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Groton Daily Independent
Friday, July 28, 2017 ~ Vol. 25 - No. 028 ~ 19 of 54
too, McConnell and his top lieutenants turned toward the “skinny repeal.”
It was to have been the ticket to negotiations with the House, which had passed its own legislation in May. Opponents mobilized quickly against McConnell’s new strategy.
The insurance company lobby group, America’s Health Insurance Plans, wrote to Senate leaders Thursday
saying that ending Obama’s requirement that people buy insurance without strengthening insurance mar- kets would produce “higher premiums, fewer choices for consumers and fewer people covered next year.” And a bipartisan group of governors including John Kasich of Ohio and Brian Sandoval of Nevada also
announced against it. So did the American Medical Association.
Numerous polls had shown little public support for the GOP’s earlier proposals to repeal and replace
Obama’s law. A recent AP-NORC poll found only 22 percent of the public backing the Republican approach, while 51 percent were opposed.
In the end the misgivings of a few Republican senators derailed the GOP’s seven-year quest to roll back “Obamacare.” It remains to be seen whether a bipartisan deal can now be reached to stabilize insurance markets that have been rattled by rising premiums and insurer exits.
The dizzying series of legislative maneuvers this week left even veteran senators puzzled.
“We’re in the twilight zone of legislating,” said Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill of Missouri.
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Associated Press writers Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar, Stephen Ohlemacher and Kevin Freking contributed
to this report.
Pentagon, border wall covered in $788B House spending bill By ANDREW TAYLOR, Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) — The House has passed a $788 billion spending bill that combines a $1.6 billion down payment for President Donald Trump’s controversial border wall with Mexico with a whopping budget increase for the Pentagon.
The 235-192 vote both eases a large backlog of un nished spending bills and gives Trump and his House GOP allies political wins heading into the August recess. Challenging hurdles remain because the measure will meet with more powerful Democratic opposition in the Senate.
The 326-page measure would make good on longtime GOP promises to reverse an erosion in military readiness. It would give veterans programs a 5 percent increase and fund a 2.4 percent military pay raise. GOP leaders used the popularity of the Pentagon and veterans programs to power through money for
Trump’s border wall.
“Every single dime the President requested to start building a wall on our southern border he’s going to
get,” said House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif. “Most importantly, we’re sending more to the VA to x veterans’ health care and reform outdated VA systems.”
Still, a potential government shutdown battle over the U.S.-Mexico wall looms with Senate Democrats this fall. The generous defense spending increases also run afoul of strict spending limits set by an earlier budget law, and there’s been no progress on a bipartisan budget deal that would be a prerequisite for the higher spending to take full effect.
The House added Trump’s wall funding by a 230-196 procedural vote that denied angry Democrats an up-or-down vote. The wall gets low marks in public opinion polls and is opposed by many of the GOP’s more moderate lawmakers.
Trump promised at nearly every rally and campaign event that Mexico would pay for the wall. Mexico said no, and U.S. taxpayers will have to provide the money.
“The president has promised this funding, the American people want this funding, and today the House is making good on that promise,” said Rep. Steven Palazzo, R-Miss.
Critics say that existing fencing is more than enough and that the portions of the border without it are too remote for crossings and that tribal law, environmental requirements, and personal property rights have blocked fencing for most of the rest.