The alleged President of The United States has always had a strange relationship with the party he now technically leads. But, I do think they were almost made for each other as they hurtle toward failure together.
The failure of the Republican’s Affordable Care Act replacement, the American Healthcare Act, is the perfect center with which to make all my unpopular points. The new bill would have been the climax to exactly seven years of anti-Obamacare campaigning. During Obama’s tenure, there were 60 votes held to repeal the law, and the GOP took every chance they could to undermine the law’s purpose, scaring away the insurers and healthy customers needed for the law to work as intended, and claiming the law itself was somehow unconstitutional. Obamacare needs work in order to be more effective, at lower costs for both the government and customers, but it did bring over 20 million people into the market who weren’t able to get health insurance before.
But since it’s Obama’s signature achievement, and an example of excessive government spending in the eyes of a party that would more than gladly spend more on the military than what we might actually need in a post-nuclear era. They also cut off funding to the IRS for political "gotcha" points when it’s the safest investment for government money. Obamacare has been No. 1 on their hit list for seven years, for those same political points.
However, when they got the White House back, they didn’t expect to do so with Donald J. Trump, someone who didn’t quite mesh with their values. His campaign floated a "repeal and replace" instead of just "repeal," which the congressional Republicans who had to write the law hadn't prepared for.
That replacement proved to be a multitiered problem for the Republicans. Instead of offering plans with varying amount of subsidy based on your income, it would have offered tax credits to spend on health insurance based on age. Problem is, the tax credits weren’t big enough to deal with the cost of health insurance, and the Congressional Budget Office estimated that 24 million people would lose coverage by 2026. Oh, and it cut taxes for the wealthy, because why not?
What’s more, even before that damaging figure from earlier came out, there were protests at Republican Town Halls during the Congressional Recess turning out against rolling back healthcare benefits, turning moderate House Republicans against the new law for fear of losing their seats.
This contrasted heavily with the far-right House Freedom Caucus, a bloc of 36 all-or-nothing Republicans who wanted a flat repeal, more than enough to have sunk the bill assuming no Democrat votes. Modifications to the bill in a (failed) attempt to win over this bloc would have rendered health insurance itself completely useless.
But Trump backed the bill anyway, seemingly desperate for a “win” despite the clear need to go back to drafting. He demanded that the bill go to vote in the house on the 24th of March, the 7th anniversary of Obamacare’s passage into law. The bill had to be pulled or it would have lost in the end, and Trump decided to blame the mess on the Democrats, opting to wait for (or hasten) the collapse of Obamacare for the sake of an “I told you so.”
The whole mess, along with recent repeals of regulations protecting the consumer from getting lied to by financial advisors or having their internet data sold without permission, gives me the impression that congressional Republicans, including Trump, know how to be the oppositional party, but not an effective governing party. Paul Ryan even admitted as such.
For example, they can sell, say, “regulation bad because Obama,” but aren’t willing or able to examine what makes each individual regulation good or bad on its own merits. And this is assuming they weren’t just bought into making those two decisions; because they’re sure as heck not consumer-facing like Republicans claimed they were.
In that respect, Trump, who sold impossible ideas of walls paid by Mexico and of the return of coal, ideas he can’t deliver on, is almost a perfect fit for them. Flashy ideology, but almost no substance to back it up.
Logan Graham is a junior studying media arts with a focus in games and animation at Ohio University. Please note that the views and opinions of the columnists do not reflect those of The Post. Do you think Trump and the GOP are a match made in heaven? Let him know by emailing him at lg261813@ohio.edu.
