At the New Republic, Brian Beutler writes—Trump’s Chaos Is Causing Lasting Damage—The terrifying impact of the president's permanent uncertainty:
The consolidation of Republican power in Washington was supposed to create huge dividends for every kind of interest group by eliminating legislative gridlock and brinkmanship and giving a single party power to set policy. By the same telling, this was supposed to be a particular boon for business owners (and, downstream, for workers), who would welcome a climate of lower taxes, laxer regulation, and greater certainty with new investment, and thus more jobs.
The concept of “certainty” was one Republicans in Congress wielded as a brickbat against President Obama for eight years only to abandon it when President Donald Trump, through a mix of incompetence and malevolence, turned uncertainty into a weapon.
In the realms of health, immigration, and foreign policy, Trump has managed to leave stakeholders on all sides of issues—consumers, providers, civilians, enforcers, diplomats, and entire countries—completely befuddled in ways that threaten to cause great harm. The question is whether people around Trump can convince him that the policy environment he has created needs to change, or, more ominously, whether he has convinced himself that chaos gives him the upper hand.
Trump is certainly capable of such delusion. Since Congress failed to pass Trumpcare, the president has threatened to use policy levers at his disposal to disintegrate the individual insurance markets, on the presumption that it will force Democrats in Congress to vote for a more systematic dismantling of the Affordable Care Act.
In reality, it would create a long and indefinite suffering for which, polling suggests, the public would hold him and Republicans accountable. We will find out soon whether Trump is serious or bluffing (or whether he simply needs someone to spend 10 minutes explaining reality to him).
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QUOTATION
“In 1906 I indulged my temper by hurling invectives at Neo-Darwinians in the following terms. “I really do not wish to be abusive [to Neo-Darwinians]; but when I think of these poor little dullards, with their precarious hold of just that corner of evolution that a blackbeetle can understand—with their retinue of twopenny-halfpenny Torquemadas wallowing in the infamies of the vivisector’s laboratory, and solemnly offering us as epoch-making discoveries their demonstrations that dogs get weaker and die if you give them no food; that intense pain makes mice sweat; and that if you cut off a dog’s leg the three-legged dog will have a four-legged puppy, I ask myself what spell has fallen on intelligent and humane men that they allow themselves to be imposed on by this rabble of dolts, blackguards, imposters, quacks, liars, and, worst of all, credulous conscientious fools.”
~George Bernard Shaw, Back to Methusaleh: A Metabiological Pentateuch (1921)
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BLAST FROM THE PAST
At Daily Kos on this date in 2011—Paul Ryan's 'welfare state,' everything but tax cuts for the rich:
Here's a snippet of Rep. Paul Ryan's closing remarks during the debate on his budget plan:
We don't want a welfare system that encourages people to stay on welfare. We want them to get back on their feet and lead flourishing, self-sufficient lives. So let's reform welfare for people who need it, and end it for corporate welfare for people who don't need it. Number four. Let's do the work of lifting this crushing burden of debt from our children.
And there you have it. While you thought welfare was reformed two decades ago and no longer exists for Republicans to beat up on, you were wrong. Basically, everything but tax breaks to the wealthy is welfare. Any domestic spending, welfare. Let's look at what Ryan is actually slashing, here, what he calls welfare.