Showing posts with label tax reform. Show all posts
Showing posts with label tax reform. Show all posts

Tuesday, March 26, 2019

End of the Mueller probe: opportunity and danger for Democrats


A version of this was published in the Sky Hi News on line 3 26 19

https://www.skyhinews.com/news/opinion-muftic-end-of-the-mueller-probe-an-opportunity-and-danger-for-democrats/
Special Counsel Robert Mueller and Attorney General  Bill  Barr took the wind out of the sails of Democrats this weekend when he released a summary of Mueller's findings.  Impeachment  because  of  Donald Trump's  collusion/conspiracy with the Russian government was taken  off the table  The  slogan that the "deep state  was out to get Trump" was laid to rest since Mueller's findings got Trump mostly off the hook, though it has been made clear throughout this ordeal that a sitting president would  not be indicted  due to Department of Justice rules.
Given the long number of indictments of Russians interfering in the 2016 election and the indictments and guilty pleas by close campaign and administration associates, even Trump's constant drumbeat that the Mueller probe was just a witch hunt is now an empty slogan.  The Mueller probe caught plenty of witches in their net, but the top witch escaped.  What is left is for the release of the full report so that the American public and Congress can see how Barr came to his conclusions, particularly regarding the obstruction of justice judgment call. Barr was already on the record for supporting a controversial legal theory that presidents could not be prosecuted for obstruction of justice.  He was in no way an impartial arbiter of Mueller's findings.  Unlike similar prior special counsel reports in the Nixon and Clinton cases, Barr made his own call instead of letting Congress do it first, giving Trump a propaganda advantage and an immediate reason for an "I am not a crook" victory tour.

The end of the Mueller probe presents both a danger and an opportunity for Democrats.  It can free Democrats to switch focus from impeachment to pocketbook issues, in particular, health care and unfair distribution of tax cut benefits.   The reason that Democrats flipped the House in 2018 was not so much about the Mueller probe but it was about disgust with Trump's character flaws,  health care and other public policy concerns that impacted middle-class pocketbooks, particularly those of suburban women.

Trump has just set his own trap by announcing support of a court case that would kill Obamacare.  He has stacked the Supreme Court making this total repeal likely to succeed. If the suit is successful it would completely repeal  Obamacare's protection of coverage of 50 million people with pre-existing conditions and eliminate the insurance exchanges for subsidized coverage for 12 million and roll back. expansion of Medicaid for millions more. If the Democrats make a big deal of pursuing the issue of obstruction of justice and impeachment, they may overshadow their best platform plank,  expansion of affordable health care coverage for all, whether it is Medicare for All or some version of making it a public option or allowing consumers to buy into the system.

Trump's strongest pitch for his reelection is the booming economy.  He may regale in the strong economy, but most in the middle class felt no benefits, discovering as they get ready for tax day that over half never felt a significant increase in their take-home pay, got a lower refund than last year, and found that deductions they had counted one were no longer permitted.  Trump, the promiser in chief, conned them.

There are still some unsolved mysteries and concern for the integrity of future election persists, even if they are not on top voter concern lists.  Voters should be more concerned since the future of democracy and our national security are at stake. What we do know  from multiple indictments and guilty pleas coming from the Mueller probe  is that the Russians offered and carried out active measures to help Trump get elected and that Donald Trump's foreign policy supports Russia's designs to expand their control and influence at the expense of the national security interests of the US and our allies. Perhaps sometime in the future, the question will be answered why Trump kissed up to Putin and still supports Putin's foreign policy, but the Barr version of the Mueller report summary shed little light.  In the meantime, we will be puzzled why so many in Trump's near orbit lied about Russian contacts.  We are left to assume Trump's motivation for his pro-Putin policies and attitude were based on sheer self-interest with hopes never dying he would sometime build that Trump tower in Moscow and his loyalty to Putin would be rewarded.


https://www.politico.com/story/2019/03/25/trump-obamacare-justice-department-1236116

https://www.yahoo.com/news/apos-loyalty-apos-apos-orders-101130334.html


https://news.yahoo.com/few-americans-see-savings-trumps-tax-reform-reuters-100851302--business.html?ncid=facebook_yahoonewsf_akfmevaatca

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/trump-administration-pre-existing-conditions-court_n_5c999b91e4b0d42ce360169c





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Sunday, May 20, 2018

Trump: the economic unpopulist demagogue.

From the Cambridge English Dictionary:  “Political ideas and activities that are intended to get the support of ordinary people by giving them what they want.” Trump is a master of  cultural populism and  he is a skilled demagogue. Merriam Webster defines a demagogue as  "a leader who makes use of popular prejudices and false claims and promises in order to gain power". ,

  There are different  kinds of populism: one is  cultural and the other is economic.  Donald Trump is an  economic unpopulist in spite his  promises made in  demagogic tones with false claims.  When it comes to ordinary people living on a budget, pocket book issues  he has failed to deliver some  promised goods and worse, hurt them.They may think the economy is OK now, but they are beginning to understand, instead of improving their lot, wages have not increased much,  the  tax cut promise was mostly hot air,  and health  care costs are  already  the top of voter concerns, registering  in polls above any other major issues.
When it comes to false claims, Trump makes so many of them, the list compiled by Pulitzer Prize winning  Fact Checker, has pages devoted to it at.http://www.politifact.com/personalities/donald-trump/statements/byruling/false/. 

Give Trump credit. He is a  bonafide cultural populist and a demagogue that makes use of popular prejudices.  He certainly has given his heavily  white, male  and evangelical Christian base what they wanted to hear about people of color or “others” or  turning back   policies of  cultural liberals.  Painting unauthorized immigrants in  broad derogatory  brushes with “ Mexicans are rapists and criminals”and  “animals”, “build the wall”,  are  chants guaranteed to get roars from his crowd  and echos  from his one-sided media outlets echoing and unquestioning  his hateful speech.  His evangelical Christian base cheers planned executive orders denying federal funding to clinics referring patients to abortion providers and reducing   women’s  access  and funding  for  affordable STD and cancer screenings,  and contraception.  He has stonewalled any attempt to reduce active shooter carnage to the delight of 2nd amendment absolutists.He is nominating judicial  appointees  that would reduce  women’s  access  to  affordable  safe, legal  abortion services.  

Economic populism is another story.   Most Americans  are  feeling little increase  or  none at all in their take home pay. Some  realize the real winners were the already rich.   The trend to full employment long in the making before he arrived on the scene may be realized, but wage increases are anemic. Threats of increasing some tariffs  to help the rust belt have already backfired on agriculture heartland’s exports, forcing reconsideration. . Economic growth  rate has been behind the record of his predecessors who had  also dealt with major downturns.  
 While Trump claims he "giveth" to the middle class, Trump also "taketh away". Trump’s support of GOP efforts to  repeal and replace Obamacare  with better insurance not only failed ,he  has  succeeded in only  making it  more expensive or near useless . In the name of consumer choice, Trump signed laws that  eliminated  the individual mandate, resulting in leaving the expensive to treat, ill and older people,  paying  into  the insurance pool . Alternative coverage newly permitted  risks financial ruin  with their  high deductibles, and limited or   no benefits to cover maternity, mental health, preexisting conditions, or catastrophic medical bill coverage.. The numbers covered by health insurance decreased by 3.2 million in one year and projections are that eventually 13 million will lose coverage.

   Trump’s department of education has made it more difficult to get  more student loan forgiveness.   The agency charged with handling  complaints about financial services, mortgage lenders, and banks , and acting on their abuses  is being run by a director hostile to its mission of protecting consumers, curtailing public reports and starving it.. The Environmental Protection Agency has become the Environmental Destruction Agency, promoting dirtier air and polluted water,  making it  easier for  mining waste dumping in streams and  rolling back automobile clean air standards. 

  The cultural populists did not ask for this, but this hit to everyone’s pocket books,  less consumer/environmental  protection ,  poorer health  and more expensive insurance,  is what we all get  in return.
_______________________________________________________________________________

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/voters-say-health-care-is-their-top-issue-in-the-2018-election-thats-a-good-sign-for-democrats_us_5ac642e2e4b09d0a119103c4

 https://www.yahoo.com/news/trump-set-sign-bill-easing-post-crisis-bank-215135700

 https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/trumpcare-will-hurt-people-next-year-201655059.html

 In a poll by Politico and Morning Consult, just 25 percent of registered voters said they’d noticed their take-home pay increase as a result of the legislation. Another 51 percent said they hadn’t noticed a pay bump, and another 24 percent said they didn’t know or weren’t sure.
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Tuesday, March 13, 2018

Donald Trump has lowered the bar for future presidential candidates

. A version of this was published in the Sky Hi News March 19-21 2018
https://www.skyhinews.com/news/opinion/muftic-disgusted-donald-trump-has-lowered-the-bar-for-future-presidential-candidates/
Donald Trump has lowered the standards for President of the US to such a degree,  any similar shortcomings of those who run for that office in the future will no longer seem so  important.
Before Watergate and muckraking investigative reporting, the personal sex life  of FDR , Dwight Eisenhower and JFK were not reported publicly until later by historians,  though their indiscretions were hardly secret among those in their closer circles. I live within two miles of Ike’s summer White House and locals  kept rumors to themselves.
I  remember painfully the ignominy  saint- like Jimmy Carter suffered when he admitted he had “lust in his  heart”. The cries of hypocrite ran out in then. How quaint that seems today.  In his memoirs of his early life I read Carter appeared to be a red blooded American young man like any other until he met the love of his life Rosalynn. They have been  married nearly 72 years.


Now running on cable is a story of my  once local Colorado idol, Sen. Gary Hart, a candidate for president who  was caught with a lovely on his lap on a boat named Monkey Business. I was disappointed and angry with him.   He had just deprived the United States of a very bright mind with great political judgment because his reputation of personal judgment  and his candidacy were flushed down the toilet. Ye gads, loyal wife Lee Hart and I had met while carpooling our children to kindergarten.


Ronald Reagan, movie star and America’s first divorced president,  was devoted to Nancy, his second wife .The Bushes, the Fords, and the  Obamas were beyond reproach.


Bill Clinton was another story, but even his dalliance with an intern  that got him impeached appears petty compared with the hijinks of Donald Trump and Stormy, Access Hollywood, and sixteen  witnesses attesting his grabbing habits were not an empty locker room boast. Even salacious unverified parts of the Steele dossier did not make a dent.  Any candidate who follows him will be immunized by comparison from accusations of having more than a wandering eye .
Usually a president represents a person who some young person can aspire to be. Ask yourself. Would you want your child or  grandchild to grow up to be like Donald Trump?


Donald Trump has lowered the bar on more than just  character standards for president. Any GOP candidate who dares use the the argument that such and such a social program cannot be enacted because it would create a deficit will not longer be able to  make that argument stick. Donald Trump in his second year in office has run up the budget deficit , highest since 2009 right after the great recession. He signed the bill into law when the GOP threw an additional  1.7 trillion dollars into the deficit hole with the tax cut to the wealthy. Try making that argument again. The guffaws from the left will drown them out.


It is no wonder in polls conducted by NBC/WSJ in January  that the most frequent words associated with Donald Trump were ’ disgusted” (38%), “scared” ( 24%  ), “angry” (11%), and that was before the Stormy saga.
The puzzle  is that somewhere between 35% to 40% of Americans  forgive him of his trespasses so long as he supports their social and cultural agenda, appoints fellow ideological travelers  to judicial vacancies, and satisfies political contributors. Per U Gov poll March 13, only one half thought Trump's Stormy affair was immoral. I imagine President Trump will weather Stormy, too.

Update: April 26, 2018
Especially forgiving his trespasses are the Evangelicals who have a great sense of their own righteousness. They, too, have lowered the bar for future candidates. https://www.thenation.com/…/why-evangelicals-still-support…/
In taking this stance,any future outrage by Evangelicals at an immoral, unethical, bully Democrat that does not support their agenda will not carry much weight or will not be taken very seriously. Imagine some candidate/l President, like Bill Clinton, who was
basically impeached for immoral behavior, would be attacked in the future for such behavior...the Evangelicals will be exposed as the ultimate hypocrites ..






https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2018/mar/12/trump-notches-worst-deficit-great-recession/?

https://www.yahoo.com/news/only-half-trump-voters-affair-195613225.html
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Saturday, December 30, 2017

Paul Ryan should be feeling good; seniors, those over 50, and the vulnerable should not

A version of this was published in the Sky Hi News, January 3, 2018

 https://www.skyhinews.com/news/muftic-ryan-must-be-feeling-good-not-so-for-seniors-and-the-vulnerab
le/

 .”Paul Ryan, House Majority Leader,  must be feeling good: .His life long quest to become the iimplementor of the Ayn Rand school of political/economic philosophy is half way done with the passage of the tax reduction bill. For his next act he wants is to cut “entitlements”, the social safety net,  Medicare and Medicaid.


The  unpopular tax cut legislation passed and signed by President Trump in December  lopsidedly benefitted the rich and left the middle class with some small change and  with  future generations  paying the interest to bond  holders of  trillion more debt  the “reform” caused. While both houses of Congress are still in the hands of a compliant GOP, Ryan is going to make hay while his sun shines before the 2018 Congressional elections in November, where the House and possibly even the Senate GOP majority is at risk. In so doing, he is  also handing Democrats an issue which will only help them to appeal to usually GOP stalwarts, seniors and about to be seniors.

Ryan’s motivations have been attributed to his  long time love affair with Ayn Rand, a writer of a  1957 seminal book beloved by many a conservative,” Atlas Shrugged.”  Rand, a Russian immigrant, railed against Communist collectivism, and  believed the way for governmental fiscal well-being was based on Paul Ryan is retiring; he will not run again. He was always in pursuit of putting Ayn Rand's philosophy into practice, to prove his ideological hero philosophy worked in practice as well. Rand wrote her books as a response and critique of Russian's form of communism. The old USSR is dead and capitalism won, but capitalism in the US is not even close to Russian communism. It has morphed into a blend of capitalism with one of the most limited social safety nets in the world, but at least it has addressed some of the worst problems the poor and the less abled have faced.

Total laissez faire capitalism has had a result that fed the rich, but not the poor.It was the excesses of the industrial revolution that led to the philosophical rise of communism and the rise of the Soviet communists. Rand then took the extreme opposite tack in her revolt against communism which became the bible of so many of the conservative intellectuals of my early life. Ryan entered Congress with the goal of doing what he could to put Rand into practice via legislation and tax policy. While Catholic Ryan had rejected Rand’s aetheism, he shrugged his shoulders when a 2012 budget he had proposed cut the social safety net to the poor so drastically, the Catholic Bishops wrote …' deficit reduction and fiscal responsibility efforts must protect and not undermine the needs of poor and vulnerable people. (and his budget) ...fails this basic moral test.'” In 2014 he proposed even more dire cuts to the safety net..

However, instead of invoking the Rand philosophy as a reason to cut the safety net and retirees’ benefits, his rationale  now  is that the deficit (he helped enhance) is too  large. On December 6, on a radio talk show he is setting his sights on welfare and seniors and those about to be seniors.  “We're going to have to get back next year at entitlement reform, which is how you tackle the debt and the deficit,.. Frankly, it's the health care entitlements that are the big drivers of our debt, so we spend more time on the health care entitlements “ Already the Children’s Health program has left 9 million kids in jeopardy of losing their insurance because  its renewal is still on the GOP chopping block. The tax reduction legislation he helped engineered could trgger $25 billion from Medicare next year.  Over ten years, thirteen million under retirement age  ($4 million next year) will find health insurance unaffordable.

My conservative friends love Ryan’s approach to cutting welfare. In their mythological world, “ those welfare queens are robbing good American taxpayers and ought to get a job. “ We already had welfare reform in the Bill Clinton era that addressed that “get a job”  issue. .. Who is left getting most of “welfare” now? Kids.   Put them to work ?  Here are some statistics for a reality check: Three-quarters of food stamp recipients are families with children. Of the nutrition programs for the poor (8.7 million recipients), 4.3 million are women with children, 2.2 million with infants. National school lunch programs: 30.5 million kids benefit. “  So what do you want to cut, Speaker Ryan?


http://time.com/5043838/republican-tax-bill-deficit-increase/


https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2017/12/01/gop-eyes-post-tax-cut-changes-to-welfare-medicare-and-social-security/
.”http://fortune.com/2012/05/02/republicans-and-ayn-rand-a-love-hate-affair/  

https://khn.org/morning-breakout/chip-funding-measure-passes-through-committees-but-its-not-smooth-sailing-ahead-for-bill/
https://www.snopes.com/politics/quotes/ryanpoor.asp


A reprint of a 4/12/14 Muftic Forum Blog

WHO SPEAKS FOR THE POOR

When Rep. Paul Ryan first proposed weakening the social safety net in a budget proposal in 20,12    ,the Catholic Bishops called it “immoral”.  That was even before Pope Francis reset priorities of the Catholic Church to care about the poor. Ryan’s newest budget passed by the House this month (and DOA in the Senate), reduces food stamps by $125 billion  and restricts access of the near poor to health care by repealing Obamacare and reducing Medicaid.If his first proposal was immoral, the 2014 version  is beyond immoral. Who is speaking for the poor these days?,

 Not The GOP, many of whom oppose even raising the minimum wage, so low now even full time workers live in poverty. Not Republicans who support laws making  it harder for the poor without affordable  and easy access to drivers’ licenses and birth certificates or convenient voting hours to raise their voices .Not the GOP House members including the GOP Colorado Representatives who voted for Ryan budget this month, that would have  cut  food stamps while cutting  taxes for the rich.

Growing  up in Oklahoma in the 1950’s, I  heard many  rationalize opposing government assistance  by blaming  the poor themselves,  opining African Americans  were lazy or undeserving.. Racist attitudes coloring opposition to  welfare still linger into recent times  per  a study of  many public opinion polls reviewed by Arizona State University.

Pres. Johnson’s  War on Poverty  and civil rights legislation were  the reaction  to the injustice and  fueled by the long hot summer riots of the late 1960’s . America learned that the poor could get attention even if they did not have a political voice. But there were also abuses as some gamed the  new welfare system .

 Reality check: Welfare reform in the 1990’s  put more  to work. Those left receiving  food stamps now, per the US Department of Agriculture, are mostly kids  (47 percent are under age 18)and elderly (8%). . Three-quarters of food stamp recipients are families with children.    
 The charity community is  doing what they can , but sometimes the food bank cupboard is bare..Hunger plagues 1 out of 5 kids who do not know where the next meal is coming from and government through school lunch programs and food stamps make up part of the  difference.  

Many of the states with the largest number of poor have  state houses dominated by the GOP yet whose budgets are the most dependent on federal money for social programs. They have  the greatest need and the least will to provide .Leaving   states to use their own resources with federal block grants masking diminished federal contributions to Medicaid, as Ryan’s budget does, would  further divide this country  between the have  and  have nots..

Even the Democratic Party has  focused priorities  on issues supporting the middle class.
The voice of the poor was further overwhelmed by recent Supreme Court decisions that  gave corporations the same right as individuals to contribute political campaigns (Citizen's United), and a recent decision (McCutcheon v FEC) that made it much easier for the wealthy to  spread their  influence around.

So who is left as the strongest voice for the poor? Some in the  faith community and Pope Francis and God bless them.
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Tuesday, December 19, 2017

Unwrap President Trump's Christmas present and weep

A version of this appeared in the Sky Hi News 12 20 2017
https://www.skyhinews.com/news/muftic-unwrap-trumps-tax-reduction-christmas-present-and-weep/

At last we get the “”giant, beautiful” Christmas present President Donald Trump promised.  Some tears will be for joy and others from dismay. The final version has emerged and as you read this, the President may have  already signed it.
The GOP is celebrating because they finally got one piece of major legislation passed and it brings into reality  many of the denizens of the swamp’s visions of sugar plums dancing in their heads. Everyone  else will be affected differently.   Some financial impacts will happen soon  than later.  
If you are already wealthy, an oil driller  in the Arctic wilderness , or  a real estate oligarch like the Trump family, your tears will be of joy. If you love the reduction in corporate taxes to 21%, do a happy dance. You still got your same corporate tax breaks plus repeal of the AMT tax  on top of it.  If your income is mostly from Wall Street, yahoo. That is where most of those corporate benefits will go because  there is no incentive in the legislation for  job creation or wage increases, or even to expand and build more plants. Corporations are already cash rich and already could have done it if they wanted to.
The dismaying damage to pocket books is done by the legislation’s hit on  health insurance. .Your take home check will look bigger beginning this  February due to increases in individual standard deductions and  in withholding due to  tax  reductions in lower brackets for 2018. On the other hand,  if you are lower middle class, 4 million in 2019 with a total reaching 13 million by 2027  will  not be able to afford or want to afford, or be required to carry health insurance.,.Those losing insurance should  be prepared to face  bankruptcy since they will now be billed for the full cost of services. including check ups,  ER visits, birth control pills. and cancer screenings and  treatments .just like the old days before Obamacare.  If your children's health care was covered by CHIP, dig into your own pockets. The program has not been renewed.  If you are rich or poor,  your health insurance premiums will increase by 10% than otherwise  in the coming years.thanks to the removal of the mandate for individuals to carry insurance.
Political fallout could dim the  GOP’s victory glow in 2018 and 2020.. Polls of public  approval  of the tax bills (Marist, CBS, Quinnipiac,Gallup)   earlier in December ranged from below 30% to 35%, split along party lines., but swing independents were even more negative.  Polls reflected a  perception of unfairness,  that the rich benefit more than the middle class, though most of the middle class with  exceptions in upper brackets  will  get some degree of temporary  tax reductions.The final version tinkered  with some  details,  but did  little  to change the math  facts that the rich and corporations still benefit the most. . In 2025   all of these tax breaks to individuals will go away. Tax reductions to  business and corporations are forever.
There are   many media takes on specific  winners and losers in this legislation. . The opinion  that counts is from the  non- partisan Congressional funded Congressional Budget Office  because  it is  more  often  relied upon  by those shaping  legislation,.   The clearest up to date analysis expressed in plain English  and CBO based   I found  was done by the Associated Press and published on Yahoo News. https://finance.yahoo.com/news/look-winners-losers-under-gop-205042006.html.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/ap-fact-check-trump-considers-125236268.html
http://www.newsweek.com/trump-kill-obamacare-repealing-individual-mandate
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Friday, November 24, 2017

A warning to the politically smug: What goes around can come around


One of the beauties of our still functioning democracy is that the political pendulum can yet swing.  Yes,  democracy is still intact, a bit wounded, though, and some  tactics that worked for the GOP in the Trump era can also be used by Democrats, too, whenever they become a governing majority. Imagine if the shoe were on the other foot, if Democrats took over the House in 2018 and the  Senate and White House in 2020. Trump era attempts to sabotage  affordable health insurance by executive order or tax breaks for the wealthy could be rolled back. Whatever discriminatory executive  orders regarding Muslims and immigrants , or discrimination  against certain groups under the guise of religious freedom, that  survived judicial scrutiny of their constitutionality could also be reversed.
All reversals and new agenda could happen more easily and quickly, too, since the GOP Senate changed rules in 2017 and set precedence for use of parliamentary procedural tricks. If and when  Democrats became the majority, they too could take advantage of them. The GOP Senate has set  in motion ways to pass legislation and approve judicial appointees with  51, instead of 60 votes, avoiding   filibusters and the need for bipartisan compromise ,  permitting a bare party majority to steamroll over the minority, and ensuring the end of moderation.
The pendulum is still able to swing and  some recent elections indicate a possible  backlash against GOP and  Trump excesses in 2018 and 2020. We still are a democracy. We still have an independent media in spite of Trump’s branding any news that is not favorable to him as fake or his wishing  to get the FCC to take CNN’s licenses away or denying their merger or treating Fox News as  the favored one to be taken as the only  truth tellers. We still have an independent judiciary in spite of fast track efforts by GOP to fill federal bench vacancies .What if there are no Supreme Court vacancies to fill until after 2020 and two occur? The Court’s ideological balance could also swing back to the center or left with Democrats in charge. Policies that both benefit little and hurt many in the middle class while making the rich richer could anger voters  as pocket book pain and disappointments  are felt in real  election time pain and disappointment. It is even more possible there would be a backlash benefitting Democrats  if  Special Prosecutor  Robert Mueller actually puts some of Trump’s close associates in jail or finds proof that Trump himself obstructed justice or was compromised by the Russians.  
What could hamper a pendulum swing?  One is foreign interference in elections and another,  ineptitude of the Democratic party. We know now  from Congressional hearings Russians  were running ads and spreading their pro Trump, false news,  cultural divisive  issue support messages to 146 million targeted  and unwitting  Facebook users. What if they try it again in 2018 and 2020?  Will voters be willing dupes or educated enough to discount those attempts or will Congress require disclosure of foreign media and internet posting  and ad sources?

Given the potential of the GOP to  alienate their moderates, Democrats should be able to ride a swinging pendulum. However, Democrats  are  without a positive  message about what they would differently and without a unifying leader, and face a divide and conquer vulnerability with a  potential fight between the moderates and the Bernie Sanders wing.

https://townhall.com/tipsheet/guybenson/2017/10/11/mcdonnell-blue-slips-n2393579

 https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/06/us/politics/neil-gorsuch-supreme-court-senate.html

 https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/10/15/how-budget-reconciliation-broke-congress-215706













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Wednesday, November 8, 2017

Health care a top concern in key elections Nov. 2017.


Nov. 28: Nov. 28, update CBO Score: The new score includes the impact of removing the individual mandate from Obamacare. It verifies that premiums would rise so much, 4 million could not afford health insurance by 2019 and 13 million by end of bill. Also, the middle class cuts go away and hurts them.

https://secondnexus.com/news/report-new-cbo-score-senate-tax-reform-plan/

The CBO report, released Sunday, estimates that lower-income groups would foot a bigger bill from tax cuts than previously expected. In 2019, all income groups under $30,000 would have a bigger burden under the bill, the CBO projected.
In 2027, that would extend to all income groups under $75,000, as individual tax reductions expire.
The change largely stems from the bill effectively getting rid of the Obamacare provision requiring most Americans to have health insurance or p...


Revised Nov 12, 2017


Update Nov.15, 2017: Repeal of individual mandate in Obamacare attached  is to tax reform bill in Senate. How did this end up as a tax issue? Calling the penalty on those who do not have health insurance a tax. A rose is a rose but this one stinks. The budget and deficit implications also fit into the tax reform bill because it would reduce government expenses by $338 billion. Leading advocate and voice  Sen. James
Lankford  (R-OK)on MSNBC today called this penalty  a tax on the poor who could not afford to pay the premiums.  Oklahoma already has one of the  worst uninsured rate in the US.second only to Texas. https://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/visualizations/2017/comm/hi-uninsured-map-4.jpg
Oklahoma refused to expand Medicaid. If they had, 84,000 would would have access to health insurance. 
https://www.kff.org/uninsured/issue-brief/the-coverage-gap-uninsured-poor-adults-in-states-that-do-not-expand-medicaid/
https://www.healthreformvotes.org/congress/412464
CBO score on eliminating the individual mandate would leave 4 million uninsured by 2019, 13 million by 2027 nationwide.  https://www.cbo.gov/publication/53300 and would increase premiums in the individual market by 10% in most years over the next decade .

Those who think GOP's inability to govern is why they lost elections November 7  are barking up the wrong tree. .While cultural and racial issues certainly were factors, , issues were important.. It is not just the GOP has failed to pass legislation, it is the kind of legislation they tried to pass. Voters  are paying attention to issues and how they impact their family finances.

Analyzing various polls, CNBC concluded about the Virginia governor's race ""More than twice as many people said Gillespie's support of Obamacare repeal made it less likely they would vote for him than said his support would make it likely he would win their vote." GOP Candidate  Ed Gillespie lost by 9%.  

The irony of health care being such a factor in key November races is that GOP's attempt to repeal Obamacare gave free advertising of the benefits of Obamacare. Voters who had been suckered in by GOP messages of the evils of Obamacare suddenly realized they almost lost something important to their economic well-being.. Not only did this awakening  figure into the elections, enrollment in Obamacare has surged, breaking records.

  Failure to pass legislation may be frustrating for Trump's core supporters., but the problem was what  harm their legislation would have done to everyone else. It was the GOP's desire to take away Obamacare benefits and health insurance affordability and their opposition to expanding Obamacare's Medicaid in certain states besides Virginia..  In Maine , an initiative to expand Medicaid under Obamacare  to cover more people was overwhelmingly approved..  
What could also be emerging is public realization of the paltry crumbs of tax relief thrown to the middle class in order to give enormous tax relief to the wealthy.  The tax reform issue will have center stage in the coming weeks as it is debated in both houses of Congress  and public awareness will increase. In spite of doubling the standard deduction,  as the bills stand now, 9% of tax filers with income between $48,600 to $86,400 per year will get a tax hike next year.   31% of the middle class will see a tax increase by 2027 while the rich will enjoy their huge tax relief forever. Popular itemized deductions are on the GOP chopping block  from real estate taxes, student loan interest and employer provided tuition reimbursement, state and local income taxes, and high medical bills. 

.This may help point to way to the Democrats finding themselves in 2018. Democrats have been coasting on Trump's unpopularity, but they need a positive message as well.   If Democrats focus on pocket book issues and the   harm GOP legislative initiatives are doing to kitchen table issues, they may be able to find a theme that could flip  Congress blue  in the 2018 midterms.  Pocket book issues are a great unifying theme in these cultural divisive times.  They cross racial, gender, and geographical lines. That is the lesson Democrats should learn from November 7.


https://www.yahoo.com/news/americans-show-support-obamacare-despite-110012524.html

http://www.denverpost.com/2017/11/08/gop-tax-bill-student-loan-interest-deduction/

https://www.cnbc.com/2017/11/08/health-care-played-big-role-in-democratic-win-in-virginia-poll.html

 https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/11/08/562707799/maine-approves-medicaid-expansion-referendums-in-new-york-ohio-fail

https://www.yahoo.com/news/maine-governor-not-expand-medicaid-ignore-voters-175102675.html

https://www.yahoo.com/news/apos-list-historic-victories-democrats-053904771.html

https://www.politico.com/story/2017/11/07/democrats-virginia-new-jersey-election-results-244674

 http://www.cnn.com/2017/07/20/politics/health-care-poll-abandon-repeal-replace/index.html



Preliminary exit poll results: How different groups of Virginians are voting
See how different groups are voting in the Virginia governor’s race between Ralph Northam, Ed Gillespie and Cliff Hyra
WASHINGTONPOST.COM

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