Republicans sure aren’t acting like there’s an election in a few months, and that they might just have a real opportunity to take back the Senate. Look at this weekend’s Inflation Reduction Act, the Democrats’ reconciliation bill that is chock-full of stuff that will be helpful to the American people. Not only did Republicans not support helping people save money on their energy bills and their health insurance, they made sure diabetics have to continue to pay extortionate prices on insulin to stay alive.
That was right on the heels of telling veterans to pound sand in a fit of pique over the reconciliation bill. Back in June, all but 14 Republicans voted with Democrats to make sure veterans who had been exposed to toxic substances, including burn pits, got the benefits and health care a grateful nation owes them. Because Democrats decided to do more to help more people, Republicans inexplicably decided it was smart politics to reverse course and get Jon Stewart and a bunch of really pissed off veterans on their asses. The inevitable result was they had to reverse course again, and cave to doing the right thing.
Republicans really are putting a lot of faith in their ability to rig elections and the idea that it’s going to be a low turnout election where they’ll have the more motivated voters. An election in which they think voters won’t remember all this. Kansas should have disabused them of that notion, but it sure didn’t seem to. They’re blithely moving forward with their very bad ideas that will make many voters angry. Take, for example, seniors.
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Right now older Americans, as represented by AARP, are looking forward to the benefits of the IRA and the lower prescription drug prices they’ll be enjoying. All thanks to Democrats, by the way.
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Meanwhile, Republicans just can’t stop showing how excited they are at the prospect of destroying Social Security and Medicare. We have Florida Sen. Rick Scott’s infamous plan to make sure all federal laws expire after five years, requiring these programs to have to be passed again and again and again.
There’s South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham, promising that if Republicans retake the Senate, “entitlement reform” will be a “must.” Which means ending the promise of Social Security and Medicare—which every working person in the country pays for out of every paycheck.
Not to be outdone, Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson, who is actually running for reelection this year, has yet another plan to kill the programs. He wants to end the promise by turning the programs into discretionary programs that Congress has to haggle over funding every single year. Now, you could write that off as Johnson once again saying something incredibly blockheaded because that’s what he is, but you really can’t because it just keeps coming back up.
They want to end Social Security, and they are spending an inordinate amount of time and energy into figuring out ways to do that, and it’s the only real effort they’re making to create policy. You’d think that with less than 12 weeks to go until the election, they’d start trying to at least pretend they give a damn about voters.
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