The New York Times reports that Congressional Republican plan to continue pushing the monumentally-bad Paul Ryan budget and everything that entails during the next session of Congress.
Congressional Republicans intend to present a plan to overhaul Medicare, calling for voucherlike “premium supports” to steer seniors into buying commercial health insurance, and to transform Medicaid, which would be cut and turned into block grants to state governments. They also intend to set up a new commission to study options on Social Security, while relying on what one House Republican aide called “the solid foundation” of the Ryan budget plan.
If Congressional Republicans want to make the 2016 election all about the Ryan budget, again, who am I to argue?
If the party follows through on the roadmap they’ve laid out since winning the election, we could see several continuing resolutions in our future if not another government shutdown. They’ve already pledged to repeal Obamacare in addition to resurrecting Paul Ryan’s Path to Poverty.
Congressional leadership may not want to be responsible for presiding over a government shutdown which they will own as the majority in both chambers, but the faithful are convinced that they’ve been handed a mandate to repeal Obamacare and roll back decades of social progress. It’s the predictable conservative overreach which will be driven, in this case, by Ted Cruz.
The good news is the president can veto whatever devilry congressional Republicans pass and the Republican party only has a few months to implement their grand designs before the primary season begins and both chambers come to a stand-still.