Yesterday, President Trump first threatened to veto that horrific $1.3 trillion omnibus spending bill, then reluctantly signed it, saying he had to do it because of the necessary military spending increase, but warning that it’s the last such bill he’ll ever sign.
If the furious reaction from Republican voters on social media (see James Woods’ response at the link and the commenters on my pages) are any indication, that’s probably true. There’s a good chance that signing that bill was the equivalent of the Republicans signing their own suicide note. It could cost them the Congress, and if it does, there’s little doubt Trump will be impeached (Michael Moore is already rallying Democrats by telling them they’re selecting the jury for Trump’s impeachment). Even if he survives that, it could easily be the last spending bill written by a Republican Congress that he'll ever see.
The last thing the GOP needed when they were trying to make the case that it would be a disaster for the Democrats to retake Congress was to do something just as bad if not worse than the Democrats would have done. But you could tell from the gleeful smiles on Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer that they couldn’t have looted the Treasury any better themselves. As one critic pointed out, at least when the Democrats blew nearly a trillion dollars on a useless, pork-laden “stimulus bill,” they rewarded their own supporters. The Republicans managed to shower money on Democratic darlings like Planned Parenthood and gun control while shortchanging their own supporters’ priorities, such as the border wall.
Some conservatives are trying to make lemonade out of this rancid citrus fruit by noting that there’s still a chance for Republicans to use reconciliation rules to write a sane budget and pass it before the election. Maybe that will be enough to sway voters, the way passing the tax cut helped soothe the fury over their betrayal on repealing Obamacare (which is again funded by the new spending bill.) But with this much fury this close to the election, I wouldn’t bet the farm on it. And trying to explain that it’s similar to previous spending bills Congress has passed without reading them to avoid an artificial shutdown deadline won’t wash: voters gave the Republicans the Congress and White House to end business as usual, not continue it.
Don’t get me wrong: I still think it’s of paramount importance to keep the Congress out of Democratic hands. Handing that power back to a Murderers' Row of Common Sense like Pelosi, Schumer, Bernie Sanders, Maxine Waters, Kamala Harris and Elizabeth Warren so they can block the desperately-needed course corrections from their disastrous policies really would be like signing a suicide note. I will campaign like crazy to prevent that. But there’s no question that Republicans who voted for this monstrosity have made the task of holding Congress exponentially more difficult. I also do not envy them when it’s primary election time.
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Permalink: https://www.mikehuckabee.com/2018/3/i-don-t-envy-republicans-come-election-day
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