Donald Trump in the election. These people reviled Trump, insulted him, spent millions to defeat him. These are Republicans who risked a Hillary Clinton presidency to keep Trump out of the White House.
Turns out they needn't have worried. President Trump appears to think he needs them more than they need him. Sensing weakness, the establishment leverage their role in passing legislation to destroy the president's agenda from within. And if the president questions their approach, they warn that he'll never see his precious tax reform if he doesn't let them butcher the Obamacare repeal first.
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
And I respect the Freedom Caucus, dont’ get me wrong. It’s just that NOW they’re acting like conservatives and what goes into this bill is really important - but when it came to re-annointing Ryan (instead of, for example, one of the Freedom Caucus members) as Speakers, they sat on their hands.
This is only Round #1 and the contestants are in their corners, but there will be a vote tomorrow or in a day or two, so now we will see the art of the deal. Everyone seems to think this will reflect badly on Trump but it’s Ryans bill, and if I were Trump I’d be saying, “well Paul, it’s your bill, what are YOU going to change to get it passed?”. It’s his legacy that’s on the line, and his big dreams of passing monumental legislation to change the tax code for the first time in decades and all the rest depends on his ability to do his job as Speaker.
You are correct on your Round 1 assessment.
And this is only Phase I with Phase II and III to follow. And then this mess is moved to the Senate.
I think Trump is using brilliant strategy here. If I took him at his word, I’d be furious. But he is a master of the deal and what he’s saying now is not always his intended end game.
But one thing’s he said is absolutely true.
“Maybe it’ll take till some time into next year, but we are certainly going to be in the process,” Trump said in the interview. “I would like to say by the end of the year, at least the rudiments, but we should have something within the year and the following year.”
Round 1? Yeah. With 100 more rounds to go.
I’ll stand corrected, but I’ve heard recently that the “buy across state lines” is actually controlled by the states.
Trump is lazy and he has very little fundamental ideals--he never had to give a rat's ass about health care before in his life. He knows a couple of good things about the issue, but for whatever reason, trusts Rinse/Repeatus and that widow's peaked monkey boy POS enough to let them do whatever they want to do. And this is what we get.
Wait and see. I cannot imagine Trump to be that dim or to defer to another operator. I am waiting to see what sort of trap door gets spring under Ryan’s feet. If the hair pullers are right about Trump, then we are all toast.
Ryan is trying to pull off his own coup, which most of the Republicans in Congress are happy with. They all know and knew what he is and almost all voted for him to be the Speaker. Trump is aware of all this and I can’t believe he is ready to turn the government over to wannabe Prime Minister Ryan.
This is the single most insane thing I have ever read on this website.
If you were 1/10000000th as 'lazy' as Trump, you would be a billionare.
Most of these “improvements” reduce the funding for oobamacare and will make it more onerous as premiums have to skyrocket into space. If the strategy were to be allowing the system to crash so that it can be finally abandoned, that might work but it leaves Trump’s name on it if he signs it. It becomes his baby and when it fails the failure is all his. Somehow, I can’t see Trump augering himself into this particular hole. He is just not that dimwitted, no?
And if you add the word ‘intellectually’ to your comment, I still stand by mine.
You can only HOPE to be 1/1000000000th as ‘intellectually lazy’ as Donald Trump.
Companies that have businesses in several states can buy the same group coverage for all their branches from the state that has the best deal.
Individuals currently must buy from a domestic carrier.
Wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute...
How many employees did Trump have around the US and the world? He didn't have a group, or groups of health coverage for them?
Let’s examine things:
1) The Mike Pence can ignore the Parliamentarian theory seems to have fallen off the radar, as it should. It’s just an attempt to kill the Filibuster, which conservatives properly support. So it’s pretty much dismissed now.
2) The 2 speech rule as a way to avoid 60 votes. Nope. Total failure. Each senator can offer amendments to a bill and each amendment is a debateable item and thus can get 2 speeches from every Dem. And if you try to limit amendments, you face points of order, which can’t be limited and all are debateable items. So you can’t avoid 60 votes with the 2 speech rule. The only way to shut off debate is with cloture.
3) Cross your arms petulantly and refuse to do anything at all (with your lousy 12% of the GOP seats). Just don’t govern. Do nothing — on presumption Obamacare is going to die by itself. Wrong. Stupid. Obamacare is in place. Its funding mechanism is in the budget. You want to defund it? Get 60 votes. Or accept Reconciliation, which will turn out exactly as the present text. Or fund nothing at all and let your parents Soc Sec checks not appear. Oh, you want to exclude those? No problem. Get 60 votes.
4) Let’s kill the filibuster because the Dems had to contort to use Reconciliation and pass without 60, but you, with your EVEN SMALLER majority think you’re superior and should not have to. You discover there is no magic way to do it outside Reconciliation and you gotta have 60. But you don’t WANT that. So you want to kill the filibuster. That’s a Senate rules change. Good luck getting even 50.
And so, I don’t think there’s anything left, is there? You pass nothing, you get fully funded Obamacare for as far as the eye can see.
You pass something, pretty much anything, it looks like progress.
Mulvaney to GOP: if Trump doesn't get vote on healthcare, will move on to other priorities which by default means Obamacare stays in place— Alex Moe (@AlexNBCNews) March 23, 2017
Not sure this is good for conservatives if they hang it on Freedom Caucus.
I do not expect him to--and I hope does not--concern himself with the all of the different levels of health care of the 1000s of employees he had around the globe.
If he was "involved" in his health care plans, he was given an "executive summary" report of the entire operation, with graphs and charts and numbers to give an overall view of the situation. I can guarantee he--nor any CEO of a company as large as his--did not know what health care provider employee #44867 Tom Dinkleson (groundskeeper assistant) has at the Trump property in Oregon. He does however, know the obvious--breaking down barriers between states and reforming the legal bullcrap are two of the simplest and best ways of reforming healthcare. But that is the extent. And to be honest, I am not sure he knew that before the debates! And The razamatazzesssss of the world can not expect him to read the 2000 page bill or even keep interest in it after 50 pages. Trump is letting Reinhold and Monkeyboi and the turtle run this thing, and I don't know why. He should have invited Rand Paul and Ted (waiting for the LYIN' TED! a-holes to chime in any moment now) Cruz to help keep the RINO bastards in check. Trump knows Cruz was the best of the others, and to have him on his side would be of great help to his cause.
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