Archive for the ‘Paul Ryan’ Category

When it comes to saying foolish things, Nancy Pelosi ranks right up there. While the MSM can’t stop talking about President Trump’s s—hole comment, they haven’t covered Ms. Pelosi’s disgusting, elitist statement. Ms. Pelosi said “The bonus that corporate America received versus the crumbs that they are giving to workers to kind of put the schmooze on is so pathetic. It’s so pathetic.”

Paul Ryan’s interview blew Ms. Pelosi away. He spoke about Walmart raising their starting pay from $9/hr. to $11/hr. He said that, for families living paycheck-to-paycheck, that isn’t crumbs. He said that “You’re seeing stories like that. You’re seeing businesses expanding, businesses investing in capital, workers getting wage increases, workers getting bonuses, better benefits, better 401(k)s. All of those things are now being announced. And it’s just been 20 days so I think the Democrats are gonna regret not having supported this.”

Let’s be blunt about something. The Democrats voting unanimously against these tax cuts is the dumbest thing, strategy-wise, that they’ve ever done. This fall, when the voters finally start tuning in, they’ll be hit with a barrage of ads showing Democrat after Democrat voting against the tax cuts that they’re benefitting from. They’re benefitting from cheaper electric bills, bigger paychecks and fatter 401(k)s.

Here’s the money question: How many families in battleground districts will agree with Ms. Pelosi saying that the bonuses and pay raises they’ve received are crumbs? If that’s the most important issue to voters, the Democrats won’t just not retake the majority in the House. They’ll lose seats.

If they compare Ms. Pelosi’s elitist statements with Speaker Ryan’s pro-blue collar statements, it won’t turn out well for Democrats:

What this comes down to is that Paul Ryan’s statements at the end of his C-SPAN video sound thoughtful while Ms. Pelosi’s statements sound like a progressive hardliner elitist. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that, politically speaking, thoughtful defeats elitist every time.

It’s pretty apparent that David Frum’s TDS (Trump Derangement Syndrome) symptoms are showing. His article, titled “Conservatism Can’t Survive Donald Trump Intact,” is mostly a defense of Jennifer Rubin’s intellectually dishonest criticisms of Republicans. Still, with a title like that, it’s important to demolish the premise that Donald Trump is leaving the GOP in tatters.

It’s important to rattle through the lengthy list of positive accomplishments that President Trump, with the help of Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan, has helped turn into a reality. Prior to passing the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, getting Neil Gorsuch confirmed was the signature accomplishment. Having him sit on the Supreme Court for the next 25 years is a major accomplishment by itself. One of the things that hasn’t gotten much attention but that’s playing a major part in the Trump Boom is eliminating tons of counterproductive regulations by using the Congressional Review Act. On a slightly different front, President Trump has reigned in presidential abuse of the Antiquities Act by shrinking a bunch of national monuments, thereby returning tons of acreage to local control.

Passing tax cuts and getting Neil Gorsuch confirmed would be a pretty nice year if he got nothing else accomplished. The good news is that President Trump has gotten lots of other important things accomplished. Again, thanks to Mitch McConnell’s and Chuck Grassley’s efforts, 12 “fully qualified” conservative appellate court judges got confirmed in President Trump’s first year.

The Wall Street Journal gets it right in this article:

President Donald Trump and the GOP-controlled Congress, who opened their first year in full control of Washington on rocky terms, are closing it with a flush of late legislative achievements: a sweeping tax overhaul, a long-sought repeal of a pillar of the Affordable Care Act and a surprise deal to open up Arctic drilling.

I’ve repeatedly said that the economy is finally growing at a robust pace. Consumer confidence is soaring. Unemployment is at a 17-year low and it’s about to get lower. GDP is expected to grow at 4% or higher during Q4 of 2017.

For years, the goal was for the United States to become energy independent. Thanks to rolling back a ton of Obama-era environmental regulations through the Congressional Review Act, the U.S. isn’t just energy independent. We’re on the verge of becoming energy dominant.

For years, Republicans have talked about energy independence, cutting taxes, confirming the next generation of conservative judges and getting the economy hitting on all cylinders. President Trump and Sen. McConnell worked together to get the judges approved. Then Sen. McConnell and Speaker Ryan worked with President Trump to cut taxes, get the economy humming and delivering on energy dominance.

To this conservative, I’m better than ok with that checklist of accomplishments. The start was bumpy but the finish of President Trump’s first year is pretty smooth.

Technorati: Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, Donald Trump, Mitch McConnell, Paul Ryan, Economy, Chuck Grassley, Judicial Confirmations, Congressional Review Act, Energy Independence, ANWR, Neil Gorsuch, Individual Mandate, Republicans, Election 2018

According to this article, Sen. Manchin seems more than a little confused about what his position is about the Trump tax cuts. That isn’t the only confusion happening in Sen. Manchin’s mind. When “West Virginia radio talk show host Hoppy Kercheval asked the senator why he opposed legislation that will benefit the ‘vast majority’ of taxpayers and businesses in the state”, Sen. Manchin admitted “There’s some good in this bill. I acknowledge that.”

Apparently, Sen. Manchin isn’t ashamed of talking out of both sides of his mouth. According to the article, “Manchin’s official Twitter account posted the tweet Wednesday morning, one day after the senator voted against the GOP tax-cut plan. But by the afternoon, the office had deleted that picture and reposted the tweet with a picture of the two men standing alongside each other, instead of one where the two men were giving a thumbs-up sign.”

I’d love hearing Sen. Manchin explain why he voted against the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act after saying that the bill has “some good in the bill.” I’d especially love hearing Sen. Manchin explain why he’d pose for a picture with a big thumbs up with President Trump, then vote against the bill that he said had “some good in this bill.”

At the end of this interview, Speaker Ryan said that, at the end, he thought they might get Sen. Manchin’s vote for the tax cuts:

Apparently, the terms moderate Democrats and Blue Dog Democrats essentially don’t exist.

The MSM have constantly criticized President Trump, mostly for his tweets but also for his lack of legislative accomplishments. Yesterday, the House and Senate passed the most sweeping tax policy changes in a generation. (Because of a couple provisions that ran afoul of the Senate’s parliamentarian, the Senate had to make a couple changes to the bill before voting on final passage. Because the 2 bills aren’t perfectly aligned, the House will vote this morning on the bill the Senate passed last night.) Once the identical bill is passed in both the House and Senate, it will be sent to the White House for President Trump’s signature.

This article is the first of its kind in the MSM, which has been all-criticism-all-the-time until now. Let’s get started with the things Axios reports President Trump has gotten right. First, Axios reports that “The tax bill passed with almost unanimous Republican support, before the end of the year, and in keeping with mostly mainstream conservative orthodoxy. Trump won a bigger corporate tax break than either Bush ever got, and will sign the most consequential new tax law in 30 years.”

Without question, this is a signature issue that’s worth trumpeting to the world. The economy is already going strong. It’s about to get stronger. While the Berniecrats advocate for stifling tax rate hikes and slow economic growth, President Trump and the Republicans are pushing policies that have consumer confidence soaring, 401(k)s growing, small business enthusiasm increasing and big corporations returning to the United States. It won’t take long for people to notice that their lives just got better. This is another major accomplishment:

Trump has followed through on eviscerating regulations, many of them imposed by Obama. He has revoked 67, and delayed or derailed more than 1,500 others.

This has helped spur economic growth. It’s the single-biggest reason why the economy is robustly growing thus far. All the time that the MSM highlighted that Trump didn’t have any major legislative accomplishments, President Trump worked with Congress to eliminate tons of counterproductive regulations. That’s the single-biggest reason why economic growth took off when he took over from President Obama.

This is the biggest accomplishment for full-spectrum conservatives:

Trump has tilted the court rightward in lasting ways. Justice Neil Gorsuch was a substantial, conservative addition to the Supreme Court. And it wasn’t a one-off: The dozen new U.S. Circuit Court judges he has named is the most during a president’s first year in office in more than a century.

It’s impossible to overstate this accomplishment. President Trump worked with the Heritage Foundation and the Federalist Society to pull together a ton of highly qualified judicial nominees. In his first year alone, he’s got conservatives thrilled with his nominees. (Noteworthy: For all those criticizing Mitch McConnell, his understanding of Senate procedures and bold decisions have contributed mightily to this accomplishment.)

Before wrapping up this post, I highly recommend you watch the first 2+ minutes of this video:

Isn’t it fun watching Gutfeld stick the shiv into liberals, then giving it a sharp twist?

Technorati: Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, Donald Trump, Neil Gorsuch, Mitch McConnell, Economy, Regulations, Energy Independence, GDP, Republicans, Election 2018

At 12:51 am CT, Vice President Pence announced that the Senate had passed the Tax Cuts & Jobs Act by a 51-49 vote. Shortly thereafter, President Trump “tweeted his reaction,” saying “We are one step closer to delivering MASSIVE tax cuts for working families across America,” the president wrote. “Special thanks to @SenateMajLdr Mitch McConnell and Chairman @SenOrrinHatch for shepherding our bill through the Senate. Look forward to signing a final bill before Christmas!”

Naturally, Democrats criticized the bill. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi chimed in, “calling the legislation a ‘betrayal of the American middle class.'” then adding that the “GOP tax scam is a product of haste, carelessness and cruelty,” Pelosi wrote. “It was written on Republicans’ trickle-down delusions, not analysis or facts. It was written first and foremost for the wealthiest one percent, not middle class families trying to get ahead.”

In a little over a year since getting elected, President Trump has earned the trust of the American people on the economy. As I’ve stated before, unemployment is dropping, consumer confidence is soaring and the economy is growing at a 3.3% annual rate, something that the Democrats said was impossible. Remember that when you read Ms. Pelosi’s statement:

Speaker Ryan issued this statement congratulating the Senate on passing the Tax Cuts & Jobs Act:

I commend my Senate colleagues for this historic action. For the first time since 1986, both the House and the Senate have passed a major overhaul of our nation’s tax code. Now we will move quickly to a conference committee so we can get a final bill to President Trump’s desk. The hardworking people of this country are counting on us to deliver real relief. That means more jobs, faster economic growth, bigger paychecks, and a tax cut for Americans from all walks of life. These opportunities only come around once in a generation, and now it is time for us to seize this moment.

Chuck Schumer preached doom and gloom on the Senate floor, saying that “Historians will mark today as one of the darkest, black letter days in the long history of this Senate.”

Let’s be clear about this. Not a single Democrat voted for the bill in the House or Senate. Further, when President Trump invited Ms. Pelosi, Sen. Schumer, Sen. McConnell and Speaker Ryan to negotiate a budget deal, Pelosi and Schumer were no-shows. Sen. Schumer has expressed a willingness to shut down the government if the bill to fund government operations includes funding for building Kate’s Wall along the U.S.-Mexican border.

Summarizing things, Democrats hate cutting taxes, want to shut down the government and oppose building a border wall that will keep illegal aliens, drug smugglers and human traffickers out of the United States. In other words, they don’t want to fund the government, protect the people or implement policies that grow the economy. Other than that, they’re great.

Tuesday night, Speaker Ryan was Bret Baier’s and Martha MacCallum’s guest for a townhall meeting in Herndon, Virginia. Specifically, the subject was the Tax Cut and Jobs Act. It would be fun watching him slice-and-dice Nancy Pelosi on the subject, though I’m certain she’d never participate in such a debate.

Ryan on how the tax cuts would help veterans:

Ryan on small business growth:

(Notice the specificity of his response.)
Ryan on the need to grow the economy:

Thus far, the Democrats’ economic plan is to criticize the Republican plan. That’s the plan offered by Pelosi and Schumer. That’s bad enough. The Bernie/Warren plan is even worse. They want to raise taxes and drive companies overseas.

Do we want a vibrant economy led by robust small business investment or do we want the pathetic economic growth we had during the Obama administration? That’s a pretty easy answer for most people.

Within minutes of the GOP rollout of their tax reform and simplification plan, Democrats like Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer and Chris van Hollen were criticizing the plan that they hadn’t seen. Ms. Pelosi called it a Ponzi Scheme, saying “Even after ransacking all the middle-class benefits, Republicans are still adding trillions to the deficit,’ she said, adding that the plan is a ‘scheme to use the debt they pile up today to obliterate Medicare and Medicaid tomorrow.'” Then she said “This is a shell game, a Ponzi scheme that corporate America will perpetrate on the American people. But if you’re the wealthiest 1 percent, Republicans will give you the sun, the moon, and the stars — all of that at the expense of the great middle class.”

Meanwhile, Sen. Schumer wrote this op-ed earlier this week, insisting that “Trump’s plan, by contrast, would slash taxes for the top tax bracket, repeal the estate tax, and create a huge new loophole…”

Sen. van Hollen issued a statement, saying “Ending the state income tax deduction for hardworking families in order to give a massive tax giveaway to big corporations and the very wealthy is sadly par for the course in this Republican tax plan. We will fight it tooth and nail.”

Meanwhile, this plan that the Democrats are criticizing without reading the bill (they have a habit of that, don’t they?) will likely get some Democrats’ votes:

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said on “The Daily Briefing” today that he expects to have some Senate Democrats support tax reform. He told Dana Perino that there are “at least three” Democrats in the Senate who have signaled they’re likely to be a “yes” on tax reform.

It’s clear that Sen. McConnell relishes the thought of blasting Ms. Pelosi’s statements. That’s the highlight of this video:

McConnell chuckled when Perino played House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi’s (D-Ca.) criticism of the proposal. Pelosi called it “deficit-exploding” and cast it as a “multi-trillion dollar giveaway to the wealthiest and corporations” at the expense of children, seniors and workers. McConnell said the Washington Post rated the claim as “four Pinocchios,” calling it “almost entirely inaccurate.”

McConnell said the bill unveiled today would reduce middle-class taxes and business taxes “to prevent our jobs from being exported to other countries. That’s the core of the bill.”

Let’s set something straight. Democrats are too invested in the Resistance to do the right thing. Telling the truth isn’t part of their action plan. With today’s Democratic Party, ideology trumps doing what’s right.

Later on the show, Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), a member of the budget and appropriations committees, said the plan is a $2 trillion “windfall” for big corporations, insisting that middle-class families will see higher taxes. “There are millions of middle-class taxpayers who will see their taxes increase in order to provide tax breaks for multinational corporations,” said Van Hollen. He said there are a number of proposals from the Democratic caucus to help working and middle-class families, specifically with child care costs.

Notice van Hollen’s trickery? He isn’t interested in across-the-board tax cuts nor is he interested in tax simplification. He wants specific carve-outs for voting groups he wants to keep voting for Democrats. Further, van Hollen’s idea of tax policy keeps lawyers, lobbyists and accountants fully employed. The GOP plan hopes to limit complexities in the tax code, thereby reducing the cost of tax compliance.

Reducing the cost of tax compliance is a major reduction in expenses to small businesses. To entrepreneurs, cutting compliance costs is just as welcome as cutting tax rates. Either way, it’s more money in their pockets.

Technorati: Tax Simplification, Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, Tax Reform, Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer, Chris van Hollen, Democrats, Mitch McConnell, Paul Ryan, Republicans, Election 2018

This morning, Rep. Steve Scalise, (R-LA), made his first appearance on the House floor since his attack on a baseball diamond on June 14th. It was an emotional return. Upon his arrival on the House floor, Speaker Paul Ryan said “the Chair wishes to mark the return to the chamber of our dear friend and colleague from Louisiana, Mr. Steve Scalise. After another standing ovation, Speaker Ryan declared “Our prayers have been answered. His bravery and his family’s strength have been such an inspiration to this House and to the people it serves. America is grateful for this moment. The Chair now proudly asks ‘For what purpose does the gentleman from Louisiana seek recognition?'” Mr. Scalise’s reply was “To speak out of order, Mr. Speaker.” Upon hearing that, Speaker Ryan replied “The gentleman is recognized for as much time as he may consume.”

At the start of his speech, Rep. Scalise spoke about his faith, saying “It starts with God. When I was laying out on that ball field, the first thing I did when I was down and I couldn’t move anymore, I just started to pray. And I will tell you, it gave me an incredible sense of calm, knowing that, at that point, it was in God’s hands. But I prayed for very specific things and I will tell you pretty much every one of those prayers were answered. And they were some pretty challenging prayers that I was putting in God’s hands. But He really did deliver for me and my family.”

Suffice it to say there weren’t many dry eyes in the room at that point:

Later in his speech, he thanked David Bailey and Cristal Griner, his security detail that morning, for opening fire on the gunman even though they had both been hit, saying “David, you are my hero, you saved my life. Thank you so much.”

Scalise also made special mention of Rep. Brad Wenstrup, saying that without his tourniquet, he wouldn’t have lived. Scalise noted that Rep. Wenstrup is a doctor and a former combat surgeon who served in Iraq.

It’s time for the Democrats’ Resistance Movement to die. It’s time for the Evergreen College intolerance to stop. Both movements are built on intolerance and hostility. Bret Weinstein, the professor at the heart of the Evergreen protests, was reviled for telling Tucker Carlson “They imagine that I am a racist and that I am teaching racism in the classroom. And that has caused them to imagine that I have no right to speak, and that I am harming students by the very act of teaching them.”

The truth is that it’s time to set aside disagreements while elevating the debate on both sides. This is a teaching moment for both political parties. For instance, Republicans need to learn when to accept three-fourths of a loaf in negotiations rather than insisting on the entire loaf.

The Democrats have a tougher task. They’ve lost the ability to make rational policy arguments. The other problem that the Democratic Party has is that their most amped-up activists think people who don’t agree with them essentially as infidels. They don’t see conservatives as just wrong on policy. The hard left that James T. Hodgkinson was part of thinks of conservatives as evil. Hodgkinson himself was part of a far left organization that called for violence against Republicans, including President Trump.

These speeches, by Speaker Ryan and Minority Leader Pelosi need to be the starting point in changing the culture in DC:

This has to stop, too:

An upstate New York congresswoman already in shock at the shooting of her colleagues at a baseball practice also received a chilling email entitled “One down, 216 to go.” Claudia Tenney, a freshman representative from the Utica area, received the message Wednesday in the hours after her fellow House Republican Steve Scalise, from Louisiana, was shot in Alexandria, Va.

It’s time to declare a zero-tolerance policy on speech advocating violence. (Think hollering fire in a crowded theater.)

It’s apparent that Democrats are overplaying the CBO’s report on repealing the ACA. It’s apparent after reading this Washington Post article.

That’s apparent based on the opening paragraph of their article, which says “At least 18 million people would lose health insurance in the first year if Republicans move ahead with plans to repeal major portions of the Affordable Care Act without a replacement plan, estimates a report from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.”

The first telling part is when CBO says 18,000,000 “people would lose health insurance in the first year if Republicans move ahead with plans to repeal major portions of the Affordable Care Act without a replacement plan.” That sentence alone nullifies the importance of the CBO’s analysis. That’s because Republicans have consistently said that they’d pass the repeal and replace in the same piece of legislation. They’ve also promised to not let anyone get left hanging while transitioning from Obamacare to the new and improved health care system.

This doom and gloom is helping Democrats overplay their hand:

The number of people without insurance would grow to about 32 million within the first decade if congressional Republicans follow a 2015 plan to repeal the health-care law without an alternative, the new report says. It also estimates that health insurance premiums for people buying individual non-group coverage would double within a decade, further complicating GOP promises that people will not lose coverage under their plan.

It’s clear that the new plan to replace the ACA will be significantly different than anything that’s been used before. Further, Democrats are setting themselves up for failure. The only way that the Democrats’ strategy will work is if Republicans totally drop the ball. The chances of that happening with President Trump, Vice President Pence, HHS Secretary Price, Speaker Ryan and Sen. John Barrasso leading the push is virtually nonexistent.

Rest assured that President Trump’s first State of the Union Address will include details of what the replace plan will include. I’d expect that legislation will have been submitted by then. Further, I wouldn’t be surprised if the legislation will gotten its first hearings by then. Once President Trump blasts this information out to the nation, the Democrats’ handwringing and demagoguery will put them in God’s little acre — between a rock and a hard place.

Technorati: Donald Trump, Mike Pence, Tom Price, HHS Secretary, CBO, Paul Ryan, Repeal and Replace, John Barrasso, Republicans, Affordable Care Act, Uninsured, Propaganda, Charles Schumer, Nancy Pelosi, Democrats