On healthcare: work against it. Criticize any Democratic efforts to enact sane policy. On the environment: work against it. Criticize any Democratic efforts to enact sane policy. On taxes and IRS funding. On immigration. On trade. On housing. On transportation.
The Party of No is alive and unwell. And in power.
It’s hard to understand how folks support a policy vacuum. It wouldn’t be hard to understand if they simply had an alternative, but they have no policy on areas that matter to everyone.
Healthcare
Their work to-date has been to undermine the ACA (failed repeals ad nauseum, cutting advertising, cutting the enrollment period, cutting navigator funding, zeroing the individual mandate penalty), block Medicaid expansion, add work requirements, and expand scam insurance.
While they have put out policy papers in the past, outlining plans for market-driven healthcare, they’ve never made any real effort to enact them.
Take two doses of stupid policy, then elect Democrats when you realize the Republicans screwed it all up.
Environment
Their work to-date has been rolling back regulations that make the air and water cleaner. They want to undo the already-late update to vehicle fuel efficiency (and one is sure that they’ll not take increased traffic accidents into account when they approve oil leases and seek to keep gas prices low). They have no plans for enacting carbon taxes. They have no plans for what to do when the oceans rise, the aquifers dry up, the storms grow, the crops die.
Best I can tell, they don’t even bother with policy papers here.
Taxes
Cut, cut cut, cut cut cut, cut × 4, × 5, …
Their revenue policy is something out of a drug den. “Just need one more tax cut to clear my head, then I’ll actually accomplish something,” says the drooling, stupified Republican congressional caucus.
Again, no real policy papers. Just enough wishful thinking to fill a thousand fountains with pennies.
Immigration
Get rid of it. Under Trump, this apparently includes trade and tourism, too.
Some Republicans still support some types of immigration, but they don’t agree on which, and the end result is complete paralysis.
Once upon a time, there was a conservative party that shared policy goals with the country. They differed in the way to get there, but that was okay. We can all agree that we want pizza, but disagree on toppings.
Over time, they splintered until some in their caucus outright denied that eating was even necessary. They denied that pizza was a food.
At some point, the people are hungry. They’ll vote for Democrats that will serve them pizza with anchovies and pineapple and gummi bears if it means they get fed. The GOP really needs to stop simply criticizing every Democratic policy goal as impractical and too expensive. They need to get back to arguing about toppings.