Yesterday, the Republican Senate surrendered itself to unavoidable failure. "This was big step," said our wholly unhinged, reality-detached president of the vote to proceed with debate; "Now we move forward towards truly great health care for the American people." The "big step," however, was nothing but a plunge into a rabbit hole.
First up was Mitch McConnell's "most comprehensive plan" to repeal and replace Obamacare, and it "fell far short of the votes it needed," reports the Times. Axios, in its reporting, is blunt: "This was the Senate's best attempt at an ACA replacementβ¦. Its failure suggests Senate Republicans won't be able to come together on a replacement plan without Democrats in the future, no matter what happens next."
What happens next is a vote on a repeal-only bill, which is even more doomed than the comprehensive bill. "Some Republicans worry that repealing the law without providing a replacement would leave many Americans without health care coverage," observes the Times in a flourish of amusing understatement.
What happens then is, perhaps, a vote on a "skinny" bill, which in reality is emaciated to the point of being skeletal. It would neither repeal nor replace Obamacare. Its principal thrust would be twofold: to save face and abolish the health care mandate, which, at the toddler president's direction, the IRS has already stopped enforcing.
As for John McCain's theatrics, my anger has turned to nothing but pity. He railed on the Senate floor that "although he had voted to begin debate on repealing the Affordable Care Act, he would definitely not vote for a Senate health care bill" β the comprehensive bill. He then voted for it. Through acute brain disease and chronic betrayal, McCain is the face of the very party he railed against as well.
All of which, to deploy a bit of understatement myself, leaves congressional Republicans and their chronically diseased president in something of a predicament. Their tax-cut bill masquerading as health-care reform is dead, which dries up their wet dream of larger tax reform. Much more than that, their raison d'Γͺtre of the past seven years β to repeal and replace the nation's greatest evil since slavery β is gone, murdered at the hands of almost unimaginable incompetence. An infrastructure bill? β which is to say, a jobs bill? β which is to say, that which our daft president demagogued to the white working class? It's nothing more than a one-page fantasy.
In short, they got nothin', these Republicans, other than total control of the federal government.
Next up? Budgets and debt ceilings. And if that doesn't chill you to the bone, well β¦