House Republicans celebrated this afternoon the passage of a one-month spending bill that includes a six-year extension of the children's health insurance program. That latter part is a sign that Paul Ryan is getting clever, and whenever he gets clever, his plan usually flops. It doesn't help Ryan that Trump himself helped negotiate this deal.
The government runs out of spending authority Friday at midnight, and the Senate plans to take up the House measure Friday. Republicans need 60 votes to get it done, and they don't have it, so...that would mean a shutdown, unless somebody blinks.
All of this inability to govern is having real consequences. Republicans added CHIP to the bill thinking it would get Democratic support without anything to help Dreamers. But they left a host of other crucial health care programs out that also expired, like CHIP, in September. (It's January!)
The maternal-infant home-visiting program is cutting its rolls and can't hire staff, community health centers are in crisis, teaching hospitals are struggling: for no reason whatsoever, Congress is letting things just fall apart.
(Why did they extend CHIP for the odd time-frame of six years? Because by year six, the CBO scores CHIP as saving money, so Republicans can stuff other goodies in the bill on the back of the program.)
So after this Paul Ryan bill fails, will Mitch McConnell put a short-term spending bill to keep the government open for a few days on the floor? I think he probably will.
2. Speaking of Ryan's bill, I had a scoop this morning on it: the measure would allow the Trump administration to secretly shift money to new intelligence projects without informing Congress. It would be a break with 70 years of law and tradition.
3. The Trump administration has told Puerto Rico that it is too rich to get aid money. No, really.
4. A new report says that Border Patrol agents, going back to at least 2012, have been vandalizing and destroying humanitarian supplies left for people trudging through the desert. It's hard to wrap my head around that level of cruelty and indifference. Story is here.
5. If you're reading this Friday morning, part two of our investigation into the insurance firm Aflac is now published,
check it out at TheIntercept.com.This email grows by word of mouth. If you enjoy getting it, please forward this note to friends and tell them to sign up to start getting their own copy here. I'm the Washington bureau chief at The Intercept, and I send this several times a week. If you want to contribute directly to help keep the thing running, you can do so here, though be warned a donation comes with no tote bags or extra premium content or anything. Or you can support it by buying a copy of Out of the Ooze: The Story of Dr. Tom Price or Wall Street's White House, the first two books put out by Strong Arm Press, a small progressive publishing house I cofounded.
No comments:
Post a Comment