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President Trump is now saying he has to do health-care reform before "phenomenal tax reform," but he's changed course on the order of those priorities before. (Jenny Starrs/The Washington Post)

Having failed at their first big legislative push to repeal the Affordable Care Act, Republicans are now turning their attention to their second priority, the one that was always first in their hearts: tax reform.

But theyre running into some problems there, too: substantive problems, procedural problems and political problems.Heres a reporton the latest from Jonathan Swan:

As full-blown tax reform looks more and more like an unreachable stretch, theres increasing conversation on the Hill about whats being called a candy option all the goodies, with none of the pain.

That would mean lower personal and corporate rates, plus some limited repatriation, funded largely by deficit spending.

To be clear, this is a fallback, not what congressional Republicans would prefer. But its what Ive been predicting. Faced with the complexity of sweeping tax reform and the difficulty of satisfying all the different interest groups and constituencies that have something to gain or lose and will thus be lobbying frenetically on the bill theres a reason Congress does this only once in a generation or so theyll throw in the towel and default to what they can agree on.

And what Republicans can agree on is cutting taxes for the wealthy and corporations.The kinds of reform that are more complex and that some Republicans but not others support, such as a border adjustment tax or the elimination of significant loopholes (each of which has its influential defenders), will just have to be put aside.

But doing that presents a couple of major political problems. The first is that Democrats will shout that Republicans are just bestowing a gift on the wealthy, which is what Democrats always say. They say this because its true, and because its extremely effective.

The second political problem the candy option presents is that its another broken promise likely to dispirit the Republican base. For eight years, Republicans have been saying, Give us power, and well do all kinds of terrific things. Now they have the power, but they failed to deliver on their first promise of ACA repeal, and another high-profile failure on top of that would be devastating.

So on one hand, they have to at least try to do the kind of comprehensive reform they said they would, but on the other hand, the harder they try, the worse it will be if and when it comes crashing down. That prospect has them considering giving up before they even start, which also would make them look weak and ineffectual. Its quite the dilemma.

Republicans also face a procedural problem. According to Senate rules, they can avoid a filibuster (and its 60-vote requirement) of their tax reform bill by passing it through the magical tool of reconciliation, which would require only 50 votes (they have 52 seats in the Senate). The problem is that reconciliation has its own rules, which state that it can be used only for bills that dont increase the deficit beyond 10 years. One way to get around that is to do what Congress did when it passed the George W. Bush tax cuts in 2001 and 2003, which is to make them sunset after 10 years, in the hope that a future Congress will renew them then you can increase the deficit as much as you like. So this is an obstacle Republicans can surmount, but it would end with them not getting their first choice; theyd rather make permanent changes.

Republicans have said that theyll be able to write a tax reform bill that is revenue-neutral, by doing things such as lowering tax rates while simultaneously eliminating loopholes, thereby making the whole thing balance out. Is that theoretically possible? Yes. Are they likely to do that? No. Its just not in their nature. They want to cut taxes, especially on the wealthy. If you make everything balance out, you havent made the kind of progress in that direction that they want to make.

Theres one other matter that has been the subject of some complicated discussion. You may have heard it said that Republicans want to repeal the ACA before doing tax reform, because that would free up a large chunk of money that could then be factored into tax reform, getting them closer to the revenue-neutral score theyd need to make their tax changes permanent through reconciliation.

But according to budget experts Ive spoken to, this is wrong.

The idea is supposed to be that by repealing the ACA and the taxes included in it, Republicans would lower the overall revenue baseline of the entire government, thereby meaning that theyd have to bring in less overall in taxes, which would allow their tax reform to include satisfyingly deeper cuts. The problem is that when it comes to the assessment of a tax reform bill, it will be judged on its own to determine whether it meets the requirements of reconciliation. That bill will include some provisions that raise more revenue (such as eliminating loopholes) and some that cut revenue (such as cutting rates), and the question is whether they balance out. Either they will or they wont. Its the changes to the tax code in that reform bill that matter. If theyre going to eliminate the inheritance tax, say, that will increase the deficit, and whether they lowered the baseline in a previous bill (by, say, eliminating the medical device tax in the ACA) doesnt factor in (you can read more on this here).

Now, once again, Republicans can pass tax reform that increases the deficit via reconciliation if they sunset it after 10 years.Which brings us back to the candy option. Their best alternative may be to just pass some simple upper-end tax cuts with a 10-year sunset and declare victory. Well see how that goes over.

See the article here:
How Republicans have already backed themselves into a corner on tax reform - Washington Post (blog)

Yolo County Republicans will participate in two upcoming celebratory events.

OnSaturday, April 22, theyll be a part of UC Davis 103rd annual Picnic Day Parade. This years theme is Growing Together, which refers to the campus growth alongside thecity of Davis which is turning this 100 this year and the fact that April 22 is Earth Day, focusing on UCDs progress toward sustainability.

For the third year, UCD College Republicans and county residents will in the parade from campus through downtown Davis, carrying signshighlighting Republican Party principles and handing out free American flags to the crowd.

On Saturday, April 29, local GOP representatives will have a booth in the park in downtown Winters to celebrate Youth Day. All are welcome to stop by and win prizes at an American history trivia game for children and adults.

Local Republicans are encouraged to join each event. For information, call 530-219-8681 andleave contact information for a return call.

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Yolo County Republicans join in the fun at Picnic Day, Youth Day - Davis Enterprise

Sandusky Register

GOP leader Jane Timken to address local Republicans Sandusky Register HURON Local Republicans will hear from a top party leader if they show up for the Erie County Republican Party's Lincoln Day dinner in Huron Friday. Jane Timken, the chairman of the Ohio Republican Party, will be guest speaker at the event. Timken ...

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GOP leader Jane Timken to address local Republicans - Sandusky Register

PALATKA, Fla. Inside a government building here, far-right Rep. Ted Yoho (R-Fla.) scolded his partys leaders for rolling out an ill-advised health-care bill and blamed House Speaker Paul D. Ryan for the ensuing debacle.

The next evening on a college campus nestled in the Rocky Mountains, moderate Rep. Mike Coffman (R-Colo.) held the House Freedom Caucus to which Yoho belongs culpable for the legislations defeat.

In both places, Republican voters also pointed fingers at President Trump, Ryan, their members of Congress, or all of them.

Fewer than 100 days after Republicans assumed complete control of Washington, their botched attempt to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act and broader struggles to cooperate have stoked widespread distrust and despair inside the party. The friction is evident at town hall meetings across the country during the current congressional recess.

One lifelong Republican attending Coffmans town hall in Colorado exclaimed that he was shocked by the congressmans support for the health-care bill, which both Trump and Ryan backed. At Yohos event, an attendee pressed the congressman on his role in the Freedom Caucus.

(Jenny Starrs/The Washington Post)

The open warfare threatens the president and the GOP agenda, but is also dampening enthusiasm with Republican voters who can no longer blame Democrats or divided government for the dysfunction.

I think its just tough working with our conference, Coffman said in an interview, referring to the fact that House Republicans find it almost impossible to agree.

The frustration is visible in both purple areas such as Coffmans district, which will factor heavily into the battle for Congress in 2018; and ruby-red regions, such as Yohos seat, which voted strongly for Trump and could be crucial in 2020. It is present in districts represented by members who supported the bill like Coffman, as well as those who opposed it like Yoho.

Bob White, a Republican who attended Yohos town hall here Tuesday, raised a worrisome question for GOP lawmakers on the ballot next year.

If there was another election Id still vote for Ted Yoho, he said in an interview the next day. But a few moments later, White abruptly raised a different possibility:

Or maybe I would just skip over his name.

We yield a pretty big stick

White asked Yoho about his place in the small but powerful group of hard-line conservatives to which he belongs the House Freedom Caucus. The group has been a thorn in the side of House leaders since many of its members were elected in the 2010 tea-party wave, promising to slash their way to smaller government.

How big of a stick do you carry with the Freedom Caucus? Is there any influence there? asked White, 74, who voted for Yoho and Trump.

Yeah, I think we yield a pretty big stick, Yoho boasted, giving his own spin intentionally or not to the often-used phrase about quiet power than includes carry a big stick.

Many in the group refused to support the American Health Care Act (AHCA) crafted by Ryan (R-Wis.) and his leadership lieutenants because it didnt go far enough to repeal the law known as Obamacare and wouldnt, they argued, bring down insurance costs sufficiently.

Yoho, 62, a veterinarian who once mounted an unsuccessful run against John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) for speaker, argued that the Freedom Caucus received disproportionate blame for the bills failure and pointed to resistance from GOP moderates.

White, a retired truck driver and volunteer teacher, said in an interview that he wants Obamacare repealed beyond a shadow of a doubt. But he seemed less sure the Freedom Caucus could make that happen.

The question for me is what clout he had within the Freedom Caucus and did he see any light at the end of the tunnel? he said, adding, Because I dont remember the Freedom Caucus being on the ballot.

In this part of Florida, there was strong support for Trump, who defeated Democrat Hillary Clinton in the district to the south and west of Jacksonville by 16percentage points, post- election analyses show.

After his town hall, Yoho told reporters that it was ultimately Ryans fault that Republicans werent able to repeal the ACA before leaving for the recess. Its a function of leadership, he said, before specifically naming the speaker.

In the audience at the town hall, some Republican voters seemed to blame the speaker too.

Uhhhhh, responded Mark Fisher, 67, who said he voted for Yoho and Trump, when asked whether he thought Ryan was doing a good job. He deferred to his wife, Joanne, 62.

I know hes a good person and everything. ... I dont know, she said.

Yoho was far less critical of Trump than of Ryan, saying he thinks the president was misled on health care by House GOP leaders. But Trump spent weeks pushing the measure, holding photo-ops and meeting with its GOP architects. After the health-care bill collapsed, Trump lashed out against the Freedom Caucus for its failure.

Ryans team does not believe that there is a widespread movement against him among GOP members. Some other members of the Freedom Caucus have not blamed Ryan the way Yoho did.

Thats not who we are here

Coffman, 62, is one of just 23 House Republicans who represent districts won by Clinton in 2016. His suburban Denver seat is a diverse mix of Democrats, Republicans and independents. That demographic split drove Coffman last summer to run an ad promising to stand up to Trump when they disagree.

Many members of the moderate Tuesday Group to which Coffman belongs opposed the House GOP plan. But Coffman said he supported it because every major policy move has to start somewhere. He was quick to blame the Freedom Caucus for the bills failure.

I think the Freedom Caucus was completely unrealistic in terms of their expectations, Coffman said. If youre going to be a legislator, youve got to legislate and compromise is not a pejorative.

Most of the roughly 200 people who showed up at the University of Colorado Anschutz Campus in Aurora on Wednesday were Democrats who angrily demanded that Coffman make good on his pledge to confront Trump.

But they werent alone. Steven Haas, 68, stood up to say he was a lifelong Republican upset that Coffman and his fellow Republicans failed to listen when voters made clear that their plan was unsound.

Im sorry to say I was shocked that you declared your intention to vote for so-called Trumpcare, Haas said. Thats not the way we do things in Colorado. The ACA is the law of the land now.

Haas later said he usually votes for Republicans but doesnt plan to back Coffman next year, because he doesnt trust him to live up to his moderate reputation in the face of Trumps agenda.

When he gets to Washington, he votes 96percent of the time with the far-right wing, Haas said. Thats not who we are here. Republicans like me dont like it.

In Florida, Yoho faced a different kind of anger some people in his district were upset that he didnt back Trump in the health-care fight. Yoho explained that the majority of the calls his office received opposed the measure.

As they have at many GOP town halls this year, Democrats made their presence felt in Florida. Although they disagree with Yoho on most everything, some are pleased that he didnt back the GOP proposal albeit not for the same reasons.

Different ends same result, said Joy Pitts, a local activist with Indivisible, a national organization formed to oppose Trumps agenda.

Got to start somewhere

Colorado opted to expand Medicaid under the ACA while Florida did not. The House bill would have rolled back Medicaid expansion, causing many Democrats and Republicans to worry about those who obtained coverage as a result of it.

Coffman said he has only heard rumors of revived negotiations on the health-care bill but he worried that Ryan and Trump might try to resurrect the legislation by making it more palatable to conservatives.

Coffman is in a tough spot forced to decide between supporting Trumps agenda, much of which appeals to the conservative element of his base, and following through on his own promise to independents, centrist Republicans and Democrats that he would stand up for their needs.

At the town hall, he was steadily attacked by Democrats and independents who wanted to know when hed stand up to Trump.

When I disagree with him, Coffman insisted after an hour of pointed questions. When I disagree with him, I will.

That kind of answer wasnt good enough for people like David Leach, a software engineer and registered Democrat who said he had only supported a Republican once in his life when he voted last year for Coffman.

You position yourself as someone who would vote your conscience and work in a bipartisan manner in Congress, Leach said. I voted for you because I thought you could be a leader in that regard and Im not seeing anything.

Pam Cirbo, a GOP volunteer from Littleton, Colo., said shes generally happy with Trump and is growing tired of people pushing Coffman to resist. Cirbo said she didnt love the GOP health plan but was frustrated that GOP leaders didnt try harder to negotiate a compromise.

Youve got to start somewhere, Cirbo said. Maybe the timeline was a little shorter than it should have been.

Snell reported from Aurora, Colo.

Read more at PowerPost

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Two Republican lawmakers face anger, from their own voters, on health care - Washington Post

Politics, like nature, abhors a vacuum.

So its not a surprise that it took less than a week for two Democrats to declare their intent to run for the U.S. House seat held by Ed Perlmutter once the Democratic congressman made official his own bid for governoron April 9.

Now that theyre in the race, however, the question facing state Sen. Andy Kerr, state Rep. Brittany Pettersen and anyone else who wants to capture Colorados 7th Congressional District is how Perlmutter has managed to dominate the seat for so long.

Is it because of Perlmutters well-known brand of retail politics? Or is it because the seat skews Democratic in terms of its electoral history and voter registration?

The answer will say a lot about whether a Republican has a chance to win in November 2018 and how far to the left Kerr and Pettersen will need to go to win the Democratic primary.

A lot of people say it only became safe because of Ed, said Chris Kennedy, a state lawmaker who ran Perlmutters 2014 campaign. I think thats partially true, but I would also say the district has grown more Democratic.

Over the course of his 10-year congressional career, Perlmutter has held dozens of meetings with constituents at grocery stores in his district; one reason he chose a grocery in Golden in which to announce his run for governor.

Geographically, the 7th District is a suburban seat that sits on the north and west borders of Denver and includes towns such as Thornton, Lakewood and Perlmutters home of Arvada. The median household income is just above the statewide average $62,000 versus $61,000 and its major employers include aerospace companies and the federal government.

Lockheed Martin and Ball Aerospace have nearby facilities, and the Denver Federal Center in Lakewood is home to the offices of more than two dozen agencies, from the General Services Administration to the U.S. Department of the Interior.

The political math leans left, in part a function of its nearby neighbors: the liberal strongholds of Boulder and Denver. Nearly 35 percent of active voters registered as Democrats last November, compared with about 27 percent for Republicans. In keeping with state trends, however, the biggest bloc of voters in the 7th District is independent at more than 37 percent.

The X factor of independents could give a Republican candidate an opening, though the partys nominee would have to buck recent election results. Perlmutter has won by double digits in each of his last three races since the seats boundaries were redrawn, and Hillary Clinton beat Donald Trump in the 7th District last year by 12 percentage points, more than double her statewide victory of 5 percentage points.

Its now a solid Democratic seat, said David Wasserman, a political analyst with the nonpartisan Cook Political Report. He added that Republicans could have more trouble if Trump doesnt improve his approval ratings, which nationally have hovered around 40 percent. Open seats tend to be great pickup opportunities as long as you are not saddled with an unpopular president. But in this case, Republicans are, he said.

In a nod, perhaps, to this dynamic, Kerr and Pettersen have begun their congressional campaigns with a strong message to the Democratic base. Both candidates supported the filibuster for Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch, despite the fact that Colorados Democratic U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet did not.

We need to stand up and fight at every opportunity that we have, Pettersen said in an interview, naming resisting Trump as one of her top priorities. And that means every tactic. I think that Democrats need to see us fight like hell.

Kerr didnt mention Trump by name in his announcement speech, but he framed most of his speech as a rebuttal to the new Republican administration.

I know there are millions of us who are not afraid or confused, who will stand up for our schools and the environment, for our seniors and our jobs millions who believe in the promise of equality and recognize how far we still fall short, he said. We are going to fight.

The two rivals, likewise, are positioning themselves as the heir to Perlmutters legacy.

Pettersen and Kerr support a single-payer health care model and have expressed a willingness to vote for someone other than Nancy Pelosi as the Democratic leader in the U.S. House. Perlmutter likes the idea of a nationalsingle-payer system, and last year backed an upstart challenger to Pelosi.

I think we need to make sure we are listening to new voices, Pettersen said.

I certainly heard from a lot of people this last election that change is needed, Kerr said.

Perlmutter is staying publicly neutral in the race, but Kerr didnt mind touting their close ties, including a nod to Nancy Perlmutter, the congressmans wife, at his rally. Kerr ran Nancy Perlmutters campaign to lead the local teachers union, and both are teachers.

Pettersen is engaged to Ian Silverii, the executive director of ProgressNow Colorado, one of the states most vocal liberal groups:

Other Democrats may still enter the race, including state Sen. Dominick Moreno of Commerce City.

Republicans see hope in this rivalry. Though no major GOP candidate has yet declared for the race, Republican officials in both Colorado and Washington said a bruising Democratic battle could be a boon to the partys chances.

While Democrats are bogged down dragging each other to the left in a wide-open primary, Republicans are energized to flip this vacant seat in a competitive district, said Jack Pandol of the National Republican Congressional Committee. The NRCC is focused on recruiting candidates who are a good fit for the district to put it in play in 2018.

One name that has come up frequently is Libby Szabo, a Jefferson County commissioner. She spoke at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland last year and previously served as the assistant GOP leader in the Colorado House, before expressing frustration and taking an appointment to the county post. Szabo did not return a message seeking comment.

Other possible candidates include two former Perlmutter rivals: Don Ytterberg, the former Jefferson County GOP chairman, and Ryan Frazier, a former Aurora City Council member who came in fifth last year in the Republican primary for U.S. Senate.

Two potential contenders not interested: former state Sen. Mike Kopp and state Rep. Lang Sias, who both live in the district.

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As battle to replace Ed Perlmutter takes shape, Republicans eye ... - The Denver Post