The Daily 202: Trump is setting up Paul Ryan to be his fall guy

[DonViejo]

By James Hohmann April 27 at 11:31 AM

THE BIG IDEA: The conventional wisdom when Donald Trump took office was that Paul Ryan would be in the driver’s seat on policymaking. That has turned out to be wrong.

The thinking was that the new president doesn’t care deeply about the particulars of policy, so he would defer to the Speaker – who does – as long as he could get wins.

But the collapse of the Obamacare repeal effort last month left a bad taste in Trump’s mouth, leading him to conclude that he shouldn’t have agreed to focus on health care first, that he shouldn’t have been so hands-off early in the process and that he shouldn’t have outsourced so much of the substance to House leadership.

Trump is trying to learn from his mistakes, and that’s manifesting itself this week in the debate over taxes and health care.

-- The tax reform proposal that the president unveiled yesterday makes clear that he is not content to let Ryan take the lead on the issue that has animated him more than any other during his two decades in Congress.

The administration’s framework does not include a border adjustment tax, a signature element of Ryan’s plan that is designed to pay for cutting the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 20 percent. The Speaker’s team warned publicly and privately that cutting the rate to 15 percent is untenable, would blow up the debt and could never pass Congress. Trump embraced it anyway.

more
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/paloma/daily-202/2017/04/27/daily-202-trump-is-setting-up-paul-ryan-to-be-his-fall-guy/590120cfe9b69b3a72331ed5/?utm_term=.b3c2cfcd601a&wpisrc=nl_daily202&wpmm=1

[underpants]

1. This is why they don't let the kids run daycares

Ryan has no control over his own Caucus (of poo flingers) and now there's a supposed Alpha screeching from the high ground.

[kimbutgar]

2. Congress will crash and burn and nothing will get done

The infighting between the rethug fractions will destroy the house and mcturtle doing what he did with the filibuster for gorsuch wrecked all decorum and functionality in the senate.

Our government is now broken under chump. He is going to bankrupt our country like his businesses. The only saving grace we have are blue states government who can still function.

[comradebillyboy]

3. I can't gin up too much sympathy for Lyin Ryan...nt