Unable to Govern

I think Republicans fully expected to be conducting multiple investigations into the Clinton administration by now and so the election caught them off guard. Paul Krugman says they are now trapped by their own lies on many issues.

Republicans have spent years routinely lying for the sake of political advantage. And now — not just on health care, but across the board — they are trapped by their own lies, forced into trying to enact policies they know won’t work.

[R]epealing the Affordable Care Act wasn’t the only thing Republicans promised; they also promised to replace it with something better and cheaper, doing away with all the things people don’t like about Obamacare without creating any new problems.

Yet Republicans never had any idea how to fulfill that promise ..., or indeed how to repeal the A.C.A. without taking insurance away from tens of millions. That is, they were lying about health care all along.

Update (September 30):  Taxes are up next and Conor Lynch agrees that Republicans face a dilemma.

They are incapable of governing, and much better at rejecting policies than passing them. Since January, the Republicans have failed to accomplish much of anything that they ran on in 2016, and their incompetence has fortunately surpassed even their cruelty.

The GOP thrives as the party of opposition because it is a fundamentally reactionary party. ... They want to restore the country to its former glory and make America great again, before the left ruined the country with their liberal and socialist agenda. This may be an effective message on the campaign trail, at least with certain constituencies, but it does not translate into effective governing.

The actual tax plan seems to be mainly massive cuts for the rich.  Is anyone surprised that a certain government official stands to gain as much as $750 million over ten years?

Thom Hartmann points out that the tax cut con has been going on for over 30 years. He quotes Reagan adviser Bruce Bartlett:

Virtually everything Republicans say about taxes today is a lie. Tax cuts and tax rate reductions will not pay for themselves; they never have. Republicans don’t even believe they will, they are just excuses to slash spending for the poor when revenues collapse and deficits rise. There is no evidence that tax reform raises growth, although it may improve fairness and tax administration.

Update (October 8):  The big Republican donors are getting angry about not getting what they paid for.

Update (October 11):  Steve Bannon's solution to Republican incompetence is to primary all the incumbents.

Update (October 14):  Charlie May considers Bannon's plan to blow up the establishment.

It would be naive to blame the result of the 2016 election on one single thing, given how many factors and variables were involved. But it would be equally naive to ignore the fact that the narrative of anti-establishment rage and frustration was a major reason [von Clownstick] won last November, and that Washington remains poorly equipped to combat it.

The emergence of the alt-right and of figures like [Fuckface], Bannon and Richard Spencer -- and at the opposite pole, perhaps the emergence of Bernie Sanders as well -- reflected the fact that voters had become fed up with the status quo and were willing to contemplate previously unthinkable options. These phenomena were decades in the making, and they're not going away overnight either.

Update (October 29):  Sabrina Siddiqui contends the Republican civil war has just begun.

Critics like Flake, Corker and McCain subscribe to the views espoused by Republican presidents back to Ronald Reagan – a belief in limited government, moderate positions on immigration and trade – but Bannonites have waged war on “globalists” and used race and class to drive a wedge between the establishment and a rancorous base unmoored by the economic and cultural dislocation of the last 20 years.

Update (November 1):  Even state legislators have had enough.

[Texas Speaker Joe] Straus' departure is another troubling sign for the future of the Republican Party. Even being perceived as a reasonable person beholden to political realities is increasingly fatal to the reputation of a Republican politician, at least among people who vote for Republicans. The country-club Republican, who has right-wing politics but still has both feet on the ground, is a dying breed.

Update (November 24):  Bruce Bartlett is unhappy with his party.

The Republican Party needs to die. It’s already a zombie. It’s brain dead.

Update (January 20, 2018):  Perhaps the only thing Republicans care about is making sure the Democrats get blamed for the government shutdown. They sure don't have the leadership required to actually do their job.

Update (March 7, 2018):  Heather Digby Parton suggests that the legislative branch isn't really interested in governing.

There is no probe into the massive corruption and conflicts of interest in every agency of the executive branch, including the Oval Office. ... The executive branch is running wild, doing whatever the incompetent, unqualified and/or extremist agency head feels like doing, and Congress has decided it no longer needs to oversee the White House.

Leaking information to those under suspicion shows that Republicans prefer to help their friends rather than do their job.

You have to ask yourself why a member of the House Intelligence Committee, supposedly tasked with protecting and overseeing national secrets, would want to tip off Michael Cohen about information that might help him. It's all very shady.

There has never been a case of congressional corruption on quite this level before. Speaker Paul Ryan is unwilling to rock the boat, and there's no appetite among the rest of the House GOP caucus to do anything about it. The only possible answer is to toss Nunes and the rest of [Fuckface's] toadies out of the majority in November.

Update (May 14, 2018):  Parton discusses the impact of an understaffed federal government.

[T]he elimination of experts and the deliberate erasure of institutional memory in department after department is chilling. It will be difficult, if not impossible, to replace these people even after [Fuckface] is gone. His lasting legacy may be the destruction of the federal government as we know it.

Update (August 13, 2018):  After hearing Representative Devin Nunes speak at a secretly taped fundraiser, a lifelong Republican realizes the party's only goal is to protect Fuckface. He will now vote Democratic for President.

Update (December 25, 2018):  Heather Digby Parton notes the passing of Paul Ryan's career and she seems underwhelmed by the accomplishments.

Look for Paul Ryan to be batting those baby blues and wringing his hands on TV over debt and deficits any day now. It's a beautiful scam and it's been working for decades. If you didn't know better you'd almost think they planned it this way.

Update (January 27, 2019):  Even when Republicans are out of power, they still find a way to be dicks.

House Republicans are refusing to name members to the House Intelligence Committee and, in the process, are effectively stalling special counsel Robert Mueller's ongoing investigation into the [Fuckface]-Russia scandal.