For 'some' who believe it 'equally compelling' for Dems to emphasize Trump's power grab along with his health care cuts
MSNBC's Melissa Murray questioning Hakeem Jeffries today asked why Democratic leaders are emphasizing republicans' refusal to extend health care tax credits, a deliberate action by republicans which will double, even triple, some 22 million Americans' premiums without action by Congress - this tax credit temporary despite making most of Trump's 2017 tax cuts benefiting the wealthy permanent.
The host cited 'some' who believe it would be 'equally compelling' for the party to say they refuse to fund an administration and government bent on abusing its power. Why not do both?
First of all, they are doing just that.
In addition to the Democratic leaders' demand for the restoration of the health care tax credits, they are also demanding that Congress change the rescission provisions in the CR which allows the president to 'claw back' money that Congress agreed to and approved in bipartisan deals like this one they're seeking; only to have those funds to be snatched away later in a simple majority vote- making negotiations with republicans a farce and a con.
AOC with Chris Hayes, yesterday:
AOC: The mechanism by which a deal is locked is not just about agreeing in concept on tax credits. We need to do it with no tricks, no games, and no back doors, which includes rescissions. And when we talk about rescission, that is the mechanism that the federal government is using to gut and destroy rule of law across the board.
We are fighting to ensure that health care is protected for every American. But the way that we do that also means that the only way that you guarantee that is by forcing them to adhere to the rule of law, which means eliminating the recession loopholes that they put in in the CR earlier this year, which the Senate unfortunately had caved on then, and we're ensuring that doesn't happen now.
A broader point I'd like to make is that our legislators are the end game of the process of advocacy and activism, operating at the part of the democratic process in which all of our diverse interests and concerns from disparate regions of the nation are to be reconciled into legislative action.
One of the key organizers of the March on Washington, Bayard Rustin, wrote in his book, 'Strategies for Freedom, that for a movement to succeed it must have more than just volume; it needs to have a militant sense of responsibility. To transform agitation into action, he wrote, they need to have a legislative goal at the head of their protests and demands.
In effect, legislating health care tax credits in a budget resolution would seem to be well in line with something that these legislators can accomplish beyond just agitation, which is, effectively, our own enduring responsibility in this fight.
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