The Republicans began this presidency with such hope. They had unified government for the first time since the waning days of the George W. Bush era.
Having stolen from then-President Barack Obama the seat on the Supreme Court that had been held by Antonin Scalia, they were poised to ram their agenda through all three branches of government. This was despite the fact that President Donald Trump actually lost the popular vote, Democratic senators had more total votes than Republican senators, and House Republicans got 57 percent of the seats with 52 percent of the votes. (Their gerrymandering and voter suppression were very effective.)
What a glorious time for the Grand Old Party! The reviled President Obama was gone and the forecast was sunny! To paraphrase the Bard, “Now is the winter of our discontent. Made glorious summer by this son of York.”
We have a saying in New England: “If you don’t like the weather, wait a minute.” The Washington, D.C., version is: “If you don’t like this issue, wait a minute.”
This week we have cycled through health care (again and again), North Korea, taking a knee in the NFL, and private planes for public officials. And that was just Monday!
Tuesday night brought us the win by Roy Moore, the notorious scofflaw gay-hating judge, as the Republican Senate candidate from Alabama. On Wednesday, we got a tax-reform proposal that shovels money into the pockets of wealthy individuals and their heirs while reducing federal revenue by billions of dollars and eliminating the state and local tax deductions that benefit the middle class. Thursday, Ivanka and Jared were caught using private email in the White House. Also, we now have the lowest cap on refugees in our country’s history.
Meanwhile, the real weather smashed into Puerto Rico 10 days ago, but the federal government is acting as if this tragedy happened in a different country. The president explained that “it is on an island in the middle of the ocean, it’s out in the ocean! You can’t just drive your trucks there from other states.”
USAID was able to airlift supplies into Haiti four days after Hurricane Matthew in 2016. More than a week after Puerto Rico was devastated by Maria, help may finally be on the way to 3.5 million American citizens who are suffering unimaginable hardships.
And the Republicans’ agenda? They have rolled back Obama era-rules; avoided a government shutdown by funding the federal government for the rest of fiscal 2017; passed a sanctions bill targeting Russia, Iran and North Korea; reauthorized NASA; and approved a measure intended to improve weather forecasting.
Eradicating anything that Obama did is at the top of the agenda. When questioned why he supported Obamacare repeal, Senator Charles Grassley from Iowa said, “You know, I could maybe give you 10 reasons why this bill shouldn’t be considered. But Republicans campaigned on this so often that you have a responsibility to carry out what you said in the campaign. That’s pretty much as much of a reason as the substance of the bill.”
While the latest travesty know as Graham-Cassidy was withdrawn, there will be another version. It won’t be a serious bill that would address the real problems with our health care system, but it will check the “eradicate Obamacare” box.
And tax reform is on the agenda. The GOP has to pay the piper. Casino and real estate magnates, hedge funders and Wall Street bankers invested in the Republican ticket are expecting a return. The tax bill is being sold as legislation that will help moderate-income taxpayers, when in fact the benefits will flow directly to the Republican Party’s financiers.
Infrastructure was on the agenda too, but the president is pulling back from creating a program that would depend on private investment. This approach failed in Indiana (when Vice President Mike Pence was governor), so Trump now is defaulting to having state and local governments foot the bill.
Across Houston, federally mandated stormwater controls weren’t funded and the water had nowhere to go. Puerto Rico‘s roads are unusable and the electric grid will be off line for months. But construction on the $1.6 billion border wall has begun.
It is no longer even surprising that our president has spent a week ignoring Puerto Rico, protecting the flag from kneeling football players, insulting the leader of nuclear-armed North Korea and pledging his support to a theocratic candidate for the Alabama Senate seat.
While I am grateful that this Congress has failed to enact much beyond improved weather forecasting, I don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows.
Clare Higgins, of Northampton, a former mayor of the city, is executive director of the nonprofit Community Action! of the Franklin, Hampshire and North Quabbin Regions. She can be reached at opinion@gazettenet.com.