Justin Amash Splits From Freedom Caucus

CNN reports that Amash said in March that he had stopped attending Freedom Caucus meetings due to disagreement with other members over the direction of the country under President Trump. Other Freedom Caucus members unanimously opposed the call for impeachment from Amash, who has one of the most conservative voting recordsin Congress.

The group seems to have parted ways amicably. “I have the highest regard for them, and they’re my close friends,” Amash said. “I didn’t want to be a further distraction for the group.”

While Amash has been almost universally criticized by other Republican officials, his constituents seem happy with his stance. At a town hall in May, Amash received a standing ovation from voters and many expressed support for the congressman who says his job is to uphold the Constitution.

Other Republicans seem to focus on supporting the president. As Donald Trump repeats his tactic of using emergency declarations to bypass Congress and bending the law to use tariffs to pressure US trading partners, few Republicans, including those on the Freedom Caucus, have stood up against the abuses of presidential authority, much less Mr. Trump’s bad behavior with respect to the Russia investigation. Republicans who criticized Barack Obama’s abuses of executive authority have shown little interest in reining in President Trump.

There is speculation that Amash’s divorce from the Freedom Caucus is part of the groundwork for a run for president, possibly as a Libertarian. Amash himself has given no indication of this but has not ruled out a presidential run. Amash told the Detroit News last week that he plans to run for re-election to his congressional seat as a Republican.

Rep. Amash formally left the Freedom Caucus this week, but, in truth, the Freedom Caucus left Amash long ago. Like the Republican Party in general, the group’s principles now seem to reflect not what is constitutional, legal, ethical, and moral but what President Trump says.

Originally published on The Resurgent

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Debt ceiling battle heats up again

Think that confrontations over the debt ceiling left town with the Obama? You might want to think again.

“I urge you to raise the debt limit before you leave for the summer” [on July 28], Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin told the House Ways and Means Committee on Wednesday according to the Wall Street Journal. Mnuchin said that he prefers a clean increase without conditions.

In response, the House Freedom Caucus released a statement opposing a clean increase. “The U.S. federal government is drowning in debt, yet continues to spend into oblivion on the backs of future taxpayers,” the statement said. “We have an obligation to the American people to tackle Washington’s out of control spending and put in place measures to get our country on the right fiscal course.”

The Freedom Caucus adopted a three-fold position on the issue. First, they categorically oppose a clean increase. Second, the group agrees that the debt ceiling should be address by Congress before it recesses for the summer. Finally, the statement demands “that any increase of the debt ceiling be paired with policy that addresses Washington’s unsustainable spending by cutting where necessary, capping where able, and working to balance in the near future.”

The government reached the debt ceiling imposed by Congress in March. Since then, the Treasury Department has been using cash conservation methods to keep the government operating. The shuffling of funds is a temporary solution that typically is only viable for a few months.

Previous estimates indicated that congressional action on the debt limit would need to be taken by late September or early October. Earlier this week, budget director Mick Mulvaney told Politico that the date might come sooner than expected.

“My understanding that the [tax] receipts, currently, are coming in slower than expected and you may soon hear from [Treasury Secretary Steven] Mnuchin about a change in the date,” Mulvaney said before the House Budget Committee.

The US national debt currently stands at $19.9 trillion. The House Freedom Caucus and other Republicans fought the Obama Administration on the debt ceiling several times during the past eight years. In exchange for increasing the debt limit, the GOP was able to win some concessions on spending from Obama and the Democrats. 

Originally published on The Resurgent

Which is worse: Failure or passage of the GOP health bill?

As the American Health Care Act heads toward an uncertain future in the House, there is speculation that Republicans might be better off if the bill is killed quickly in its first vote. With many members of the Freedom Caucus lining up against the bill, Margot Sanger-Katz and Nate Cohn, who respectively cover healthcare and elections for the New York Times opined on which was worse for the GOP, having the bill fail or having it pass.

 “I think there are two big forces behind the progress of this bill,” Cohn said. “One is that no one wants to be responsible for its failure. So I agree that if the House passes something, there will be a lot more pressure for the Senate to figure something out. They might not be able to do it, but they might really try.”

“Two is that the speed is good for the Republicans,” he continued. “It has a better chance of passing if they move quickly, before public opinion turns against it. It’s better for the Republicans if it fails quickly, because they can move on to other things.”

“I think the Republicans are in a tough spot either way, but I think they’re better off if the bill fails,” Cohn continued. “They’ll get bad press, but voters have fairly short memories and I think the Republicans will move on. They’ll still be able to blame problems on Obamacare, even if it will be less credible. If they pass this plan, I have no idea how they intend to defend it. And I think hurting vulnerable Americans would go against the core of Trump’s appeal to the decisive Obama-Trump vote in the Midwest and Northeast, with little benefit. I think the best position for a lot of Republican members is to vote for the bill, but hope it fails. On the other hand, if the bill passes, it will be nice to be among the Republicans who voted against it.”

If the bill does manage to pass the House, it won’t pass the Senate as written. “The Senate has more of a moderate problem than the House, it appears,” said Sanger-Katz. “There are two senators — Lisa Murkowski and Susan Collins — who don’t like that the bill defunds Planned Parenthood. There are a few senators from states that expanded Medicaid who are worried about changes to that program. There are also some concerns about the generosity of tax credits, particularly for older Americans.”

If the bill is amended to win the votes of Murkowski (R-Alaska) and Collins (R-Maine), it will face increasing opposition from Senators on the right such as Rand Paul (R-Ky.) and Ted Cruz (R-Texas). Still, the best chance for repeal and replace seems to be to pass versions of the bill in both houses and work to improve it in the conference committee that irons out the differences.

The biggest problem for Republicans is the lack of a clear direction if the AHCA fails. “My sense is that there’s just no policy consensus about health care among Republicans,” Sanger-Katz said. “I think they would need that kind of vision and consensus to get something ready in advance.”

Finding a consensus is easier said than done. Many of the problems with the current bill result from trying to find a consensus where there is none. Conservatives want a complete repeal of the Affordable Care Act which is not mathematically possible in the current Congress without Democrat defections. Moderates want to protect citizens of their states that rely on the Obamacare’s Medicaid expansion. The resulting standoff makes it unlikely that enough Republicans can be satisfied to pass any bill without compromise from both sides.

The current bill is the result of an “effort to write this bill, in a hurry, with a jumble of provisions, [that] seems to suggest that they are just trying to find something that can pass, as opposed to articulating a clear policy vision for what they want health care to look like in this country,” Sanger-Katz said.

If the current compromise bill, written to get something passed, cannot pass, what is the future of the Republican repeal and replace effort? Amending it to satisfy members of the Freedom Caucus would probably spur moderates to vote “no” and vice versa. If the bill dies, there is no clear path forward.

Failure of the current bill might have the effect of moving healthcare reform to the left. If conservatives cannot be brought on board, President Trump may tack to the left and craft a bill that could pass with a coalition of moderates from both parties.

Failing to repeal Obamacare won’t be good for Republicans. Neither is passing a bill that leaves much of Obamacare intact. Finding a bill that can pass will require walking a tightrope that leaves the GOP vulnerable to attacks from both the left and the right.

 Originally published on The Resurgent

Freedom Caucus chairman opposes GOP Obamacare replacement

The chairman of the House Republican caucus has said that he opposes the current Republican plan to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act. The statements by Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.) to CNN focused on a bill drafted in early February and leaked last week. At issue was how health care premiums paid by individuals will be treated by the IRS.

The draft version of the bill contained a provision that replaced Obamacare’s subsidies with a refundable tax credit for money paid in health insurance premiums to private plans. The credit would vary between $2,000 for people under 30 and $4,000 for taxpayers aged 60 to 64. Premiums paid toward employer-sponsored health plans would not be eligible for the credit.

“What is conservative about a new entitlement program and a new tax increase? And should that be the first thing that the President signs of significance that we sent to the new President?” Meadows said. “A new Republican president signs a new entitlement and a new tax increase as his first major piece of legislation? I don't know how you support that -- do you?”

Meadows argued that the tax credits would increase government expenditures on health insurance and complained that they were not focused on the needy. “So the headline is that the GOP is reducing subsidies to needy individuals when in fact, the growth of the taxpayer-subsidized reimbursements will actually increase. The total dollars that we spend on subsidies will be far greater,” he said. “So you can be a millionaire and not have employer-based health care and you're going to get a check from the federal government -- I've got a problem with that.”

Rep. Mark Walker (R-Ala.), chairman of the Republican Study Committee, also opposes the bill in its current form. In a statement, Walker said, “The draft legislation, which was leaked last week, risks continuing major Obamacare entitlement expansions and delays any reforms. It kicks the can down the road in the hope that a future Congress will have the political will and fiscal discipline to reduce spending that this Congress apparently lacks.”

Sources within the GOP told CNN that the current version of the bill is similar to the leaked version opposed by Meadows and Walker. They also said that tax credits are not a new idea for health care reform.

“Tax credits have long been a part of Republican health care plans, including the one authored by now-Secretary (Tom) Price that had broad support from members of the (Republican Study Committee) and Freedom Caucus,” an unnamed GOP aide said in a statement.

The argument is over the distinction between tax credits and tax deductions. Tax deductions reduce the amount of taxes owed by reducing taxable income. On the other hand, tax credits are applied directly to the tax owed and reduce it on a dollar-for-dollar basis. If the tax credit is refundable, the credit can also be used to increase tax refunds. Under the current GOP plan, taxpayers would receive refundable tax credits for buying health insurance that could be refunded if they had no tax liability.

Freedom Caucus members support a vote on a repeal bill that was vetoed by President Obama in 2015, considering the current bill weaker than the earlier one that did not include a replacement plan. “We didn't promise the American people that we would repeal it, except we're going to keep Medicaid expansion,” said Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio). “We didn't promise the American people except we're going to keep some of the tax increases in it. We certainly didn't promise the American people we're going to repeal it but we're going to start this whole new entitlement called advanced refundable tax credits,” Jordan said. “I think this is the wrong thing to do.”

The problem with the Freedom Caucus strategy is that the GOP could repeal Obamacare with a simple majority using the budget reconciliation, the same way the Democrats passed the legislation, but later votes on a health care reform package would be subject to Democrat filibusters. Republicans would need a minimum of eight Democrat votes for cloture, meaning that future reform bills would probably have even more unpopular aspects to divide the GOP.

The current balance of power in the Senate is 52 Republicans to 48 Democrats. This means that, even with a repeal using the budget reconciliation, no more than two Republicans can defect and the bill still pass. Republicans have a 22 vote margin in the House.

President Trump and the Republican leadership favor a comprehensive approach that combines repeal with a replacement plan. The bet is that Republicans like Meadows and Walker won’t vote to preserve Obamacare, even if they have reservations about the Republican version of reform.

“You’re a Republican, you’ve been running to repeal Obamacare, they put a repeal bill in front of you,” hypothesizes Doug Badger, a Republican health policy advisor, in the Wall Street Journal. “Are you going to be the Republican senator who prevents Obamacare repeal from being sent to a Republican president who is willing to sign it?”

Originally published on The Resurgent