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« on: November 03, 2019, 03:11:41 PM » |
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The Patriot Post Digest 11-1-2019
From The Federalist Patriot
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The Patriot Post® · Mid-Day Digest
Nov. 1, 2019
https://patriotpost.us/digests/66516-mid-day-digest-2019-11-01
THE FOUNDATION
“In all very numerous assemblies, of whatever character composed, passion never fails to wrest the sceptre from reason.” —James Madison, Federalist 55
https://patriotpost.us/fqd/66510-founders-quote-daily-2019-11-01
IN TODAY’S EDITION
The party-line impeachment charade.1
Warren’s Medicare for All: $52 trillion.2
Daily Features: More Analysis3, Columnists4, Headlines5, Opinion in Brief6, Short Cuts7, Memes8, and Cartoons9.
IN BRIEF
Dems Pass Impeachment Inquiry on Party-Line Vote10
The Democrat-controlled House finally voted Thursday on Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s anti-Trump impeachment-inquiry resolution11, which easily passed 232 to 196 along party lines. Not a single Republican voted in favor of the Democrats’ “inquiry,” while two Democrats broke with their party in voting against it. In any case, the resolution merely rubber-stamps12 the coup 2.0 charade13 Democrats have already been running. Let’s just say it’s ironic that this witch hunt advanced on Halloween.
Following the vote, Pelosi bloviated, “We gather here … to proudly raise our hands to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.” What outrageously phony claptrap. She then disingenuously asserted, “This is not any cause for any glee or comfort. This is something that is very solemn, that is something prayerful, and that we had to gather so much information to take us to this next step.”
Following the vote, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy noted the Democrats’ real motivation: “Democrats are trying to impeach the president because they are scared they can’t defeat him at the ballot box. This impeachment is not only an attempt to undo the last election; it is an attempt to influence the next one too. If this approach becomes the new norm, it would be a disaster for democracy. The balance of power between the sovereign people and their representatives will shift further away from the people.”
Irrespective of Pelosi’s almost comical assertions, she and her fellow Democrats have been planning and orchestrating this purely partisan charade ever since they retook control of the House. Impeaching President Donald Trump, regardless of anything he has done, has been the Democrats’ goal since his improbable election victory.
That said, it does appear that Pelosi’s hand was somewhat forced as it became clear that the optics of the Democrats holding an impeachment inquiry without a resolution was damaging the “credibility” of their case. Now Pelosi can somewhat blunt Republican criticism that the impeachment inquiry is illegitimate.
However, Republicans have also gained from this vote. They now have a record of where all House members stand on impeachment. This will certainly come into play in swing districts Republicans lost in 2018.
So, back to the actual impeachment inquiry. What does it do and what does it not do? The inquiry is still controlled by Democrats, with Rep. Adam Schiff retaining his lead position. Greater transparency is positive, as it increases the possibility of due process being respected — a factor that has been sorely lacking to date. But as long as the hyper-partisan Schiff remains the face of this inquiry, it will be transparently partisan. In any case, Republicans need to shift focus away from process complaints and toward defending against the charges being raised.
Speaking of which, the “bombshell” claim from Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, the National Security Council’s top Ukraine expert — that the transcript of Trump’s phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky had conspicuously omitted further comments about Joe Biden and Hunter Biden — was contradicted in Thursday’s closed-door hearing with former White House official Tim Morrison. He stated that he was “not concerned that anything illegal was discussed” and argued that the transcript did not omit any relevant information or key details. This serves as yet another reminder of why this whole inquiry needs to be as transparent as possible, not held behind closed doors while bits and pieces of information are leaked to an overwhelmingly partisan press.
https://patriotpost.us/articles/66507-dems-pass-impeachment-inquiry-on-party-line-vote-2019-11-01
$52 Trillion for Medicare for All?14
Elizabeth Warren’s much-ballyhooed plan to implement Medicare for All has been released15, and it’s a doozy. The estimated cost comes in at “just under $52 trillion” over the next 10 years. Yeah, read that again. All the while, Warren repeats her tired refrain16, “We don’t need to raise taxes on the middle class by one penny.” And we have oceanfront property in Arizona for sale.
Suddenly, Bernie Sanders’s version of Medicare for All is a comparative bargain, whether at the initially estimated $32 trillion17 or his later figure of $40 trillion18.
“When fully implemented,” Warren says, “my approach to Medicare for All would mark one of the greatest federal expansions of middle class wealth in our history. And if Medicare for All can be financed without any new taxes on the middle class, and instead by asking giant corporations, the wealthy, and the well-connected to pay their fair share, that’s exactly what we should do.”
When the top 1% already pays the lion’s share of income taxes while the bottom half pays roughly nothing beyond payroll taxes, what exactly does “fair share” mean?
Fox News explains19, “The campaign’s detailed Medicare-for-all proposal … insists that the costs can be covered by a combination of existing federal and state spending on Medicare and Medicaid, as well as roughly $20 trillion in taxes on employers, financial transactions, the ultra-wealthy, large corporations and more. This includes what is essentially a payroll tax increase on employers, something economists generally say can hit workers in the form of reduced wages.”
Ah, there it is — tax increases for the middle class. Warren has finagled the numbers to avoid an income tax increase for the middle class, while disguising the real cost in the payroll tax. Those taxes are technically split between employer and employee, though even the leftist Tax Policy Center acknowledges the economic reality of reduced wages: The “employee bears the burden of both the employer and employee portions of payroll taxes.”
Just Tuesday, we added up20 Warren’s “freebies,” concluding her plans would cost $4.2 trillion on top of the current federal budget of $4.75 trillion. But her new Medicare numbers blow that out of the water, as that alone would add $5.2 trillion per year.
Did we mention that even she admits her healthcare plan could kill two million jobs21? We suppose the middle class won’t pay higher taxes if they’re not earning a paycheck.
https://patriotpost.us/articles/66508-52-dollars-trillion-for-medicare-for-all |
