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The Republican effort to repeal and replace ObamaCare is plagiarism.

Remember those kids in high school who would always ask to copy your homework? I was not exactly a distinguished student before I dropped out, but I did get As in all the classes I wasn't failing. My response to these requests was invariably the same: "Sure, but just be sure to change a few things so that Mr. Young doesn't notice." That's what the GOP effort to repeal and replace ObamaCare has become. At some unspoken level, Republicans realize that the Affordable Care Act is an A paper. Now they just have to find some wrong answers to add.

I like to think of our esteemed bicameral legislature as a typical American high school. It has its nerds (Paul Ryan), its jocks (surely you can imagine Chuck Schumer snapping somebody's waistband), its insufferably earnest class presidents (Ben Sasse), its shorts-wearing stoner bros (Rand "Aqua Buddha" Paul), its class clowns (does anyone doubt that Louis Gohmert is an expert in fart noises?), that weird girl who wears wolf sweaters and has horses and always kills it doing Shania Twain karaoke at the annual talent show (Claire McCaskill).

A lot of worksheet copying takes place in Washington. Republicans want to find a more or less workable middle ground between single-payer health care and the absolute free market for medical services that we are never going back to even Ted Cruz only wants to raise funds off the insinuation that we could eliminate the welfare state altogether. Unfortunately, the Affordable Care Act did exactly that, which is why after seven years Republicans have been unable to come up with anything substantially different. Paul Krugman is right when he says that the GOP's response when asked what they want to accomplish with the American Health Care Act have basically amounted to "Er. Ah. Um.'" But that's not because their last-minute secret revisions to their replacement package represent some sinister plot. They are clumsy, random, and painfully desperate.

The Republicans are stupid, not deliberately cruel. Embracing single payer, the obvious and straightforward solution that long ago presented itself to our hockey-loving, beer-chugging, hunting and fishing neighbors to the north, is unacceptable to their fire-breathing geriatric constituents, who simultaneously loathe government and don't want to see anything happen to Medicare. In front of them is a plan devised by the Heritage Foundation in the '90s that is messy but not ipso facto unacceptable. The only problem is that it was passed by a guy with a D behind his name.

Time to get out the eraser. Going line by line through what we know of the AHCA reminds me of the occasional glances I would get at what became of my impeccably phrased responses to such questions as "What was the significance of the Montgomery Bus Boycott?" and requests to "Name five policies associated with post-bellum Radical Republicans."

"Should we have an individual mandate enforced by a tax penalty in order to prevent free-riders and maintain the size and scope of risk pools?" Yes err, no, we should let insurers charge a fee when people let coverage lapse.

"Should the federal government give the states money to fund the expansion of Medicaid, which has done far more to ensure that people don't fall through the cracks than the messy system of exchanges ever will?" Well, hmm, yes, but, well, no what's a phrase we've heard before? "Block grants." Yes, those.

"What about a tax credit based on income?" Ugh, let's scrap it and replace it with one based on what's a thing? Age? Yeah, age. That'll look like we're trying.

"Is the so-called Cadillac tax on actually good employer-provided insurance bad?" Yes, at least it is through 2025: We just won't collect the revenues. Oh, and let's be sure to get a few things deliberately wrong: health savings accounts, so far from being useless for poor people, are, uhhh, good and useful. Okay, time to hand in the paper.

The AHCA is not an actual health-care plan. It is a lazy student's cop-out, a truth so blinkeringly obvious that no amount of sloppy pencil work will conceal it. It certainly would not have fooled Mr. Young, a very indulgent and obliging man. This is not true of the party's libertarian right wing, which loathes the new bill as much as the rest of us do.

ObamaCare will never be truly replaced because it is already the replacement Republicans want they just can't admit it without getting an F.

Read more:
The Republican health-care plan is just bad plagiarism - The Week Magazine

ACBS News poll out Tuesday shows President Trump with his lowest approval rating since taking office, mostly because of a drop in Republican support.

The poll shows Mr. Trump with a 36 percent approval rating overall, with an 11-point drop among Republicans since April. At the 100-day mark, 83 percent of Republicans approved of Mr. Trumps job in office, compared with 72 percent in the latest poll.

Less than half of Americans, however, believe that the Russians interfered to help get Mr. Trump elected. Only 44 percent of Americans believe the Russians interfered to help Mr. Trump, while 31 percent do not believe Russia interfered in the election at all.

Half of Americans say criticism of Mr. Trump doesnt change their opinion of him at all, but 71 percent say Mr. Trump has received more criticism than past presidents.

A random sample of 1,117 adults were interviewed by telephone June 15-18 on behalf of CBS News by SSRS of Media, the network said.

See the original post here:
Steep drop among Republican support for Trump, poll shows - Washington Times

Republicans on the House Budget Committee are talking about increasing defense spending beyond President Trumps proposed $54 billion boost, which has led to an impasse between defense hawks and deficit hawks.

The fight has forced the committee to postpone the rollout of its 2018 budget resolution, a key element in moving Trumps legislative agenda forward.

The House GOP may have the opportunity to settle on a strategy when it meets for its weekly policy discussion this Wednesday, a meeting that will focus on budget and appropriations.

In his budget proposal, Trump cut $54 billion from from nondefense discretionary spending to pay for the new defense spending.

Defense hawks such as Sen. John McCainJohn McCainOvernight Cybersecurity: Armed Services panel looks to tighten cyber oversight | Election hack hearing Wednesday | Dem wants answers on contractor security McCain: No American has seen healthcare bill, but I'm sure Russia has McCain threatens to block Trump's deputy Defense nominee MORE (R-Ariz.) and House Armed Services Committee Chairman Mac Thornberry (R-Texas) want to go further. They have called for $640 billion in defense spending.

Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.), a House Budget Committee member close to GOP leadership, thinks theres a good chance the number will be bigger than Trump's request.

I think the defense number could easily be more, because we have a lot of folks that think we could go further, he said.

Members of the conservative House Freedom Caucus, however, bristle at the idea of spending an additional $37 billion on defense and potential increases to non-defense spending without finding additional cuts elsewhere.

Conservatives are willing to entertain the idea of voting for higher spending levels on discretionary spending if we can get the right kind of reconciliation instructions, said Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), a Freedom Caucus member.

The reconciliation instructions in question would mandate that congressional committees achieve certain spending cuts, a vehicle to push for deeper reforms.

Those reforms, Jordan said, would be enough of an achievementto persuade Freedom Caucus members to swallow increases on both defense and nondefense discretionary spending, even if they increase the deficit in the short run.

"Either that, or leadership can do what theyve done the last six years, which is wait until Sept. 30 at 11:59 p.m. and negotiate a bad deal, he said.

During his campaign, Trump promised not to allow cuts to Medicare or Social Security, entitlement programs that congressional Republicans see as major sources of potential savings.Tax hikes would violate a pledge signed by almost every House Republican not to create new taxes.

The remaining sources of spending, welfare programs such as Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, commonly known as food stamps, and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, were already slashed in Trumps proposal, making more savings painful and difficult to find.

The Budget Committee had set its sights on unveiling the resolution this week, but may now delay it until next week or even after the Fourth of July recess, which could gum up the tight legislative agenda.

Without a budget resolution in place, appropriators cannot go about the business of doling out spending authority to the government. Congress must pass its spending bills by the end of September if they want to avoid a government shutdown.

Alternatively, Congress could pass a continuing resolution to keep the government funded at 2017 levels, but that would preclude any defense increases, as well as spending authority for Trumps other priorities, such as building a border wall.

On top of all that, without a budget resolution conferenced between the House and Senate, Republicans will not be able to put in place a special procedure that circumvents the Senate filibuster, which they will need in order to pass tax reform.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) slammed her Republicans colleagues for failing to produce a budget resolution

Almost five months into the Trump administration, House Republicans still havent met their most basic responsibility to pass a budget, Pelosi said.

The House GOP is now months behind the statutory budget deadline, deeply divided but unwilling to abandon their budget giveaways to the richest few."

Updated at 7:32 p.m.

Read more from the original source:
GOP defense spending battle delays Republican budget - The Hill

Some senators, John McCain most prominently, have been traveling around the world to try to undo some of the damage from President Trumps undiplomatic statements and to reassure allies from Australia to Germany that the U.S. still stands with them. Senators have just voted unanimously to affirm Americas commitment to NATOs Article 5 mutual defense provisionsomething that Trump has been reluctant to enunciate. And by a vote of 97-2, the Senate voted last week to ratchet up sanctions on Russia.

The Russia bill is particularly significant. Not only does it increase sanctions on Russias energy sector and imposes sanctions on any entity or individual doing business with Russias intelligence or defense agencies, it also prevents the president from using his executive authority to lift existing sanctions on Russia. Congress would have to approve any move to relax pressure on Moscow.

This is a very unusual rebuke for a president. Congress normally designs sanctions legislation with lots of wiggle room for the executive. Little wonder that Secretary of State Rex Tillerson signaled that the administration does not support the bill as written; he is pressing the House to water down the measure to restore more of the presidents discretion. It will be interesting to see how Speaker Paul Ryan and the House leadership react to these entreaties; senators of both parties were unswayed.

And little wonder, given that Trump has shown no interest in punishing the Russians for their election-interference. Indeed, he has shown no interest in even uncovering their machinations. With the passage of the Russia sanctions bill, the Senate has delivered a resounding and bipartisan vote of no confidence in the presidents Russia policy, such as it is.

The question is how much further the assertion of Congressional authority might go. There is a precedent here, namely the 1970s and early 1980s, when Congress reacted to the perceived abuses of the imperial presidency under Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon by passing, as a 1987 Commentary article noted, the War Powers Resolution (1973), the Hughes-Ryan Amendment to the Foreign Assistance Act (1974), the Clark Amendment to the International Security Assistance and Arms Export Control Act (1976), the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (1978), and, of course, the five Boland Amendments to a variety of Defense Appropriation and Intelligence Authorization Acts (1982-5). All of this legislation was designed to circumscribe the presidents discretion in foreign affairsto make impossible another Vietnam War or another Watergate.

An early test case of whether there is a new attempt underway to limit the presidencys powers will come when Congress must reauthorize Section 702 of the FISA Amendments Act. Section 702 grants the National Security Agency expansive authority for warrantless surveillance of foreign communications which pass through U.S.-based data networks.

Civil liberties advocates, who already curtailed the Patriot Act in 2015, are pushing to limit the NSAs ability to gather without a warrant information on Americans who are in contact with foreign targets. The nations law enforcement and intelligence agencies oppose any change; they believe the authorities are needed to keep track of terrorist plots. But the privacy advocates may have gotten an unlikely assist from President Trump, who has leveled unfounded charges that the Obama administration illegally wiretapped him. There is, in fact, zero evidence that the Obama administration politicized surveillance, but the mere accusation, repeated often enough, may lead Trump and libertarian Republicans to join with liberal Democrats to curtail NSA surveillance authorities anyway.

Of course, there are sharp limits on how far this trend to rein in the chief executive is likely to go. The president still retains vast inherent power as commander-in-chief to use military force without a declaration of war. And on some of the issues where Trump is likely to do the most damagefor example, by killing free-trade agreements and imposing trade barriersall too many members of Congress share his protectionist instincts. So dont expect Congress to resurrect the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which Trump exited in January.

But its still quite possible that Trumps presidency will lead, inadvertently, to lasting limitations on the presidencys powers. Whether you think this is good or bad depends on how important you believe expansive executive authority to be. Normally, both Republicans and Democrats dislike executive authority only when wielded by a president of the other party. Hence Republicans, who only recently were decrying Obamas executive orders as a blow to liberty, are now applauding Trumps executive orders as a bulwark of liberty. But if, like Alexander Hamilton, you believe that Energy in the Executive is a leading character in the definition of good government, then you have cause to be concerned about the long-term impact of Trumps presidency.

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The Republican Breaking Point - Commentary Magazine

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. - The chairman of the Republican Party of Arkansas took Capitol View host Jessi Turnure on a tour of the party's new headquarters, which is currently under renovation.

The party moved into its homestead on 6th Street right down the road from the state capitol in 1996, when Gov. AsaHutchinson served as chairman.

The renovated complex, the Rockefeller Republican Center, will include a brand new building in his honor, the Gov.Asa Hutchinson Historium. The facility merges two buildings built in the late 40sthat currently serve has the RPAheadquarters.

Chairman Doyle Webb said the historium will include busts of state elected officials, multimedia galleries and a custom-made light fixture symbolic of Arkansas history, including 75 stars for its 75 counties and a diamond for the state flag.

The current administrative office building, soon to be the Gov. MikeHuckabeeExecutive Wing, sits on the left of the historium with the reception hall, John PaulHammerschmidt Hall, on the right.

A new outdoor patio and kitchen, Diversity Plaza, is located behind the complex.

Webb said the RPA will move into its new headquarters in late summer and dedicate the facility Sept. 17, which is the230th anniversary of the signing of the U.S. Constitution.

You can see the full tour in the embedded video above.

Capitol View airs Sunday mornings at 8:30 on KARK.

Original post:
Web Extra: Tour of New Republican Party Headquarters - KARK