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Reasons for Hope as the Senate Passes the #GOPtaxscam

12/1/2017

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PictureWinners (grey) and losers (red). Chart by PBS, from Congressional Budget Office data
After the election in November 2016, progressives became active in droves. I went to meeting after meeting where many people said they had never been politically active before. Over and over, experienced leaders warned that we should expect to suffer some major losses, but we must carry on regardless.
  
In the middle of the night Saturday (at about 1:50 a.m. Eastern time), we suffered such a major loss with the passage in the Senate of a tax-reform bill that would radically increase the already disastrous transfer of wealth to the very richest of the rich. It is not yet ready to become law — it will still be difficult for the House and Senate to reconcile their different versions — but its ultimate passage, while not assured, is more likely than it was before this vote.
  
Unless and until this bill becomes law, the Republicans have still not completed any major legislation after a full year in control of Congress and the White House. That’s due to their own internal divisions; but also to a major extent, it’s due to us.
 
This is a dark day, but it has been long delayed. Let’s not lose sight of that; it’s a huge achievement. Moreover, the majority of the public is aware that this bill is a sucker-punch to everyone but the super-rich, and that may help the Republicans lose control in next year’s election. In communicating with Tennessee voters on this issue yesterday and today, I’ve heard from dozens of people who see this as a personal hit on them and will not forget that.


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Let’s be ready to remind voters across the country how this bill will affect them. The November election will be just two months before people start filing their 2018 tax returns; we can use that occasion to show them how bad their 2018 and subsequent returns will look. This is the silver lining within this dark cloud; let’s be prepared to make full use of it in the year ahead.
  
In the meantime, we’ll continue the fight to prevent final passage of this #GOPtaxscam. The House and Senate versions are very different; however those differences are reconciled, the adjustments could still lose votes for the final bill. One way you can be active: sign up now to join the Working Families Party’s activist team. WFP volunteers (myself included) are texting and calling voters throughout the country opposing the worst regressive national policies, including this bill, as well as supporting progressive candidates at all levels.
  
Yes, this is a dark day, but in the words of Florence + the Machine, “I like to keep my issues strong — it’s always darkest before the dawn.”  ​

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The Effective Progressive: Obamacare Safe — for A While

3/24/2017

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​It’s HARD to overstate the significance of the Republican House’s failure to repeal the Affordable Care Act.
 
It’s EASY to overstate the significance of the Republican House’s failure to repeal the Affordable Care Act.

​Let’s take a look at why I offer both of these assertions — and where we go from here as effective progressives.
 
Health-Repeal Failure Is a Game-Changer
 
There’s no doubt that the inability of the Republicans to muster enough votes to repeal “Obamacare” knocks the winds out of their sails and does massive damage to the entire Republican/White House agenda. Consider:
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  • We did it. This victory probably would never have happened without the huge outpouring of hundreds of thousands of opponents, including at Congressional “town-hall” meetings across the country earlier this month. Today’s result has vindicated the Indivisible strategy written up by former Democratic Congressional staffers, modeled on the success of the Tea Party in recent years, and it has shown that the massive upsurge in citizen activism starting with the Women’s Marches on Jan. 21 and continuing ever since can be translated into political success.
  • The Republicans have made repeal of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) their top priority, and have run on that issue every election, winning control of Congress and ultimately the White House with a promise to “repeal and replace” the health law as their first action. With unified control of the government, intensive arm-twisting by their leadership, secretive drafting of the legislation with Democrats locked out of the legislative process, a rushed calendar that allowed almost no time for consideration of the ramifications or for opposition to gel (so they thought), and a legislative process that made the Democrats unable to stop the law, they still failed. House Speaker Paul Ryan and his team appear ineffectual and incompetent. Moreover, in the process they have created deep rifts between themselves, the “Freedom Caucus” of far-right Republican legislators, and the “Tuesday Group” of less-extreme Republicans. This dramatic failure made it clear there is nothing for members to gain by risking their political necks for Ryan and may have dealt a mortal blow to House Republicans’ ability to come together around anything.

  • ​The president dove all in on this fight, putting his reputation as Dealmaker-in-Chief on the line. Not only did he come up short; his efforts backfired. Before he started giving away the store to the far right of his party, the Republicans were short about six votes, with four more wavering; by the time the vote was canceled they were down by at least 16. Each concession to the extremists lost other members’ support without ever bringing the far-right faction on board. The fiction of Mr. T. as the brilliant negotiator was a large reason why he got into office; now he will be seen as a fraud by at least some of those who have stuck by him this long.  
  • The bill was so draconian, so cruel, so indefensible even before the latest negotiations made it much worse that some of the president’s biggest supporters had already turned against him, convinced that his promises of good health care for everyone were nothing but empty promises to get votes. Take the tragic story of Kraig Moss, who “sold the equipment for his construction business in upstate New York and stopped making mortgage payments so he could follow Donald Trump on the campaign trail,” attending 45 rallies, as CNN reported. After losing his 24-year-old son to heroin three years ago, Moss was drawn in by the candidate’s vow to increase addiction treatment services. But after the Republican bill was released, removing the requirement for health insurance to cover such treatment, Moss concluded the candidate was just making empty promises to get elected. As the White House and Republicans continued to push a bill that had twice as much opposition as support among the public, they did further damage to their standing with the voters. →​

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The Effective Progressive: ​Time to #Fight4OurHealth

3/16/2017

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It’s All Hands On Deck to save health care in the United States.
 
Friends, please don’t be lulled by the current appearance of disarray among Republicans over the repeal and so-called "replacement" of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), otherwise known as Obamacare. Huge pressures are being brought to bear to get it passed, and many of the folks who are currently expressing concern will get walloped by millions of dollars in advertising from the Koch Brothers among other hammers.
 
It’s up to us to bring a bigger hammer to save health care. Not only will around 25 million people lose health insurance altogether under the plan; it will cause prices to skyrocket and benefits to tank for insurance provided by employers and individual plans bought outside of the ACA market. It also makes Planned Parenthood ineligible for reimbursement for serving Medicaid clients, including in many parts of the country where its clinics are the only health-care provider. In other words, it makes everyone worse off.
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How Bad Is It?
 
Here are just a few of the many analyses showing just how bad this proposed repeal-and-“replace” plan could be:
  • GOP’s Awful Health Care Bill: Republicans Serve Up Atrocious Policy
  • Trading Health Care for the Poor for Tax Cuts for the Rich
  • Consumers Union Gives American Health Care Act a Failing Grade
  • Congressional Budget Office Review of the American Health Care Act
  • White House Analysis of Obamacare Repeal Sees Even Deeper Insurance Losses Than CBO
​→


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    The Effective Progressive blog

    … is authored by Steve Freedkin. Steve has been a social-change activist most of his life, focused on effective techniques for getting results. Among successes in campaigns he’s helped lead are canceling a proposed nuclear power plant; canceling a nuclear plant already under construction; establishing energy-efficiency standards and recycling programs; saving urban outdoor space; and getting enforcement against air polluters.

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