Our hero Mike Johnson is getting ready to vote on a House budget resolution today:
Johnson (R-Louisiana) is set to put a budget resolution up for a floor vote Tuesday, but is facing a potential revolt from swing-district Republicans wary of cuts to social safety net benefits and fiscal hawks who say the bill’s $2 trillion in spending cuts don’t reach far enough into federal coffers.
....The huge, Trump-endorsed legislative package that Republicans — and even some Democrats — have taken to calling the “big, beautiful bill,” is full of contradicting demands that have left some lawmakers uncertain how to proceed.
Keep in mind that, as always, budget numbers are taken over ten years. So they aren't really looking for $2 trillion, they're looking for about $200 billion.
That's still a lot. Domestic spending—which is all they care about since they plan to increase defense spending—amounts to roughly $2.4 trillion per year—which includes both discretionary spending and welfare spending but not Medicare or Social Security. So they're hoping to slash domestic spending by 10% or so.
That's a solid chunk of money, and it's unlikely they'll get anywhere close. It's just too painful for too many people. Hell, nearly half the cuts come from Medicaid alone, and even Donald Trump has said he doesn't want to touch Medicaid.
Rep. Jeff Van Drew (R-New Jersey), formerly a Democrat, said he called Trump on Monday to tell the president to reinforce his pledge not to cut Medicaid. “Don’t touch seniors’ Medicare, and don’t cut Medicaid, because it isn’t just for lazy welfare people. It’s for real people,” Van Drew said. “That’s the new Republican Party, a populist party, a party of working people, a party of blue-collar people.”
Stay tuned for fireworks later today.
"even Donald Trump has said he doesn't want to touch Medicaid."
But we know Trump is a liar.
He has been consistent about it.
It seems he doesn't feel he can bamboozle people about it, and therefore prefer not to touch it.
But he certainly will happily do it if he thinks he doesn't hurt him.
His consistency on this issue does not hold a candle to his consistency of lying.
If Medicaid is to escape serious mutilation, it will have to be because of a few red-state congresspeople.
I know. They can chop Medicaid, but with legislation which exempts states which voted for Trump. They are probably now busily at work trying to find a way to do this.
"His consistency on this issue does not hold a candle to his consistency of lying."
You are not thinking properly.
The fact that he was (and still is) consistent suggests he has a reason to be consistent, so the question is whether this reason changed or not. His honesty or otherwise is irrelevant.
Also, his probable consistency in not really understanding that Medicaid is different from Medicare, and in not really understanding what either are to begin with.
You beat me to it. Of Trump wants to cut Medicaid. Why would he want to help someone not named Donald Trump? He wouldn't, ever.
I suspect that although never mentioned anywhere I've seen that cutting the Medicaid expansion, partly because it's part of the ACA and partly because it is an Obama administration program (both kind of the same thing) and because Trump can spin that easier. Although he has no problem for example lying about what the EU/France has done re Ukraine while sitting next to the French president. Who contradicted him.
"We're not cutting Medicaid going to the people it was supposed to go to. We're cutting the Obamacare part that is wasted by going to undeserving people who make enough money to not have any need for it."
Plus work requirements where keeping up with the (online) paperwork for example when a person works for Walmart with varying hours every week is intentionally difficult. And monitoring all that probably costs the government as much as it saves. The savings are in recipients giving up.
But we know Trump is a liar.
Trump is indeed a liar. But that doesn't mean he's not sincere about this one thing. But his sincerity on this one thing also doesn't mean Medicaid cuts won't happen. It's pretty fucking unlikely Trump's going to veto a bit tax cut bill just because it shafts poor people.
"...don’t cut Medicaid, because it isn’t just for lazy welfare people. It’s for real people.”
So people on welfare aren't "real people"? Got it, Rep. Van Drew.
... or did he mean that LAZY welfare people aren't real people BECAUSE THEY'RE AREN"T ANY!
I think you were right the first time.
"...and don’t cut Medicaid, because it isn’t just for lazy welfare people. It’s for real people," Rep. Jeff Van Drew is a piece of shit. Believe it or not if you're on welfare you're probably on Medicaid as well. And for the record we are all real people dipshit.
“That’s the new Republican Party, a populist party, a party of working people, a party of blue-collar people.”
lol
the people celebrating the richest man in the world doing their dirty work for them to hollow out programs that serve and employ working people are the party of blue collar people eh?
And working overtime to destroy the government so they can give huge tax cuts to billionaires (and incidentally do Vladimir Putin's bidding). Some blue-collar party.
But here in lies the problem and opportunity for Democrats. They need to actually become the party of the people again. And the message moving forward needs to be to destroy the billionaires.
What a bunch of bull shit. They're the party of the working class like Trump is a self made man.
Axios says Johnson is being squeezed (heh) from both sides. The moderates don't want any cuts to Medicaid while far-right folks want to fleece the poor to pay for the full measure of the Convicted Felon Trump Tax Cuts For Rich People Act.
Just let the tax cuts expire. I'm sick and tired of upper middle class folks bitching about the quality of life even while they're enjoying the historically low tax rates.
“That’s the new Republican Party, a populist party, a party of working people, a party of blue-collar people.”
Yeah, when you define people as male, white, straight and bigoted.
Is it possible Johnson & the Republicans never pass a budget and all we get is a series of CRs until the next Congress is elected in two years?
Long ago, Grover Norquist said his aim was to make goverment small enough that it could be dragged to the bath and drowned in the tub.
We're there.
Hmmm, I'd disagree. Government isn't small and weak enough to be drownable by some Norquist-psychopaths--it's actually quite popular and robust in absolute terms! Unfortunately, it's more that his cult of weirdos is increasingly willing to use illegal and hugely destructive methods to effectuate the drowning.
Like: we're all part of a big family that does a big family Thanksgiving potluck every year. Maybe nobody likes all the other relatives that attend, and maybe nobody is 100% happy with all the dinner items on the menu, and maybe some folks grouse about how uncle so-and-so drinks more of the good wine than is fair given that he only brought dinner rolls this year etc. But, mostly, everybody is ok with it--aside from a small number of freedom caucus types who, after years of ranting that potlucks-are-theft, and failing to convince a majority of the family that we ought to just do a small deli platter for Thanksgiving, has finally got its hands on a can of gasoline and a packet of matches and has decided that this holiday we must burn the house down.
I think the approach they're taking is doing the opposite. The feds run such a huge range of services that nobody has any reason to think about in normal times, and dispense such huge amounts of money to states and localities, that trying to stop half of it at once like this is making people pretty mad. And putting Elmo out there as the visible face of it is multiplying the anger. People hate him, and they hate his high-handedness, to the point where R +20 and +30 district townhalls are full of people shouting "No Kings!"
It'll get worse for the administration as this goes on, I think. They've managed to make all those "bureaucrats" and "civil serpents" sympathetic at the same time they're educating people on what the federal government has been doing. And they don't have anybody to trot out as a public spokesentity who isn't creepy in some way. Russell Vought? There's a reason he's hidden away inside OMB.
They've done a lot of damage already and can do a lot more, don't get me wrong. But people don't want this and will feel it more strongly the farther down this road the felon takes the country. The best thing that can happen for him is if the Ds force him to call a halt to it. The worst is if he keeps going. It blends with the price of eggs and suddenly the "wrong-track" numbers get stratospheric. Something like what happened to Jimmy Carter back in the day.
These people are not invincible, and too many of them are high on their own supply.
Unfortunately one of the things that apparently has stayed in is making tips exempt from income tax as Trump promised this. Some people, mostly Democrats, want to tie this to eliminating the sub minimum wage, which is an *excellent* idea but of course people currently paying a sub minimum wage hate the idea. In effect, if all you do is eliminate the tax on tips, it is a subsidy to businesses which don't pay a decent wage. And if they did, what possible justification is there for treating tips differently than any other income?
[excerpt:] even some Democrats — have taken to calling the “big, beautiful bill,”
What Democrats have said that? I can't believe any would use Trump's vocabulary (big, beautiful).
If any did, they should immediately leave politics for someone who knows how to fight.
That bit about Dems also calling it big and beautiful isn't in the article any longer, as of about 9 pm Eastern. If any Dem actually did use the phrase, I can only understand it being said in an extremely sarcastic tone, with air quotes.
The bill ended up squeaking through 217-215 with one R voting against along with all the Ds, so no defections. Johnson apparently tried a head fake, canceling the evening vote then putting it back on after Dems left the chamber.
I still can't see him without automatically picturing him wearing a Harold Lloyd straw hat.
Medicaid pays for half the births in the US. It covers 72 million Americans.
Significant cuts to Medicaid will be noticed quickly. That's why vulnerable Rs like VanDrew know they can't let that slide through even if he is a piece of shit.