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Republicans consistently campaign on being pro-life but their legislation contradicts that claim. After the recent budget proposal and failed health care bill, the Republicans officially can no longer claim to be pro-life. The GOP, being led by their highly incompetent and dangerous President, are slashing programs that people quite literally rely on. The painful irony is the number of Trump voters who would be dramatically and negatively affected if the GOP would have passed TrumpCare.

Paul Ryan was recently quoted saying that hes been dreaming about taking away Medicaid since his kegger days. No kidding, the Speaker of the House, third in line for the presidency, said that while drinking beer, he dreamed about taking away health care from millions of people who rely upon it. Who goes to parties and enjoys thinking about people suffering from preventable and treatable illnesses; plots against children, the poor, disabled and the elderly while partying as a young adult?

I work in the mental health field and I can tell you without hesitation that many of my clients need Medicaid and Social Security benefits to live, to afford housing, life-saving medications, food and other necessities. A typical monthly social security check is $735, which is often still not enough for most folks to survive. They need added support from food stamps, rental subsidies and Medicaid. If resources go unfunded, this assistance will disappear and people with mental illness will suffer greatly. It is significantly more economical to help support people to live safely and successfully in the community than it is to respond to hospitalizations and emergencies.

Another example of pro-life hypocrisy in the GOP is how they actually care for our veterans. Trumps hiring freeze executive order directly affects veterans and delays filling thousands of essential positions at the Veterans Administration (VA), further delaying care and services to veterans. Last week, a Republican congressman proposed redefining SNAP requirements, which would negatively affect veterans. The current administration proposed getting rid of the VA completely, using a voucher program to turn it over to the private sector. Since when did a for-profit company look out for anything but the bottom line and shareholder profits? The very people who gave so much to our country are dying in the streets, homeless on a cold winter night, or sadly committing suicide because they couldnt get the treatment for their PTSD that they desperately needed. This is unacceptable. This is not pro-life.

Another proposal that made headlines within the last month was the White Houses suggestion to get rid of the free and reduced food programs in our public schools. One spokesperson denied that there is a supporting relationship between hungry kids and their performance in school. Anyone who has ever been hungry knows this is not true and shouldnt even be an argument. According to statistics, over half of Waynesboro's kids are eligible for free or reduced meals at school. Would anyone reading this be fine with taking away food from our communitys children? I surely hope not.

Being pro-life is more than just being against abortion. To truly be pro-life would be providing care to those who need it, regardless of ability to pay. Being pro-life means having empathy and understanding for folks in whatever situation they are in and providing support to ease the suffering of those struggling. Being truly pro-life means providing resources to help eliminate the need for abortions, like providing family planning services and education.

It is shocking that Republicans, like our very own Congressman Bob Goodlatte, get re-elected year after year. They continue to enjoy top notch health care, salary and other benefits like special interest money from wealthy donors. Dont we deserve better? Dont we deserve what our elected officials give themselves? After all Id bet that most of us work harder than most of our currently elected officials.

We should all celebrate the recent failure of TrumpCare and applaud everyone who called their representative to make sure this disaster didnt become law. We have an election this November for governor and all members of the House of Delegates. Please think about volunteering for a voter registration drive or helping get people to the polls on voting day. Increasing voter turnout is the best way to increase the volume of our voices. We must vote for folks who will not only represent us in Washington and Richmond but who will fight for bills that benefit us, not politicians like Bob Goodlatte and their wealthy backers.

Jennifer Lewis is vice chair of the Waynesboro Democratic Committee. She lives in Waynesboro.

Excerpt from:
Opinion: Republicans can't claim to be pro-life - The Daily Progress

House Republicans and the financial services industry want the Department of Labor to delay for even longer the Obama administration's rule on conflicts of interest in retirement investment advice.

In a letter submitted to the agency just ahead of the deadline for comments, House Education and the Workforce Committee Chairwoman Virginia Foxx and other Republicans on the panel told the acting secretary that the "department should not establish an arbitrary applicability date for a regulation that should be rescinded or significantly revised."

The rule, which would reshape the retirement investment industry, has been delayed to go into effect on June 9, thanks to an early executive order from President Trump. The "fiduciary rule," as it is known, would require that all advisers and brokers working with tax-privileged accounts, such as IRAs, act in their clients' best interests. Previously, the Obama White House calculated that savers lose out on $17 billion annually because advisers steer some of them into inappropriate high-fee financial products for which the advisers get kickbacks.

But Republicans warned that allowing the rule to go into effect in June would undermine the reason for the delay in the first place, which was to allow the department to report on whether the rule could lead to a loss of financial advice, cause disruption in the industry or increase litigation.

The agency is in no position to wrap up the analysis before June, and Trump's nominee for labor secretary, Alexander Acosta, has not been confirmed.

House Republicans called for the delay to be extended until the department was ready to revise the rule or rescind parts of it.

Meanwhile, the industry faulted the agency for not initially delaying the rule for longer. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce called for the rule as a whole to be delayed further and warned that the "rush to compliance is hurting the very workers and retirees the department ostensibly sought to protect."

Other industry groups called for the rule to be scrapped entirely. "Based on market experience thus far and our analysis of the data, it is clear that the [Labor Department] will have to either rescind or revise the rule to comply with the president's directive," said Brian Reid, chief economist for the Investment Company Institute.

Advocates of the rule have worried that the delay is the Trump administration's attempt to kill the rule.

For their part, advocates have tried to pressure the administration by keeping a running count of how much investors are losing because they lack protection from unscrupulous advisers. According to the "ripoff" counter, savers are out nearly $3.5 million because the rule was delayed from April.

More:
Republicans, industry want Obama investment conflicts-of-interest rule delayed further - Washington Examiner

Huffington Post

Republicans brace for results of Georgia special congressional election News & Observer Voters in a suburban Atlanta congressional district will decide Tuesday whether Democratic candidate Jon Ossoff will win outright a special election for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives, in a district the Republican Party has held since 1979. Republicans Prepare To Lose On A Government Funding BillHuffington Post These Georgia Republicans are voting for a Democrat for CongressThinkProgress Jon Ossoff has Republicans sweating. Help him make them cry.Daily Kos National Review -Washington Times -Los Angeles Times -Salon all 402 news articles »

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Republicans brace for results of Georgia special congressional election - News & Observer

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)

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes speaks to reporters at the Capitol on March 24. J. Scott Applewhite / AP, file

His assessment was shared by a senior Republican aide who had been briefed on the matter but declined to speak on the record.

The finding by lawmakers of both parties was first reported by CNN.

When the New York Times asked Trump on April 5 if Rice broke the law, Trump said, "Do I think? Yes, I think."

"I think it's going to be the biggest story," Trump added. "It's such an important story for our country and the world."

Related:

Sebastian Gorka, a Trump national security adviser, was asked by Sean Hannity on Fox News how the unmasking issue compared to Watergate.

"Losing 14 minutes of audiotape in comparison to this is a little spat in the sandbox in the kindergarten," Gorka replied.

But current and former U.S. intelligence officials have said that any unmasking request by Rice would have been made to the NSA director or the FBI director, who would have the final say. Both men are still in their jobs under President Trump.

Current and former officials say it is routine, and not inappropriate, for the national security adviser to request the identities of Americans mentioned in intelligence reports.

Related:

"Let's say there was a conversation between two foreigners about a conversation they were having with an American, who was proposing to sell to them high-tech bomb making equipment," Rice said April 4 on MSNBC's Andrea Mitchell Reports. "Now, if that came to me as National Security Advisor, it would matter enormously. Is this some kook sitting in his living room communicating via the internet, offering to sell something he doesn't have? Or is it a serious person or company or entity with the ability to provide that technology perhaps to an adversary? That would be an example of a case where knowing who the U.S. person was, was necessary to assess the information."

See the rest here:
Susan Rice Did Nothing Wrong, Say Both Dems and Republicans - NBCNews.com