Five years ago, voters in Oklahoma … do I need to mention, a very Republican state … voted to expand Medicaid coverage to more than 200,000 low-income Oklahomans. In doing so, they overruled their own Republican lawmakers and the vitriol and disinformation from Fox News. They set aside ideology long enough to extend a little kindness to those less fortunate.
Every recent poll demonstrates that there are still decent folk somewhere out there in the conservative world. I’m not talking about MAGA world. They are lost to decency and reason. But clearly there are many conservatives who disapprove of Trump’s Large Loathsome Legislation. They disapprove of wrenching healthcare from the neediest, so that the likes of Jeff Bezos can throw an even more obscene party at his next wedding.
So, when I got up this morning, I was wondering if we might not have a John McCain moment, if at least four of the supposed representatives of the people on the Republican side might still have a conscience. Or, perhaps more accurately, might still listen to their conscience. If just four might turn thumbs down on this despicable bill. Alas, that was not to be.
Diogenes carried a lantern throughout Athens searching for an honest man. If Diogenes widened his search to simple human decency, he would carry his lantern hopelessly through the Republican cloakroom searching for a shred of that trait, searching for a backbone, for someone with an ounce of courage, for someone, anyone, to place their fellow citizens before self.
And I guarantee you, all of those Republicans will be in church next Sunday, worshiping a Jesus who must wonder how it came to this.
The details of the bill are well known by now. $1 trillion cut from federal health programs while delivering $1 trillion in tax cuts to millionaires and billionaires. 12 million Americans lose their health insurance. Households in the richest ten per cent gain the equivalent of about $12,000 a year, whereas households in the bottom ten per cent lose about $1,600 a year. More than three trillion added to the deficit. A frontal assault on clean energy. Billions of new dollars, a quadrupled budget, so Trump’s ICE goons can continue assaulting hard-working men and women … oh, I’m sorry, violent criminals … and removing them from the country. And on and on. A bill that will live in infamy.
The ignorance and deceit of the president is well known. The lies are transparently silly. Only MAGA world takes them at all seriously. Maybe even they don’t at this point.
Trump: “Medicaid is left alone; it’s left the same. Democratic policies would destroy Medicaid but my bill will make it better. It’ll be perfect.”
Lies don’t come any more blatant. As O’Brien insisted to Winston in “1984,” 2 + 2 = 5 if Big Brother declares it so.
The other day at a White House event, Trump insisted: “If the bill doesn’t pass, there’ll be a 68% tax increase. Think of that, 68%, which would be the largest in history.” He’s been spouting this nonsense for several months.
Here’s the real world: If his earlier tax cuts expire, taxes will rise 7.5%.
Where did the old fool get 68%? If the old tax breaks expire, roughly 64% of Americans will pay more in taxes than they are now. This is likely where our ignorant president got the number, but, it should be apparent to everyone with a brain, that there’s an enormous substantive difference between two-thirds of households paying more in taxes and a 68% tax increase.
At a White House event last week, a reporter asked Trump a straightforward question about the 68% claim: “Where does that number come from?”
Trump hemmed and hawed a bit before saying that the statistic is true “according to what they tell me.”
Ah yes, the infamous “they,” always telling the president of the United States really stupid things. That’s how we wind up where we are.
But the senators who just passed this bill have no such excuse. They’re not as stupid as Trump. Not nearly as ignorant. And they certainly don’t believe his ridiculous lies.
We know this, because they’ve said as much.
Senator Tillis: “It is inescapable this bill will betray the promise Donald Trump made. This bill will hurt people who are eligible and qualified for Medicaid. What do I tell 663,000 people in two years, three years, when President Trump breaks his promise by pushing them off of Medicaid because the funding’s not there anymore?”
Tillis learned the lesson many have learned in Trump’s party. You speak truth, you have to go. And so, he decided to retire.
I’d like to respect Tillis, until I remember that he voted for every single of one of Trump’s ridiculously unqualified cabinet. He knew the truth then as well. He has been voting against his better judgment ever since Trump rode that ridiculous escalator. So, yes, I’m pleased with his vote today. But he’s been betraying his constituents for years. Not to mention rejecting the voice of his conscience.
Still, he’s not as reprehensible as brave brave Sir Hawley, last seen fleeing the J6 rioters like some giant stick insect. Shortly after, need I remind you, raising a fist in solidarity with their insurrection.
Hawley: “This has been an unhappy episode here in Congress, this effort to cut Medicaid. And I think, frankly, my party needs to do some soul-searching. If you want to be a working-class party, you’ve got to deliver for working-class people. You cannot take away health care from working people. And unless this is changed going forward, that is what will happen in coming years. We can’t be cutting health care for working people and for poor people in order to constantly give special tax treatment to corporations and other entities. So, I’m going to do everything I can to stop that. The party has a lot of thinking to do.”
He thought hard, and decided that doing everything he could to stop this travesty meant he had to vote for it. He did everything he could to stop it, except raising his hand and stopping it. No John McCain there. The millions who lose their health coverage can be comforted that Josh Hawley feels bad about taking it away from them. This from the guy who publishes books about manhood, what it means to be a man. Apparently being a man means you run away from rioters, and you screw working people in order to keep your comfy position of power. Yeah, that’s the kind of man we all want to be.
But Senator Murkowski of Alaska may be even worse. Knowing full well how terrible this bill is for needy people all throughout the nation, she voted for it because her party’s leaders threw her a bone for her folks in Alaska.
Murkowski: “I struggled mightily with the impact on the most vulnerable in this country, when you look to Medicaid and SNAP. I didn’t get everything I wanted but I had to look on balance. Do I like this bill? No. We do not have a perfect bill by any stretch of the imagination. My hope is that House is going to look at this and recognize that we’re not there yet.”
When a reporter asked Murkowski whether the deal Republicans struck to obtain her vote counted as a “bailout” for Alaska, Murkowski glared at him silently for thirteen seconds before defending herself and saying “I find that offensive.”
Let me tell you what I find offensive. Two things that we’ve seen over and over and over again. One, the appalling lack of empathy that only gets aroused when it affects me. Remember those folks a few weeks back who were all upset because their favorite waitress was getting deported? All Trump voters. All completely unable to project beyond their favorite waitress to the millions of “favorite” waitresses, gardeners, field workers, hotel workers, etc. all over the country. Meaningless to them until they were impacted. Two, always looking to someone else to fix the damage caused by Donald Trump. Such courage! Such putting country over self! What disgraceful leaders we have!
It was left to J. D. Vance to both break the tie in the Senate and attach the proper meaning to the whole fiasco.
Vance: “The thing that will bankrupt this country more than any other policy is flooding the country with illegal immigration and then giving those migrants generous benefits. The [One Big Beautiful Bill Act] fixes this problem. And therefore it must pass. Everything else — the CBO score, the proper baseline, the minutiae of the Medicaid policy — is immaterial compared to the ICE money and immigration enforcement provisions.”
And there it is. In the end, all is secondary to the racism and the hate. Trump and Vance know they have that vote locked up. They can screw their own people relentlessly, and this bill will hurt primarily MAGA world, but they know that in the end as long as they stoke the furnace of grievance, they’ll be fine. MAGA world will be behind them. They will raise up from their bed of sickness, where they are freshly consigned without Medicaid, and shake their fists. “Those damn immigrants. Make America great for white people.”
Marco Rubio said a few days ago: “Forget about intelligence.” What will forever be the epitaph of Trump’s Republican party.
He might have added, “Forget about conscience. Forget about decency. Forget about truth. Stoke the hate, and we’ll be fine” …