Friday, January 27, 2017

The Republican Party Now Exists Only In Name

This article describes the meeting between The Donald and Republican leaders during a retreat in Philadelphia.  The simplest way to declare the winner of the discussions was the action taken by the Speaker of the House Paul Ryan.  Prior to the retreat Ryan's website supported the TPP trade deal that The Donald opposed.  After the meeting Ryan removed support for TPP off of his website.  TPP was dead before Trump took office but Republican orthodoxy about free trade disappeared when Ryan removed it from his website.  Some the decisions below show the surrender of the Republican Party to The Donald.  Winning elections is the only meaningful objective of the GOP.  The Donald has taken possession of a large segment of its base and he has shown how to win elections with that segment and left overs from the top 1% who care only about getting their taxes cut. 

* They approved spending $15 billion on the Mexican wall.  Earlier they claimed that they could not spend $600 million to provide clean water for Flint, Michigan.

* They agreed to spending up to $1 trillion on Trump's infrastructure plan.  That was more than they gave Obama to stimulate the economy during the financial crisis.

* Similarly they approved of Trump's flurry of executive orders that circumvent Congress.  They had opposed Obama's use of executive orders in this last term.

* They agreed with Trump on the use of torture that violates international law

* They agreed with Trump's plan to investigate voter fraud despite no evidence of voter fraud

The Donald's tax proposal which cuts taxes for corporations and the super rich has been a consistent part of the GOP platform.  There was little disagreement on Trump's plan to cut taxes.  Paul Ryan now refers to the tax cuts as a way to make our tax system competitive with the rest of the world.

If you want to lean more about The Donald's plans going forward take a good look at what has happened in Poland and Hungary after they elected populist nationalists like Trump as their president. Steve Bannon, who is Trump's chief strategist intends to copy their formula.  

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