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Folks in Washington need a civics lesson. As Americans outside the beltway know, our federal government consists of the executive, legislative branch and judicial branches, and each has a duty to use its Constitutional authority in the best interests of all of us.

The executive branch that would be President Trump - has been working hard to keep the promises he made to the American people. But the legislative branch is not doing its part. The effort to repeal and replace ObamaCare, a promise not only Trump made to voters, but one virtually every Republican lawmaker signed on to, has been contentious, unorganized and disjointed.

And now, it is in jeopardy.

For seven long years, the GOP ran on repealing and replacing ObamaCare. They said, "Give us the House." They got that in 2010. They said, "Give us the House and the Senate." They got that in 2014. Then they said, "Give us the House, the Senate and the presidency." On Nov. 8, they got that wish, and frankly, in spite of many Republicans not even supporting the nominee of their party.

In a perfect world, the work on repealing and replacement of ObamaCare would have begun on Nov. 9. And in a perfect world, the GOP would have built consensus among the different factions within the GOP -- meaning the moderates, the conservatives, the Freedom Caucus, the Study Group -- before ever unveiling the bill. That, too, never happened.

Instead, in the two weeks leading up to the release of this bill, House members were saying they were dissatisfied with the legislative process. They were being left in the dark, they had concerns that the bill would not work for their constituents. And, by the way, they never got to see it. So once the American Health Care Act was really revealed, infighting and a public civil war ensued.

The bill was quickly labeled "RyanCare" after its champion, House Speaker Paul Ryan. Others called it "ObamaCare lite." President Trump didn't write this legislation, yet he was tasked with bringing together all the GOP factions and special interests to strike a deal. Respected groups and think tanks like the Heritage Foundation, the Club for Growth, FreedomWorks, Cato, Americans for Prosperity, and frankly, every major conservative radio talk show host in the country and the American people, were all confused, angered and frustrated.

House Republicans the legislative branch were clearly ill-prepared for this moment to lead. They have now failed the president, and it's starting to look like they're the gang that can't shoot straight. President Trump was not served well by his party in the House of Representatives, and he has been put in the position now to do their job and marshal the votes to pass the bill.

My advice tonight for Ryan and the House Republicans is to do what they should have done from the beginning. Get everyone in a room, take away their phones, order pizza, get some beer and lock the doors. The meeting should include moderates, the GOP Study Group, the Freedom Caucus, members of the U.S. Senate, because we have to deal with the reconciliation and procedural issues. The White House should be represented, including the vice president, the Health and Human Services secretary.

And the meeting is not over until they have a deal a majority of the House can support. Even at this hour, there's still time.

House members, it is time to serve your president and the people you represent. It's time for you to fix this and show the American people that they did the right thing by giving you the power and the authority to lead.

Adapted from Sean Hannitys monologue on Hannity, March 24, 2017

Sean Hannity currently serves as host of FOX News Channel's (FNC) Hannity (weekdays 10-11PM/ET). He joined the network in 1996 and is based in New York. Click here for more information on Sean Hannity.

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Sean Hannity: House Republicans leave Trump with heavy ...

Republicans withdrew the American Health Care Act moments before a scheduled vote on March 24, after failing to woo enough lawmakers to support it. Here are the key turning points in their fight to pass the bill. (Jenny Starrs/The Washington Post)

Why were Republicans rushing to vote on a health-care plan that they'd barely finished drafting, that budget scorekeepers hadn't had a chance to fully evaluate, and that, insofar as people did know about it, was widely despised?

In part, it's because their plan was so unpopularand because it got more unpopular the more people learnedabout it.But it's also because only by rushingto reshape a full sixth of the American economy without knowing exactly how they would be reshaping it would Republicans be able to use health care to pave the way for the rest of their agenda, including tax reform.In other words, the GOPdidn't want to let a detail like tens of millions of people losing theirhealth insurance get in the way of two tax cuts for the rich.

Here's what we knewabout the Republican plan. The latest version that the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office had a chance to analyze would have, over the course of 10 years, cut taxes by$1 trillion, disproportionately benefiting the rich; cut Medicaid spending by $839 billion, exclusively harming the poor and sick; and cut the Affordable Care Act's health insurance subsidies by about $300 billion, mostly hurting older people of modest means. Add it all up, and the CBO estimated that 24 million people would have lost their health insurance as a result. Not only that, but premiums would have increased 15 percent to 20 percent more than they otherwise would have in the next four years before so many older people were priced out of the market that premiums would have started to come down, and deductibles, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation, would have been an average of $1,550 higher. In short: The GOP would have made insurance more affordable for younger people by making it unaffordable for older people and worse for everyone.

This wasn't just a matter of higher premiums and higher deductibles, though. Trumpcare also would have repealed the essential health benefits that plans are required to cover now. States would have been allowed to write their own rules, so, depending on where you lived, insurance companies might have been able to sell you insurance that didn't coverhospitalizations, prescription drugs, maternity care, mental health care and preventive care, and also imposedannual and lifetime limits on your benefits. People who couldn't afford insurance that actually, you know, insured them might have bought these skimpy plans with their skimpy tax credits why not use them on a fake something instead of a real nothing? but neither the CBO nor they themselves likely would have thought of this as being covered.

The surprising thing, then, isn't that as few as 17 percent of people approved of the American Health Care Act. It's that as many as 17 percent did.

But there's a reason the GOP was pushing a bill that would have taken everything people don't like about the health-care system and made it worse. That's the fact that it would have allowed them to pass two permanent tax cuts for the rich. Anyone, you see, can pass a tax cut that expires after 10 years. But if you want to make it last and you don't have 60 votes in the Senate then you need to find a way to pay for it (or at least look like you did). Taking health insurance away from poor and sick people would have done just that for the Obamacare taxes, which primarily hit people in the top 1 or 2 percent. Indeed, as you can see below in the chart from the Urban Institute, the combination of tax cuts for the rich and benefit cuts for the poor that was the GOP health-care plan would have been areverse Robin Hood that redistributed income from people making $50,000 or less to mostlythose making $200,000 or more.

Now, the crazy thing is that this first tax cut for the rich (in the form of Obamacarerepeal and replace) would have made a secondone (this one coming in the form of tax reform) look more affordable.

That's because, due to parliamentary rules, tax revisions can't lose any revenue outside the 10-year budget window if it's going to be permanent. The question, though, is lose revenue compared to what. If Republicans had repealed the Affordable Care Act's $1 trillion worth of taxes before they revised taxes, that's $1 trillion less they'd have to come up with to make it look like money wasn't being lost. Now, without those phantom savings, tax restructuring, Speaker of the House Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.)admitted, willbe more difficult. Not that it was ever going to be easy. After all, the $1 trillion they were trying to save witha border adjustment tax seems to be on political life support, since every major retailer, including big GOP donors such as Walmart, is opposed to it. And, as you might have guessed, there aren't an extra $2 trillion of savings lying around for them to replace the ones they thought they were going to get from this and repealing the Affordable Care Act.

Which is to say that Republicans will either have to scale back their ambitions for how deeply they will cut taxes or how long they will. Whatever they choose, though, the top tax rate isn't going to stay under 30 percent.

And for the GOP, that's the real tragedy of 24 million people keeping their health insurance.

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Why Republicans were in such a hurry on health care - Washington Post

American Action Network ran ads Friday like this one thanking California's David Valadao, and others, for repealing Obamacare.

Some basketball viewers on Friday night were subjected to television commercials that were guilty of peddling some alternative facts.

That's because in some markets with conservative-leaning districts, commercials aired praising some Republican House members for their efforts in repealing the Affordable Care Act, commonly called Obamacare.

The problem of course is that repeal effort, which many thought would be a slam dunk, was abandoned because the House Republicans didn't have enough support from within their own ranks.

In the generic ads, the American Action Network, a conservative-leaning advocacy group, urged viewers to call their member of Congress to thank them for keeping their "promise and replacing the Affordable Care Act with a better health care you deserve."

According to the sports and culture website Deadspin, at least four of these ads ran Friday thanking Reps. Barbara Comstock (R-VA), Will Hurd (R-TX), David Valadao (R-CA), David Young (R-IA).

As of Saturday, another eight ads were still on the American Action Network's YouTube page praising Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA), Darrell Issa (R-CA), Rod Blum (R-IA), Gred Walden (R-OR), Don Bacon (R-NE), Kevin Brady (R-TX), Mike Coffman (R-CO) and Carlos Curbelo (R-FL).

The premature ad buy was supposed to coincide with the long-awaited victory lap Washington Republicans campaigned on that once they controlled both houses of Congress and the White House, Obamacare would be tossed out.

Instead, in the midst of March Madness yet another upset took place. This one took place in the halls of Congress, when Speaker Ryan told reporters Friday:

"I don't know what else to say other than Obamacare is the law of the land. It's going to remain the law of the land."

As NPR has reported, Speaker Ryan called the defeat a "learning experience."

President Trump and House Republicans are now expected to turn their attention to another difficult overhaul taxes.

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Oops... PAC Runs TV Ads Thanking Some Republicans For Repealing Obamacare - NPR

MassLive.com

Who Stopped the Republican Health Bill? New York Times President Trump met with them in the days before the scheduled vote in an effort to sway them. Republican leaders finally acquiesced late Thursday to one of their demands and amended the bill to weaken the requirement that health insurers provide a ... Republicans' failure on health care bill also hurts prospects for Trump's tax reformMassLive.com Steve Bannon Thought He Could Bully Republicans On Health Care. He Couldn't.Huffington Post Republicans Admit Defeat On Health Care Bill: 'Obamacare Is The Law Of The Land'NPR AOL -Washington Post -CNBC all 5,032 news articles »

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Who Stopped the Republican Health Bill? - New York Times

Social Security, which is arguably America's most important social program for seniors, is on the precipice of being in deep trouble.

The program is currently bringing in more in revenue than it's paying out in benefits each year. However, by 2020, according to the Social Security Board of Trustees' 2016 report, the program will begin divvying out more money to beneficiaries than it's bringing in each year. Based on the Trustees' estimates, the program's more than $2.8 trillion in spare cash will be exhausted by 2034.

Image source: Getty Images.

If there is a silver lining here, it's that Social Security isn't going bankrupt, and it will be there to provide benefits for many future generations of retirees. Social Security is predominantly funded by the payroll tax, so as long as Americans keep working and keep paying FICA taxes based on their earned income, Social Security will always be generating revenue.

What isn't clear, though, is just how much retired workers in the future can expect from Social Security come retirement. As of the January 2017 snapshot from the Social Security Administration, the average retired worker was bringing home $1,363 each month. But if Congress is unable to figure out a way to fix Social Security's imminent slide, benefit cuts of up to 21% may be needed on an across-the-board basis to sustain it through 2090. This would, in 2017 dollars, put the average retired worker right on the cusp of the poverty rate. For millions of seniors and future retirees, that outlook is unacceptable.

Ironically, the holdup in Washington has nothing to do with how to fix Social Security. There have been well over a dozen different proposals to fix America's ailing social program. Perhaps the biggest issue is that Republicans and Democrats both (rightly) believe that their plans will work and help bridge Social Security's more than $11 trillion budgetary shortfall, and neither side has backed down.

With Republicans currently possessing a majority in both houses of Congress, and budget director Mick Mulvaney no stranger to calling for reforms of Social Security, there's a genuine possibility that Republicans may choose to tackle Social Security reform during the Trump presidency.

What might a Republican reform of Social Security entail? Based on their history of Social Security proposals, one or more of the following four solutions would be likely.

Image source: Getty Images.

Unquestionably, the most likely solution to be proposed by Republicans in Congress is to raise the full retirement age.

Your full retirement age is the point at which the Social Security Administration (SSA) deems you eligible to receive 100% of your Social Security benefits. You can locate your full retirement age, which is based on your birth year, by using this handy table from the SSA. If you claim Social Security between age 62 (the earliest age you can do so) and the month prior to your full retirement age, you'll receive a permanent reduction in your monthly payout. If you wait until after hitting your full retirement age, your benefit will increase. On average, your benefit increases by 8% for each year that you wait to file.

The current full retirement age is slated to hit 67 by 2022 for persons born in 1960 and later. If Republican lawmakers get their way, the full retirement age might increase to 68, 69, or even 70. It's important to note that this wouldn't impact current retirees at all. However, it would mean that future generations of retirees may have to wait longer to collect 100% of their benefit. Either that, or they'd have to be willing to accept a steeper reduction in benefits.

The idea behind raising the full retirement age is that it would account for lengthening life expectancies, as well as encourage healthier seniors to remain in the labor force, thus encouraging them to save more and generating additional payroll tax revenue for the Social Security program.

Image source: Getty Images.

Another popular Social Security solution is to change how annual cost-of-living adjustments (COLA) are calculated. Social Security's COLA is the "raise" that beneficiaries get on a near-annual basis.

Currently, Social Security's COLA is tied to the Consumer Price Index for Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers (CPI-W). The average reading from the third quarter of the previous year serves as the baseline measure of a predetermined cost for a basket of goods and services, while the average reading in the third quarter of the current year serves as the comparison. If prices for this basket of goods and services rises, then Social Security recipients get a commensurate raise, rounded to the nearest 0.1%.

Republicans often want to abandon the CPI-W, implying that it doesn't accurately reflect the costs that seniors are facing. Instead, they'd like to see the Chained CPI used in its place.

The Chained CPI is set up in much the same way (i.e., measuring the change in price for a predetermined basket of goods and services), but with one pretty sizable difference. The Chained CPI takes substitution into account. In other words, if the price of a certain good or service becomes very high, the Chained CPI assumes the consumer will trade down to something more affordable. Thus, the Chained CPI grows at a slower pace than the CPI-W, providing smaller annual increases in pay to seniors.

Image source: Getty Images.

Republicans, including President Donald Trump, have also favored the idea of means-testing individuals prior to paying Social Security benefits.

The concept behind means-testing is pretty simple: reduce or halt Social Security benefit payouts to retired workers who have more than enough income or assets to live comfortably. During his campaign, Trump opined that he would forgo his own Social Security benefits during retirement, and that other wealthy Americans should do the same.

What might means-testing entail? Unfortunately few lawmakers have ever put their nose to the grindstone and come up with a specific dollar denomination, but as an example, individuals earning more than $80,000 or $100,000 per year in retirement might see their benefits reduced or halted altogether.

By itself, means-testing won't bridge Social Security's budgetary shortfall. However, when used in combination with other fixes it could narrow the gap.

Image source: Getty Images.

Though it's the longest shot of them all, a partial privatization of Social Security can't be entirely ignored given that Donald Trump, Mike Pence, and a few notable members of his cabinet have, at one time, all supported the idea.

Privatizing a portion of Social Security means setting aside a percentage of an individual's payroll tax contributions toward the program into a separate account. This account would be managed by the individual and invested how he or she sees fit.

Why privatize? Right now, Social Security's more than $2.8 trillion in spare cash is entirely invested in special issue bonds and, to a lesser extent, certificates of indebtedness. Because the Federal Reserve has kept lending rates low for a long period of time, the rate of return on newly issued bonds has been between 1.375% and 3% -- not very appealing. Privatizing a portion of Social Security allows people the opportunity to seek out higher-yielding (but riskier) investments. It would also partially reduce the role of the federal government for retirees, which Republicans on Capitol Hill would probably like.

Assuming Republican lawmakers do try to tackle Social Security reform, which is far from a guarantee, privatization isn't very likely. On the other hand, raise the retirement age, means-testing, and tying COLA to the Chained CPI all seem quite probable.

The good news for senior and future retirees is that Social Security reform is off the table for the 2018 budget. However, budget director Mulvaney has made it clear that changes could be suggested in 2019 and beyond.

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4 Changes Republicans Could Make to Social Security - Motley Fool