Democrats and their hyper-accusatory media discredited themselves in a two-year-plus effort to brand President Trump and his campaign as having colluded with Russia to win the presidency. Indeed, leading figures in the Obama administration may have broken the law in pursuing this effort– an issue that Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Lindsey Graham (R-SC) wishes to see investigated.
With the 2020 presidential campaign already underway, it is unlikely that a divided, heavily partisan Congress will be able to pass any new legislation. The action will therefore move to the federal courts and to the president’s executive decrees. We suggest that the president reinforce the economy’s excellent 2018 performance by further eliminating unnecessary federal spending and economy-damaging regulations.
No unforced errors please
The president and Republicans in Congress have a lot going for them in the wake of the Mueller investigation’s conclusion. For this reason, it is important that they not make unforced errors. The president quickly retreated from one error — the 2020 budget’s omission of funding for the Special Olympics.
He hasn’t retreated yet from a much bigger error: the Justice Department’s endorsement of a lawsuit to overthrow the ACA (“Obamacare”). The lawsuit was launched by the attorney generals of Texas and a number of other states. A Texas judge agreed with the suit and in mid-December 2018 invalidated the entire law.
Last Monday, on behalf of the Trump administration, the Justice Department filed a legal brief in support of the Texas decision.
In the 2018 midterms, the Democrats won the House by accusing the Republicans of seeking to jettison insurance coverage for all those with pre-existing conditions. Does the administration wish to repeat and magnify the midterm debacle in 2020 by losing the House, Senate, and presidency? With no replacement for Obamacare agreed upon by both the president and Republicans in Congress, it is politically suicidal for the administration to endorse at the federal level the repeal of Obamacare while having no superior, agreed-upon replacement in sight.
Rather than throwing away votes for a talking point whose time has passed, the president should continue deepening his winning suit — an economy that has been benefiting all sections of the population.
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