President Trump could be excused if he were to use the Ronald Reagan line, “There you go again”. That line was first used by Ronald Reagan in his second presidential debate with President Jimmy Carter in 1980. Reagan’s use of the term was to point out a recurrence of hysteria and/or hyperbole. Should Trump decide to resurrect the quote today, he would be using it in an entirely different context. He would be discussing the lack of action taken by his administration, and that of the elected representatives of his own party.
When Trump was elected in 2016, Republicans held a majority in both the House and the Senate. They held a healthy majority in the House, but a slim majority in the Senate. It didn’t matter. They failed to take advantage of that majority to get things done. They refused to work together if it meant helping Trump fulfill his campaign promises to the American people. They scoured his proposals looking for reasons to reject them. They fought tooth and nail to include their individual pet projects into proposals at the expense of the greater good. Republicans in Congress succumbed to the centuries old warning; “Don’t let perfect be the enemy of good.” (It appears that Voltaire is most often credited with that quote sometime in the 18th century.). Every day I am further convinced that Republicans prefer being the minority party in Congress.
We are nearly 6 months into Trump’s second term. We have heard about hundreds of billions of dollars of government waste and fraud yet so far, nobody has been held to account. We have video evidence of intelligence officials perjuring themselves during congressional testimony. If lying to Congress is against the law, why have none of the perpetrators been charged? It’s time for the Department of Justice to stop telling us about the full force of the law and employ it. Executive Orders (EO) typically have a shelf life equal to that of the executive who orders them. It is time for Congress to get off of their lazy behinds and pass laws to codify the EOs. While there is no recent evidence of it, Congress claims to have the ability to walk and chew gum at the same time. If that is true, they need to attack the above while finishing the most pressing item on their to do list. They must pass the big, beautiful bill. (I really despise that term).
House Speaker Mike Johnson did what I thought was impossible. He got Trump’s critical legislation passed in the House. Having only a 3 vote margin Johnson was forced to manipulate and massage the bill like so much silly putty. But he got it passed, then sent it over to the Senate. It is now in the hands of the “world’s greatest deliberative body”. The U.S. Senate. (Can you imagine being proud of a title heralding your inability to make decisions?) One hundred of the world’s most self-absorbed, narcissists will hold the American people hostage to their priggish whims. The fact is that zero Democrats will vote for anything proposed by Trump. They could choose to become positive participants in the debate. Instead, they have decided to lie in an attempt to frighten us about what they say the bill will do to Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. That leaves the decision to 53 Republican Senators. All that is needed is 50. Given their past performance that is not a comforting feeling.
The American people elected Trump to do a lot of things. We hired him to complete construction of the wall on our southern border, cut taxes, rid Medicare and Medicaid of fraud and abuse, and require able bodied adults to become positive contributors to society in order to continue to receive public assistance. We said we wanted no tax on tips, no tax on Social Security benefits or on wages earned when we work overtime, and to deport criminal illegal aliens. The funds needed to fulfill those promises are all in the proposed bill. Senators have made excuses for why they may not vote for the bill. The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has “scored” the bill and says it will add to the budget deficit and national debt, some fret. The OMB said the same thing when Trumps 2017 tax cuts were proposed, then passed. They were dead wrong! That is but a convenient excuse. For the first time in decades, Americans at every economic level, saw their income grow faster than inflation. That allowed us to keep more of our paychecks after having paid our monthly obligations. At the same time, GDP grew at nearly twice the rate it had during the Obama administration. Were it not for the COVID pandemic, Trumps first term economy may have set a record for growth. A couple of Senators suggest they would vote for the bill if it didn’t increase the debt ceiling. That is not just a diversion, it is a laughable diversion. The debt ceiling has become a national joke. It has routinely been raised, then ignored, by both parties for decades. It is like speed limits on our highways. Everyone knows they exist, but few of us pay any attention to them.
Unless Republican Senators want to become the minority party after the 2026 midterm election they must pass this bill forthwith. If they feel the need to display their superior intelligence by tweaking it here or there, so be it. Certainly, they are going to pass this bill, or a reasonable facsimile thereof, sometime this year. Get with it. Pass it sooner as opposed to later. The longer they dawdle the less time the bill will have to display its benefits to the American people before the midterm. Here we are in Trump’s second term and Republicans, many of them elected by riding his coattails, are fiddley farting around. AGAIN! If they don’t pass this bill, the 2017 Trump tax cuts will expire, and the American people will be shackled with the largest single tax increase in memory. If that happens it will be the Republicans fault. And they know it. That is why I am confident they will eventually do the right thing for their constituents. Get with the program Republican Senators. Help Trump complete the job he promised to complete. The job that Americans elected him to do.
I hope you found this post interesting and informative. Thank you for giving it some of your time. Bob
All the Noise is just that, unless the Congress of the United States (Both House and Senate) pass legislation to back up all the Executive Orders and the DOGE cuts. Write your legislators and tell them to work for the benefit of all, instead of their wallets!