By Robert Tracinski
Tuesday, March 28, 2017
Their failure to pass the Obamacare “repeal and replace”
bill was a disaster for House Republicans. The only way the disaster could have
been worse is if they had passed it.
This was a case of “you had one job” if ever there was
one. Republicans have spent the past seven years obstructing Obamacare,
complaining about it, campaigning against it, promising to repeal it, and
repeatedly putting forward repeal votes. The American people rewarded them with
two smashing midterm congressional victories that gave them control of both the
House and the Senate. Now, with a Republican in the White House who would
presumably sign whatever they put in front of him, there was no excuse for failing
to deliver on that one big promise.
Yet somehow they have still managed to do it. You’ve got
to admire ingenuity like that.
The causes were pretty obvious, and I already covered
them prospectively. The first was tactical: making “repeal and replace” one
package deal, instead of a straight repeal first, followed by a new set of
health-care reforms. Instead of using the repeal to create pressure to pass the
subsequent reforms, they made the repeal dependent on getting everyone to agree
on a package of reforms—which was never going to happen.
The second error was more basic and philosophical: the
whole idea of “replacing” Obamacare, which already stacked the decks toward
Obamacare Lite. It committed them to something that would try to do more or
less the same thing as Obamacare, instead of actual free-market reforms. As I
explained, House Speaker Paul Ryan’s big claim to fame was his willingness to
tackle entitlement reform, and that’s exactly how he approached this: Democrats
pass the new entitlements, and Republicans reform them. It’s a long and
depressing old story, filed under the heading, “Me Too.”
Yet there was still something new and hopeful to come out
of this debacle. It was precisely the reason the Obamacare Lite replacement
failed: the intransigence of the House Freedom Caucus.
Yes, that’s a good thing, because we know how a bill like
this would have worked in the past. The Republican leadership would decide they
need to nominally “repeal” Obamacare to appease the base, while actually
keeping major parts of it to avoid being called mean and horrible (which they
will be called anyway). So they cobble together an awful, botched compromise,
then force it down everybody’s throat, and nobody is able to stand up and stop
it.
They certainly tried
to do it this time. President Trump just wanted a bill and didn’t care what was
in it, responding to objections from the Freedom Caucus by telling them to
“Forget about the little sh–,” which is a really great way of confirming to
someone that you don’t care about the things he cares about. But they were
expected to swallow what was served to them, with Steve Bannon thundering,
“This is not a discussion. This is not a debate. You have no choice but to vote
for this bill.”
Ah, but they did have a choice. The Federalist’s own Ben
Domenech fills in the missing link, pointing out that this is the product of “a
post-earmark legislative process.” Until he mentioned it, I had almost
forgotten that part of the story. It’s easy to overlook, because it’s a matter
of what is not there, the proverbial dog that didn’t bark.
What we have not seen is the old-fashioned arm-twisting
that was routine under the system of congressional earmarks for spending. What
we haven’t seen is a progression of lawmakers being either enticed with the
promise of lavish new funds for projects in their districts, or threatened with
the withdrawal of that spending.
When Republicans got rid of earmarks a decade ago, some
of us pointed out that actual earmark spending was a tiny portion of the budget,
about 1 percent of spending. The argument in return was that this 1 percent had
a corrupting effect that multiplied its impact. For the sake of a few millions
here or there in earmark spending, congressmen could be led into approving many
billions more in giant new spending programs favored by their party leadership.
It looks like there was something to this argument.
Eliminating earmarks meant that the members of the Freedom Caucus has less to
gain and less to fear from the leadership. Or rather, it meant that they feared
their constituents—whom they had promised to get rid of Obamacare—more than
they feared Ryan or Trump. Way more than they feared Bannon. They were capable
of so much independence that they actually formed a pact to resist outside pressure.
In a conference room in the Rayburn
House Office Building, the group met that evening and made a secret pact. No
member would commit his vote before consulting with the entire group—not even
if Trump himself called to ask for an on-the-spot commitment. The idea, hatched
by Freedom Caucus Vice Chairman Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), was to bind them
together in negotiations and ensure the White House or House leaders could not
peel them off one by one.
Twenty-eight of the group’s roughly
three dozen members took the plunge.
Notice how this turns the big narrative of the last
election on its head. We were supposed to support Trump because he was the guy
who was finally going to break the corrupt Republican “establishment.” Now he’s
the guy launching tweet-storms on behalf of the establishment and against the
House Freedom Caucus—the guys who actually did
break the GOP establishment. And all because the Tea Party movement brought a
few dozen hard line small-government advocates into office, and the ban on
earmarks helped them guard their independence.
Twenty-eight lawmakers who care about freedom and are
willing to stand up for it is not nearly enough. But Ryan and the rest of the
Republican leadership now dare not make a step without bringing them on board.
If they decide to be smart about it—and I’m not saying they will, but it’s
always possibile—they’ll start over again with something that actually looks
like a repeal of Obamacare.
So this is a pretty good start.
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