Pierce: The 'Moderate' Republican Senator Is a Dangerous Myth

[babylonsister]

Last edited Wed Jun 21, 2017, 05:42 PM - Edit history (1)

http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/news/a55776/moderate-republican-senators-healthcare/


The 'Moderate' Republican Senator Is a Dangerous Myth

As we will see over the next few days with the disastrous healthcare bill.

By Charles P. Pierce
Jun 21, 2017

snip//

So the state of play on a bill practically nobody has seen yet goes as follows: There are a handful of moderate Republicans who are deeply concerned and very troubled that the bill is far too grotesquely punitive to the users within their constituencies. (Imagine what would have ensued if an urban Democratic senator had made this same argument regarding crack addicts in, say, 1988. Actually, you don't have to imagine it.) However, there is also a faction of conservative hardbars who have a theological objection to any government program that helps those people incapable of writing fat campaign checks. Given what we know about congressional Republicans, I wonder which faction is going to win out?

Stop me if you've heard this one before.

Here's what I think will happen: McConnell will roll out his bill on Thursday. It will suck gallons of pondwater, as expected. It will be transparently a vehicle for shoving the nation's wealth upwards and only incidentally a bill concerning America's healthcare system, which it will make immeasurably worse for the great majority of the people in the country. All of these things will deepen the concern and more deeply trouble the "moderate" Republicans, who will be very public in their deep concern and in the depths of their troublehood. (The conservatives will look at it and think, well, this still has to go to conference and we can make it worse because the Republicans in the House are largely insane.) Susan Collins and Rob Portman will find themselves sniffing great bouquets of microphones over the following several days.

At some point, the Congressional Budget Office will release its score for the bill, measuring precisely how many gallons of pondwater the bill sucks. Meanwhile, back on Capitol Hill, McConnell and his leadership team will paint pretty flowers on the uglier parts of the bill and, one by one, enough of the "moderates" will pronounce themselves satisfied that their deep concerns have been satisfied most deeply, and that they no longer are as deeply troubled as they once were. A couple of them—Collins, say, or Lisa Murkowski—even will be allowed to vote against the bill, provided the winning margin of 50-plus-Pence is in the bag.

The tell in all this is how many of the "moderate" Republicans are complaining about the "process" now, rather than pointing out how many gallons of pondwater the bill will suck. True, this bill should not pass because of the blatantly undemocratic way it has been conceived and constructed. But it also should not pass because it very likely will immiserate countless vulnerable Americans due to the gallons of pondwater that it will suck. If your basic concern about it is the former, then you're already lost.

[Girard442]

1. If they were moderates they wouldn't be Republicans.