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  1. #11
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    Default Re: Mitch vs The Donald

    Quote Originally Posted by Stavros View Post
    But Broncofan, the Republicans have had seven years to prepare an alternative health care policy, and had there been a working relationship with the White House the two could have sat down early on in the Presidency to go through it and produce a version bth would support, the only difficulty being objections from Democrats depending on how far the new Bill departed from the old. The key here has always been the relationships in Congress and the relationship between Congress and the President.
    I agree with your analysis about their lack of organization and coordination but what if they were organized? Part of the objection to Obamacare was visceral and part was based on Ryan's free market agenda. If the objection is visceral that's not going to easily translate into policy and if you want free markets in healthcare, you really are providing lower quality healthcare to reduce burdens on healthier people. It's just becoming too difficult to hide and the cost is human life, which is easier to trace than economic effects.

    For sure part of the problem is that Trump and Ryan were not entirely on the same page. When Trump said one version of the bill was "mean", Ryan could have asked him what then are its demerits. I don't know what they could have wanted that would not be anathema to the free-marketers but not also inhumane. The problem they always had was that the objections of many to Obamacare were never grounded in logic, and it was not such an easy area for them to just undo the changes enacted by Obamacare, since the damage would be obvious.

    A big mistake they made imo was not dealing with tax reform first. Most people don't understand the tax code, it is difficult to trace the effects of tax policy, and they are probably not going to be divided on tax policy either. I hope I'm wrong but I think they're going to be more successful when it comes to taxes.


    Last edited by broncofan; 08-11-2017 at 04:56 AM.

  2. #12
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    Default Re: Mitch vs The Donald

    Quote Originally Posted by filghy2 View Post
    The problem is that it is logically impossible to do what they claimed they were going to do, which is to maintain or even improve health insurance coverage for those who need it while spending less and allowing healthy people to opt out. I suspect the true position of the Republican leadership is that economic losers should not get health insurance because that reduces their incentive to become winners, as well as requiring the winners to pay more tax. But obviously they know that's not going to be a popular argument.

    Trump's role in this has been clueless (who knew health policy was complicated?), but I doubt he could have made much difference given the inherent contradictions. The joke is that he doesn't realize what a bullet he's dodged. Even the most deluded Trump supporters would probably wake up to reality when they lost their health insurance. A smarter person would be happy to let it go and move on to something else.
    That puts the health care policy dilemma in its perspective, I fully agree with you. In particular the part where the person who led the campaign has failed but blames everyone else for the failure, and as Broncofan put it above, most of the 'policy' was just revenge anyway and not a properly thought-through policy initiative.



  3. #13
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    Default Re: Mitch vs The Donald

    Quote Originally Posted by broncofan View Post
    For sure part of the problem is that Trump and Ryan were not entirely on the same page. When Trump said one version of the bill was "mean", Ryan could have asked him what then are its demerits. I don't know what they could have wanted that would not be anathema to the free-marketers but not also inhumane. The problem they always had was that the objections of many to Obamacare were never grounded in logic, and it was not such an easy area for them to just undo the changes enacted by Obamacare, since the damage would be obvious.
    A big mistake they made imo was not dealing with tax reform first. Most people don't understand the tax code, it is difficult to trace the effects of tax policy, and they are probably not going to be divided on tax policy either. I hope I'm wrong but I think they're going to be more successful when it comes to taxes.
    Being 'on the same page' is clearly not a desirable position because it suits the President's brand to appear to be opposed to Congress and indeed, his own team, to convince his most loyal supporters that he is struggling on his own to Make America Great Again while all around him people are trying to stop him.
    He promises war with North Korea, John Kelly and Rex Tillerson say the US is pursuing diplomatic initiatives -all that matters to the President is that his supporters see and hear him standing up for the USA with tough guy talk that they understand and approve of. It doesn't matter if nothing happens, what did happen is that their President pressed the button, the words came out, his supporters cheered. He could even invent a successful missile strike on North Korea and his supporters would believe it happened, and be glad that 'finally' and unlike Obama, a President got off his ass and did something. After all, he made claims about the raid i Yemen which in fact was badly prepared and produced zero intelligence. They cheered him in the Senate for these lies.

    I am not sure about tax reform. The problem for this President is that he has bragged about his detailed knowledge of the tax code, but has yet to prove it by producing a simplified version of it. The accumulation of a complex set of rules and compliance issues over many years means that while it might be possible to do the headline stuff such as lowering corporation tax and eliminating tax for low earners, the primary aim for someone like him and his supporters would be to eliminate taxes on a whole range of items, but this would reduce the amount of money the Treasury needs to pay down and manage the debt. Crucially, the farce over health care suggests that with complex legislation, the President, lacking the intellectual skills, will not be able to produce a coherent document that Congress can deal with, or that they will produce something he doesn't approve of or understand. Who knew tax law could be so complicated?

    The irony of his claims about voter fraud and the Republican campaigns at voter suppression, is that if low paid people no longer have to pay tax on their earnings, why should they have the vote? No taxation =no representation. Since the poor are mostly Democrats, problem solved. Just as Vladimir Putin helped to solve the problem of the costs to taxpayers of funding all those members of the Diplomatic Corps in Russia, by expelling them -given that the President

    has thanked President Vladimir Putin for expelling nearly 800 American diplomats from Russia because it allows the US to "cut down our payroll".

    http://www.independent.co.uk/news/wo...-a7887361.html

    I assume then that these Americans have not just been expelled from Russia, but also fired? Or could it be that they are still on the payroll? But why worry about facts these days?



  4. #14
    filghy2 Silver Poster
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    Default Re: Mitch vs The Donald

    Past experience suggests that tax reform is almost as hard as health care - even the much-vaunted 1986 Reagan tax reform only got through on the third attempt. https://www.vox.com/policy-and-polit...eal-tax-reform While Republicans might all agree that tax cuts are a good thing the tricky issue is always how to pay for them. If the cost is not fully offset then they can't be passed through Budget Reconciliation and the legislative hurdle is higher.



  5. #15
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    Default Re: Mitch vs The Donald

    mike pence is having a good giggle at his website. join him.



    http://www.officialmikepence.com/


    Last edited by bluesoul; 08-12-2017 at 12:39 AM.

  6. #16
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    Default Re: Mitch vs The Donald

    Quote Originally Posted by filghy2 View Post
    Past experience suggests that tax reform is almost as hard as health care - even the much-vaunted 1986 Reagan tax reform only got through on the third attempt. https://www.vox.com/policy-and-polit...eal-tax-reform While Republicans might all agree that tax cuts are a good thing the tricky issue is always how to pay for them. If the cost is not fully offset then they can't be passed through Budget Reconciliation and the legislative hurdle is higher.
    I was supposed to reply to this here but it ended up in the Thought for the Day thread, but here it is anyway

    I agree, and one example of complex taxation that will probably be immune from reform, is provided by the real estate taxes that are far more generous to the owners of Casinos than to home owners, and are the tax breaks that reside in terms like 'depreciation', 'net operating loss', Chapter 11 Bankruptcy declarations -all of which and more, explain how someone can invest other people's money in casinos, lose nearly a billion $$ in a year, and walk away without any liabilities. A good perspective here from the NYT
    https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/...ns-losses.html



  7. #17
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    Default Re: Mitch vs The Donald

    Click image for larger version. 

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    and we're right back on course with the b.s. that is donald trump vs mitch and this still stems from his anger that mcconnell couldn't repeal and replace obamacare and mitch's refusal to protect him from investigations from russian interference.

    weird. i wonder why he keeps bringing this up (besides of course incompetence)

    http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-s...-scandal-probe



  8. #18
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    Default Re: Mitch vs The Donald

    Looks like the grudge match is turning into a civil war...

    https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/...itch-mcconnell



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