The one thing that drives me crazy in this political environment is when an opposing position in the party gets shut out.
Democrats are the ones who we call out for forcing party members to fall in line, “or else,” but the GOP has been much the same. If you don’t fall in line with Trump, he threatens to primary you.
For some reason, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) has not faced Trump’s wrath yet, but I have to imagine that if she keeps this up, it will not be long.
If I am being honest, I am a bit shocked the GOP has managed to hold it together this long in terms of holding firm against Democrat demands.
They are starting to break, however, especially with the deadline for SNAP benefits looming, a program that feeds more than 40 million Americans.
One person I never expected to cave, Senator Josh Hawley (R-MO), wanted to put funding for SNAP on the floor, but Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) rejected the idea, which I support. The only stand-alone bill I would put on the floor is for the healthcare subsidies, and that would be to force the hand of Democrats.
Thune stated, "This piecemeal approach, where you do one-off here, one-off there, to make it seem, you know, more politically palatable to somebody or less painful. That's just a wrong way to do this. There's just a simple way to do it is to pick up the bill on the desk of the Senate and give us five more Democrat votes to pass it."
I have been hawking all the polling during this shutdown, and I am amazed at how well Trump’s approval rating and that of the GOP are holding up during this shutdown. It just goes against virtually every historical precedent.
CNN senior data reporter Harry Enten stated, “When we’re looking at the Republican Party overall, that brand, actually up two points. That’s within the margin of error, but clearly it hasn’t dropped. Come over to this side of the screen, look at the net approval ratings for Republicans in Congress."
He continued, “It’s actually up five points since pre-shutdown. So what we’re seeing here is the Republican brand in Congress has actually improved somewhat compared to when we were pre-shutdown, despite the fact that Republicans control.”
For this reason, I would hold firm if I were the GOP.
As I am sure you guys have figured out by now, I swim upstream most of the time, so I have respect for people who do likewise, but only when they do it with a real purpose, and I think Greene happens to be right here.
Greene is pushing hard for the tax cuts to be passed, as I have been, simply because of the timing of all this. She and Johnson reportedly had a heated phone call on the subject, where she stated, "You guys need to get out of Washington, D.C., and go back to your districts and talk to real people, because real people are pissed. They expect us to do our legislative constitutional duty and not take marching orders from the political team at the White House."
My position on Obamacare is very clear, but it has nothing to do with this particular situation. In reality, they let the clock run out, and should we really hold American families accountable for what Democrats did on this front?
So, like Greene, I say we put legislation on the floor to pass these tax cuts as they are now for one more year. Force Democrats to vote against that. But if it passes, it does so on the promise from Democrats that they will pass the funding resolution. Then they start negotiating Obamacare reform so it does not impact the next funding bill. That, to me, is reasonable, but we have very few reasonable people in Congress these days.
