When It Comes To Denying People Healthcare, The Republicans Are Moving The Ball Forward

Friday morning Mark Pocan (D-WI), on behalf of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, proposed an amendment to protect Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid from Paul Ryan. The amendment codifies what Trump promised over and over again on the campaign trail about not allowing the Republicans to cut Social Security or Medicare. Watch Trump's statement about it from April, 2015:



And in March 2016, he was still campaigning against Paul Ryan and the House Republicans' plotting against Social Security. Trump is very specific here:



But every single Republican without exception voted against Pocan's amendment yesterday. Every Democrat voted for it and it was backed by a very wide array of groups, from AARP and the Alliance for Retired Americans to the AFL-CIO and National Nurses United. Co-sponsors included genuine progressives like Ted Lieu, Jamie Raskin, Jim McGovern, Barbara Lee, Judy Chu, Keith Ellison, and Raul Grijalva, right down the food chain to some of the most contemptible reactionary DINOs like Wasserman Schultz, Tom O’Halleran and Sean Patrick Maloney.

Ryan had already ordered the Republicans to block the amendment in the Rules Committee and did all he could to keep it from coming up, where Republicans who (falsely) claim to support Social Security and Medicare would be on the record refusing to support it. Kind of puts the lie to fake moderates like Charlie Dent (R-PA), Dave Reichert (R-WA), Leonard Lance (R-NJ), Frank LoBiondo (R-NJ), John Katko (R-NY), Carlos Curbelo (R-FL), Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL), Daniel Donovan (R-NY), Elise Stefanik (R-NY), Chris Smith (R-NJ), Rodney Davis (R-IL), Pat Meehan (R-PA), Lee Zeldin (R-NY), Martha McSally (R-AZ), Thomas MacArthur (R-NJ),Alex Mooney (R-WV), David Valadao (R-CA), David Joyce (R-OH), Peter King (R-NY), Jaime Herrera Beutler (R-WA) and Rodney Frelinghuysen (R-NJ). All of them voted against protecting Social Security and Medicare for their constituents.

A few hours later, the House voted on the GOP plan to repeal the Affordable Care Act through budgetary reconciliation. First John Yarmuth (D-KY) offered a responsible budgetary substitute, which was defeated 149-272, 37 shitheads from the Republican wing of the Democratic Party crossing the aisle to vote with the GOP:

• Pete Aguilar (New Dem-CA)
• Ami Bera (New Dem-CA)
• Julia Brownley (CA)
• Cheri Bustos (Blue Dog-IL)
• Gerald Connolly (New Dem-VA)
• Jim Cooper (Blue Dog-TN)
• Lou Correa (Blue Dog-CA)
• Jim Costa (Blue Dog-CA)
• Charlie Crist (FL)
• Henry Cuellar (Blue Dog-TX)
• John Delaney (New Dem-MD)
• Suzan DelBene (New Dem-WA)

• Bill Foster (New Dem-IL)
• Josh Gottheimer (Blue Dog-NJ)
• Jim Himes (New Dem-CT)
• Derek Kilmer (New Dem-WA)
• Ron Kind (New Dem-WI)
• Ann Kuster (New Dem-NH)
• Dan Lipinski (Blue Dog-IL)
• Dave Loebsack (IA)
• Zoe Lofgren (CA)
• Stephanie Murphy (Blue Dog-FL)
• Tom O'Halleran (Blue Dog-AZ)
• Scott Peters (New Dem-CA)
• Collin Peterson (Blue Dog-MN)
• Jared Polis (New Dem-CO)
• Kathleen Rice (New Dem-NY)
• Jacky Rosen (NV)
• Raul Ruiz (CA)
• Brad Schneider (New Dem-IL)
• Kurt Schrader (Blue Dog-OR)
• Kyrsten Sinema (Blue Dog-AZ)
• Darren Soto (New Dem-FL)
• Tom Suozzi (NY)
• Niki Tsongas (MA)
• Pete Visclosky (IN)
• Tim Walz (MN)

When the bill itself came up a few minutes later, it passed 227-198, all the Democrats voting against it and 9 Republicans voting with them, mostly because they said it was promoting a budget that would never be balanced. So far-- it's still early in the process-- the Republicans who won't have ads running against them in 2018 talking about how they kicked millions of people off healthcare are Justin Amash (MI), Charlie Dent (PA), Brian Fitzpatrick (PA), John Katko (NY), Walter Jones (NC), Raul Labrador (ID), Tom MacArthur (NJ), Thomas Massie (KY) and Tom McClintock (CA).