UPDATE: The Republican Senate approved the $1 trillion cut to Medicaid, the $3.3 trillion increase in debt and the giant tax cut for billionaires Tuesday. Sens. Lisa Murkowski and Dan Sullivan voted for it.
Murkowski had said many times she opposed Medicaid cuts.
She told the New York Times after the vote that it was crucial to her constituents in Alaska to have the tax cuts and the vote was agonizing. More political agony awaits.
Murkowski and Sullivan, both of them rich, voted for tax cuts over health care for millions of poor Americans.
Sullivan has objected many times in the past about being forced to vote on bills he didn’t have time to read. No one had time to read this one.
The Republicans put enormous pressure on Murkowski to stick with the club, as she was the key holdout who could have stopped the bill. She caved. She prizes her membership in the club.
As I’ve said before, it’s a little unfair to place this all on Murkowski, but the Republican Party is a Trump Party with no room for independent thought. The vote was 50-50 with 3 Republicans voting against it—Ron Paul, Thom Tillis and Susan Collins.
Vice President J.D. Vance broke the tie.
As the Washington Post said, Murkowski, “who expressed concerns about its Medicaid cuts, ultimately voted for it. The bill was loaded up with benefits for Alaska, including a special tax break for whaling captains.”
The concerned Murkowski and Sullivan will duck and distract, pointing only to the Alaska provisions in the bill, hiding the overall numbers.
Murkowski told the Times, “we do not have a perfect bill.” (There is never a perfect bill.)
“I have urged our leadership, and I have told the White House, that I think more process is needed for this bill.”
Process? Murkowski should stop using the word. This exercise, including her part in it, was a disgrace. She needs to revise her book to explain the agony of supporting tax cuts for billionaires, while cutting Medicaid by $1 trillion.
The New Republic said that Murkowski “walked away with some nice cash prizes.”
“The Alaska Republican won an exemption for a provision shifting greater portions of the cost tgo administer the Supplemental National Assistance Program (SNAP) onto the states,” the magazine said.
To make it appear this was not about buying Murkowski alone, the Republicans applied the exemption to the 10 states with the highest payment error rates.
Earlier: Sen. Dan Sullivan and the rest of the Senate Republicans, with few exceptions, are pushing a plan to cut Medicaid spending in the United States by $1 trillion, increase the federal debt by $3.3 trillion and give tax cuts to billionaires in the same bill they are rushing to enact before anyone has time to read it.
Sullivan is disguising his support for the debt increase, the billionaire tax cuts and the $1 trillion Medicaid reduction by trying to change the subject, hoping to make this about money for Alaska when it isn’t really about that at all.
His lies are transparent.
On Sunday, Sullivan claimed Democrats blocked “hundreds of millions” in added Medicaid spending for Alaska.
On Monday, he inflated the number to “billions,” which suggests he is making up numbers.
Sullivan now whines that unnamed “far-left dishonest liberals are in a tizzy” over his attempt to conceal his support for slashing Medicaid by $1 trillion with the Alaska dodge.
I don’t know who he is talking about, but he will never get to the point where he admits in plain English that he supports the Senate plan to cut Medicaid spending nationwide by nearly $1 trillion, which would mean that nearly 12 million people would lose health insurance over the next decade.
The Repubicans will be unable to pass the bill if four or more of their members oppose it. Sen. Lisa Murkowski has claimed she opposes Medicaid cuts, which means she may not support the nearly 1,000-page bill.
In an attempt to buy Murkowski’s vote for the tax scam, Senate Republicans included a plan to spend more money on Medicaid in Alaska and Hawaii. The latter state was included so this didn’t appear to be just about buying Murkowski’s vote.
In attempting to block the vote-buying scheme, Democrats immediately challenged the idea of giving Medicaid increases to Alaska and Hawaii while cutting the program everywhere else, including Ohio.
The Senate parliamentarian decided Sunday that the Alaska kickbacks violate Senate rules.
Sullivan is casting the Democratic opposition to the Alaska kickbacks as an offense to Alaska, though it was really part of the effort to defeat the $1 trillion Medicaid cut. He hopes that by making noise about Alaska getting screwed by the Democrats, the real issue will be avoided.
“Democrats challenged and successfully stripped a provision that would have significantly increased Medicaid funding to Alaska and Hawaii,” Sullivan complained Monday.
“Again, the only party cutting Medicaid dollars for Alaska is the Democrat Party. And they’’re celebrating it,” said Sullivan.
The only party trying to cut Medicaid by $1 trillion is the Republican Party.
Don’t let Sullivan change the subject.
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(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by PostX News and is published from a syndicated feed.)
