-By Warner Todd Huston
Donald J. Trump won the White House in part — and likely in large part — because he told voters he wanted to stop business as usual and defeat the “insiders” in Washington D.C. His popular phrase to describe this was to “drain the swamp.” But one has to ask, does Trump understand that his small government agenda will be opposed by Republicans almost as much as it will be opposed by the left-wing, socialist-inspired Democrat Party?
We are already seeing signs that the GOP won’t be a worthy partner for the headstrong agenda Trump has promised voters he intends to pursue.
Even on day one the GOP showed it was a spineless mass of useless jellyfish when it announced plans to “gut the ethics office” — as the media put it. But despite the big announcement, party leaders quickly reversed course only about an hour or so later. In other words, they crumpled like a cheap suit and it only took about a hour to do it.
I am not going to talk about whether or not the plan to alter the ethics office was a good one or a bad one, but the way the whole policy shift was handled rather proves how feckless the GOP leadership really is.
Essentially, on their very first day in power, House GOP leaders whipped up a secret plan to make major alterations in the independent ethics office responsible for keeping congressmen on the straight and narrow where House ethics rules are concerned. The rules change went into policy without discussion or debate and the media instantly erupted with caterwauling from coast to coast.
Even Donald Trump tweeted against the policy move.
With all that Congress has to work on, do they really have to make the weakening of the Independent Ethics Watchdog, as unfair as it
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 3, 2017
Trump went on to tell the GOP that it had higher priorities…
……..may be, their number one act and priority. Focus on tax reform, healthcare and so many other things of far greater importance! #DTS
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 3, 2017
Only about an hour or two later, party leaders abandoned their plans.
Now, the change in the ethics office may or may not have been a good idea. But the problem here is, we don’t know. Party leaders didn’t advocate for it, they didn’t explain it, and when the media whipped up its hate storm for the policy, leadership didn’t stand up for it in order to insist it is the right move to make. They tried to put it though in secret and then dumped it all after the slightest pressure.
They just wilted in the face of media pressure.
This does not bode well for their political spine when push comes to shove for backing Trump’s agenda. Will they fold this fast for every though choice Trump makes?
While this example of spinelessness is bad enough, it is far from the only incident that might cause worry.
We are still nearly two weeks away from Donald Trump’s oath of office ceremony but already Republicans are getting weak in the knees over one of the signature policy plans Trump ran on during the campaign: the repeal of ObamaCare.
A story on January 7 revealed that some GOP Senators are starting to worry that a quick repeal of ObamaCare is not the best policy. Again… Trump isn’t even president yet and they are weakening.
In its article on ObamaCare, Yahoo News reported on how several GOP Senators are expressing their worry that a quick repeal of ObamaCare would be a bad move unless the GOP has a plan for what would replace it.
Senator Bob Corker, R TN, insisted that the party might end up in a “box canyon” if they dump ObamaCare without a substitute instantly ready to go. Wisconsin Senator Ron Johnson and Tom Cotton of Arkansas also appeared worried that repealing the wretchedness of ObamaCare would be a disaster unless it can be quickly replaced wit a GOP alternate.
Of course, one must wonder why ObamaCare needs a “replacement” at all? Just getting rid of the expensive, dangerous, un-American legislation is what America needs most. Replacements are of less interest if they come, we can discuss that. But we don’t need a replacement in order to eliminate Obama’s worst mistake as president.
Indeed, repealing ObamaCare would be an instant tax break for every American who pays taxes.
“By passing legislation repealing ObamaCare through budget reconciliation, lawmakers have an opportunity to remove nearly 20 taxes which will save taxpayers more than one trillion dollars over the next decade,” Americans for Tax Reform’s President Grover Norquist wrote on January 6.
Norquist continued, saying…
Repealing these taxes is a huge win for middle class taxpayers, who were hit with an avalanche of tax increases despite Barack Obama’s “firm pledge” not to sign “any form of tax increase” on any American making less than $250,000.
The trillion dollars in higher taxes have restricted health care choice, increased costs, made saving more difficult, and granted government more control over care at the expense of individual control. Below are just some of the tax wins that will come from repealing ObamaCare
Yet as the Yahoo article noted, some in the Senate are already wavering on a quick repeal of ObamaCare. And where you have a reversal of the quick repeal policy, you end up with a grinding process that will likely mean ObamaCare will stay in place and never get ended because they will never be “ready” to do so.
After all, being “ready” never seems to come for most Republicans in Washington. How many years did we voters sit idly by and listen to John Boehner or Mitch McConnell and their underlings tell us how “right now” isn’t the “time” to fight. But, the next time, why next time they will be ready to go for the throat. So, dear voter, please give them a break for this time, won’t you? Because, you see, the next time you are gonna love their fight.
Only every time seems to be “this time” and that darned ol’ “later time to fight” never seems to come.
Meanwhile Washington D.C. trundles along, business as usual, and since none of our GOP leaders have had to put too much effort into anything then everything stays happily status quo for everyone but the voters and the country.
And this, in the end, is why the Republican Party could end up being just as much of an impediment for Donald Trump’s agenda as the Democrats will be. The Republican Party has been just as interested in keeping the status quo in place as the Democrats have and even when they have stepped outside their comfort zones they often proved to have no guts for the game and have backed off in short order.
So, to protect their power we may end up finding the GOP fighting to defeat Trump’s agenda nearly as often as the Democrats do. Sadly, we are already seeing that the GOP hasn’t the spine for the fight. It makes one worry whether or not they’ll back up the tough game Trump seems poised to play.
Let’s hope that Trump and his advisors understand that the Republican Party has no guts and may be an unreliable ally for the fights ahead.
____________
“The only end of writing is to enable the reader better to enjoy life, or better to endure it.”
–Samuel Johnson
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Warner Todd Huston is a Chicago based freelance writer. He has been writing news, opinion editorials and social criticism since early 2001 and before that wrote articles on U.S. history for several American history magazines. Huston is a featured writer for Andrew Breitbart’s Breitbart News, and he appears on such sites as Constitution.com, CanadaFreePress.com, BizPac Review, and many, many others. Huston has also appeared on Fox News, Fox Business Network, CNN, and many local TV shows as well as numerous talk radio shows throughout the country.
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