White House chief strategist Steve Bannon knows that if House Speaker Paul Ryan’s healthcare plan fails it “would be catastrophic for the rest of Trump’s agenda.”
Paul Ryan may not be a strict disciple of Ayn Rand ,but he aligns close enough with her philosophy that makes he as well Bannon and Trump a danger to our democracy and the values America holds dear.
They are convinced that the American people have given them a mandate for the changes they envision. Ryan’s first attempt to replace and repeal Obamacare was not well received. Not because of the harm it would cause but because it didn’t go far enough. This time around, I expect that what ever Ryan and House Republicans come up with will be a austere plan that will mean even more hardship for poor and most people in the middle-class than his most recent rejected plan.
We are not yet living in the depths of a Randian world. A world where people who labor for a living, the poor, indigent, and where people who otherwise don’t have the wherewithal to care for themselves are considered losers, having no right to healthcare or a secure life because they are considered of no value.
1. By this point in his Presidency, Barack Obama had passed a $831 billion stimulus bill. By early April his first federal budget had passed both chambers of Congress, laying the groundwork for his overhauls of health care and government spending on education. The following year came the re-set of Wall Street, known as Dodd-Frank. Then Obamacare. It was the most significant period of legislating since Lyndon Johnson’s first few years in office.
2. As Trump hits 50 days in office this week, health-care reform is hobbled by divisions between conservatives who want to cut Medicaid deeper and faster and moderates who want to preserve the Obama-era expansion. Yesterday Trump released a budget with unprecedented cuts to discretionary spending that many Republicans describe as dead on arrival. Trump’s second attempt at an executive order banning travel from several Muslim-majority countries is again being successfully challenged in the courts, eating up more time and resources in an overwhelmed White House. Trump's “Wall” is a bizarre folly. The Russia investigation, which will begin on Monday with potentially damaging testimony from the F.B.I. director James Comey, is only beginning.
Trump has also persuaded large numbers of Americans – including many of Republican persuasion – that he’s dangerously unhinged.
No matter the criteria by which presidencies are judged, Trump’s is on the way to being a total debacle.
The White House’s chief strategist, Steve Bannon,
Photograph By Pete Marovich / Bloomberg Via Getty
CAN STEVE BANNON SAVE TRUMPCARE?
The White House’s chief strategist, Steve Bannon,
knows that the failure of the Ryan health-care bill
would be catastrophic for the rest of
President Trump’s agenda.
Photograph By Pete Marovich / Bloomberg Via Getty
