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politics and politicians Title: Conservatism's worst enemy? The Freedom Caucus. Friday was a great day to be part of the American left. What a coup for Democrats to score a huge legislative victory when they're the minority party in both houses. How on Earth did they do it? Was it brilliant strategy? Was it top-notch fundraising? Was it powerful rhetoric? Nope. They didn't have to do anything. The House Freedom Caucus — supposedly the most conservative members of the House of Representatives — handed them victory on a silver platter! Who would ever have guessed that the saviors of Planned Parenthood would be 31 Ted Cruz disciples? They sound conservative, they act conservative, and they represent conservative districts, but the House Freedom Caucus is an enemy of conservatism. The only thing they ever accomplish is ousting Speakers. Breitbart is already reporting on a movement in the House to oust Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.). That movement reportedly includes at least two members of the Freedom Caucus. But basic logic dictates that Freedom Caucus members would be calling for the head of the Speaker, no matter who it was. They're searching for a Speaker who can pass legislation through the House with only 31 votes, and nobody — no matter how much conservative street cred he or she is rocking — can accomplish that. The 31 men who make up the Freedom Caucus only make up 7 percent of the House of Representatives, but they expect to get 100 percent of their way on everything. When they don't, they pick up their ball and stomp their feet all the way home — even if it means the rest of us get stuck with ObamaCare. They don't seem to care that not every Republican is from a heavily gerrymandered district that makes losing a seat impossible. They don't seem to care that Republicans chose Donald Trump in the presidential primary over Sen. Ted Cruz (Texas), which was an unambiguous mandate for pragmatic government. All they seem to care about is digging their ideological heels into the dirt and grandstanding. If they cared about making America more conservative, they would have passed the AHCA. These 31 representatives are useless to conservatives because having conservative ideas isn't worth anything if those ideas don't translate into legislation that can pass through Congress. They're uncompromising ideologues whose tantrums never end. They're conservative Obamas: unwilling to compromise, unwilling to listen, unwilling to accept partial victory. If the goal is to make sure Mark Levin doesn't scream at over the airwaves, they're doing great. If the goal is to make America more conservative, they're blowing it big time. Fact: The AHCA would have defunded Planned Parenthood. Fact: The AHCA would have reduced deficits by over $300 billion over the next decade. Fact: The AHCA paved the financial path for conservative tax reform. Now that these billions of dollars weren't freed up by the AHCA thanks to the oh- so-conservative Freedom Caucus, Trump's tax reform agenda has been weakened right out of the gate. Not to mention the fact that the upcoming tax reform may not give the Freedom Caucus everything they want. What will caucus members do if that happens? Kill the bill and leave us all with the status quo? If that's their idea of conservatism, they can keep it. If Trump, a non-ideologue, is forced to work with Democrats on the healthcare issue, you can bet there won't be any defunding of Planned Parenthood. You can bet any bill won't cut deficits by hundreds of billions. And you can bet it won't include much that the Freedom Caucus likes. But that would be fine with them, because it will give them something to grandstand against. It'll give them something to spew divisive rhetoric at. That's what their brand is built on, and that's what keeps them in office. Some conservative pundits will trash anyone who knocks the Freedom Caucus as a RINO (Republican In Name Only), a moderate or a traitor to the conservative cause, but the opposite is true. A true conservative can easily see that the Freedom Caucus's intransigence makes America more liberal. Just look at what liberal ideological purism did to Democrats: They've been voted out of government at every level. Eventually, that's exactly what the tyranny of the Freedom Caucus will do to Republicans. They demand all-or-nothing allegiance to their own ideas and instead of moderately conservative laws, we wind up with the Obama-status-quo albatross around our necks. I have news for the Freedom Caucus: "true conservatives" don’t hand victories to Planned Parenthood, block gigantic deficit cuts or hamper tax reform. But that's exactly what you all have done. When 7 percent of House members believe that every piece of legislation should bend to their will, they are what's wrong with our political system. They are the lack of pragmatism that causes gridlock. They are the inaction that halts conservative progress. Most importantly, they are the ideological purism that Republicans rejected when they chose Trump in the primaries and the American people rejected when we chose Trump in the general election. If the Freedom Caucus doesn't start making decisions that roll back Obama's America, March 24, 2017 will be the date pundits point to after the 2018 election when they're explaining how Democrats took back the House and Senate. Post Comment Private Reply Ignore Thread Top • Page Up • Full Thread • Page Down • Bottom/Latest
#1. To: Gatlin (#0)
You might as well write another article: How unjust that the Freedom Caucus actually believed that the goal was to repeal 0bamaCare in vote after vote, year after year. Only to find that the GOPe actually wants to keep the key provisions because they're complete cowards. And they expect our conservative House members to go along and stab us all in the back as they break their promise to repeal 0bamaCare "root and branch", as Mitch McConnell promised us so many times.
Fact: The Republicans control both houses of Congress. They don't have to use reconciliation. They merely have to squash the filibuster, which they have the power to do. Fact: The Jeb Bush Financial grandee arm of the GOP lost the election. The Trump economic nationalist wing won. They want bold initiatives, and to do what they said they wanted. But the mainline Republicans simply want to pivot off the Trump victories into more Reaganism/Bushism, with free trade, cut taxes on the rich, etc. To that end, they were willing to cut people off the medical insurance rolls and play other games. But they're not willing to outright repeal Obamacare and pass a new program: that would require squashing the filibuster, and the Bush/McConnell/McCain wing of the GOP don't want to do that. Therefore: FACT - the Republican Senate has unilaterally disarmed, and is holding Trump hostage. He can't have his agenda - which is what the people voted for. He can only have the agenda of the Bushite mainstream Republicans. That dog don't hunt. Trump can be frustrated and defeated, yes, if the Republicans in the House and Senate do not play along. But that does not mean that the Bush Republicans get their power back. It means that the people will abandon the Republicans completely in the next elections, and we'll end up with the Democrats, who WILL keep party discipline and enact stuff.
Quite the whiney write-up that is. Mr Zipperer is upset and taking it out on the only crew that is ready to repeal Obamacare. Is it wrong to assume that some R's in Congress won't vote for a full repeal of Obamacare? If not, then the R's know exactly what to do.
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