On May 28, Republicans and Democrats compromised - to continue the status quo! The Congressional short-term funding bill, which avoids a government "shut-down," calls for $1.07 trillion in government spending. All those Americans who have wished for "compromise" and "more of the same," got what they wanted. Those Americans who voted for President Trump's platform -- to "drain the swamp" -- have been "given the bird" and told Mr. Trump's election counts for nothing.
The bill provides no funding for President Trump's wall along the Mexican border. It continues to provide federal funds to sanctuary cities. It continues subsidies for both Obamacare and Planned Parenthood.
The Americans who voted for President Trump should be furious. Republicans, and others who voted for President Trump, gave the Republicans a 54 to 46 majority in the Senate, a 238 to 193 majority in the House, and the presidency. The president needs 50 supporters in the Senate (plus the VP) and 216 in the House. Americans who elected Trump, elected Republican congressmen to support him; not to side with Democrats.
So what are the Republican hacks in the House and Senate doing? Undermining the president's agenda. With these dolts in office, who needs a Democratic opposition?
How many times during the last eight years did the Republican Congress vote to defund Obamacare, only to have former president Barack Obama veto their bill? Now that they have majorities in both Houses, plus a Republican president who would approve their Obamacare de-funding, they lack the guts to pass a simple de-funding bill. Why not dust off a de-funding bill that Obama vetoed and send it to President Trump?
What grows clearer daily, is that feckless Republicans in the House and Senate who refuse to support the President's agenda, need to be sent packing - even at the risk of seeing their seats go to the Democrats. To borrow a phrase from Mrs. Clinton, if every (Republican in name only) RINO was replaced by a Democrat, "What difference would it make?" Do we really need Republican "denizens of the swamp" obstructing the president? Aren't the Democrats doing that job well enough?
The RINOs give every appearance of fearing that if they vote to repeal Obamacare, all those on Obamacare -- most of whom wouldn't vote for a Republican if the Republican was their mother -- will vote against them. But if a repeal is bad, why did they vote for it during the Obama years? Political theater? If so, they deserve to be relegated to the scrap heap of history.
As I watch this Republican theater of the absurd unfold, I feel as if I am watching a comic opera -- as if Gilbert and Sullivan's Iolanthe is being staged in the halls of Congress, rather than Parliament. Did “Private Willis” not “nail it?"
"When in that house M.P.'s divide,
If they've a brain or cerebellum, too.
They've got to leave that brain outside,
And vote just as their leaders, tell 'em to.
But then the prospect of a lot of dull M.P.'s in close proximity
All thinking for themselves, is what
No man can face with equanimity."
Trump won the election despite the opposition of the Democrats and many "establishment" Republicans. If the "establishment Republicans" think their party will prosper scuttling the Trump agenda, and doing nothing, they are nuts.
If Trump abdicates leadership of the Republican Party to the Republican "denizens of the swamp," he will lose the support of the people who elected him. If he wants to see his agenda made law, he can't "lead from behind."
Trump was elected by conservatives -- not liberals, not progressives, not RINOs. His base will support him only so long as he fairly and vigorously fights for what he promised during his campaign. He only has one choice, "drain the swamp" or be sucked into it. If he has to encourage primary fights to get the RINOs aboard, then so be it.
The president's "friends" are not in Washington, D.C. They are in the states that gave him his 304 electoral votes. Republican Congressmen have a choice: support Trump's agenda, or lose your majorities.
Posted: QCOline.com May 6, 2017
Copyright 2017, John Donald O'Shea
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