McConnell says:
The largest tax reduction in 31 years has contributed to the best economy in 18 years. Defense spending is up, many Dodd-Frank banking rules and the Obamacare individual mandate have been repealed. Drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, blocked for 38 years, has been approved, as has a reconfigured National Labor Relations Board, a source of much Obama administration mischief. The Congressional Review Act, under which Congress can disapprove many regulations issued by federal agencies, has been used 19 times since it was enacted in 1996 — 18 of them during this Congress.
.. This, says McConnell, constitutes the best 18 months of center-right governance in his Senate career, which began when Ronald Reagan’s second term did. There also are the judges.
.. By preventing a vote on President Barack Obama’s nomination of Merrick Garland
.. McConnell ended the requirement of a supermajority to stop filibusters of Supreme Court nominees
.. To prevent Republicans from reciprocating with filibusters against Obama’s packing-by-enlargement of the nation’s second-most-important court, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, Democrats changed Senate rules to bar filibusters of judicial nominees other than those for the Supreme Court. McConnell removed that pointless exemption to make possible the confirmation of Neil M. Gorsuch.
.. But without filibusters of legislation, he says, the nation might have socialized medicine, guaranteed government jobs, card-check workplace unionization, a ban on right-to-work laws, and other afflictions.
.. since popular election of senators began in 1914, Republicans have never had more than 60 senators.
.. Almost 30 years after the end of his presidency, Reagan still shapes events because of his nomination of Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, who often has been 20 percent of a court majority. Three decades from now, McConnell will be shaping the nation through judges who today are in their 40s, some of whom might be destined to be Gorsuch’s colleagues. This is the long game.
Timing of White House actions unrolling parts of ACA ‘couldn’t be worse,’ states say
President Trump finally dropped the ax with timing that could inflict maximal disruption on the Affordable Care Act enrollment season scheduled to begin in two weeks.
.. Hundreds more consumers than usual have phoned its call center in recent days, uncertain whether they can still get and afford health plans.
.. In Washington state, Insurance Commissioner Mike Kreidler also told insurers to file two rates. “In order to get the smoke to clear,” he said, the marketplace there “may consider holding back on when” enrollment begins.
Maryland is in worse shape, because the two insurers in its marketplace were told by regulators to file only rates that assumed the CSR payments would continue.