“We’re seeing more evidence for this adage as the government shut downs following Democrats’ refusal to vote for a spending bill that did not include an extension of “temporary” Affordable Care Act (ACA), aka Obamacare, subsidies passed during the pandemic.
Those enhanced subsidies were passed as a temporary measure as part of the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan Act in March 2021, and then extended through the end of 2025 by the so-called Inflation Reduction Act (IRA).
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Making these subsidies permanent would not be cheap. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that it would cost $340 billion a year.
On the flip side, letting the tax credits expire would result in about 1.6 million higher-income earners losing subsidies completely. Millions more would continue receiving a smaller subsidy and see their premiums rise as a result.”
“Certain benefits will continue to be administered: Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and assistance for Veterans. The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program will not be affected initially, but could be if the shutdown goes on for a long time. The federal Women, Infants and Children (WIC) program will not be able to accept any new applicants starting today. In the past, “inspections of chemical factories, power plants, oil refineries and water treatment plants were disrupted because the Environmental Protection Agency furloughed most of its employees in charge of monitoring pollution and compliance,” reports the Times. “Some routine food safety inspections also stopped.”
National parks have previously had their operations hobbled; open-air sites will probably stay open but visitors centers or other areas that need staffing will shut down. The Department of the Interior says that restrooms will be cleaned and garbage will be collected”
“The biggest challenge is political. Without a congressional majority, Milei has relied on vetoes to block deficit-boosting bills. By conceding targeted increases, he hopes to blunt those challenges while courting centrists who dislike Peronist populism but remain wary of his radical cures. The October 26 legislative elections will decide whether he grows his foothold in Congress or stays boxed in.”
Charlie Kirk thought the Civil Rights Act should never have been passed and that MLK was a bad guy. He agreed with that description of his views. He absolutely should not have been killed. But, let’s stop pretending he was a good actor politically. He had bad ideas.
He said Joe Biden should be put in prison and/or given the death penalty.
Political violence has been going on for decades, including recent history. Kirk’s murder is an outrage and we need to preach peace, love, and free speech, but it’s not unique.
“The responsibility for Kirk’s killing, as in basically all acts of political violence, does not flow “directly” from political rhetoric, no matter how vile, but rather from the finger of the sniper; motives and mental state to hopefully be determined later. And all of Trump’s cited examples of violence were left-wingers targeting either conservatives or businessmen or law enforcement; nothing about the assassination this June of Democratic Minnesota state Rep. Melissa Hortman (D–Brooklyn Park), no word about the 2022 skull-fracturing home-invasion hammer-attack on Nancy Pelosi’s husband Paul (which Trump has serially joked about); and certainly full radio silence on the multiple assaults on law enforcement committed by Trump’s own supporters on January 6, 2021.
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“The Left is the party of murder,” Elon Musk wrote. Fox host Jesse Watters on Wednesday asserted that, “They are at war with us. Whether we want to accept it or not, they are at war with us. And what are we going to do about it?” Self-described “Libertarian, GMU Econ, Writer and Think Tanker” Simon Laird declared, “I’m done with de-escalation. I’m done with compromise,” adding: “Killing a few dozen Federal judges and New York Times journalists would have an effect. I’m not calling for violence at this time, but I’m done with the idea that violence is not an option on the negotiation table.”
The above is people on the right hypocritically and falsely claiming that “the left” was responsible for this murder while implying that further murders against people who had nothing to do with Kirk’s death would be justified.
“due to structural changes in our politics, which are largely due to a realignment in our politics based on education levels, even if the Democrats were to have a really great election cycle in the midterms, there’s going to be a limit to how many seats they can win back due to these structural changes.
If you look at Trump’s job approval on issues, he’s underwater on everything, particularly way, way lower now on the economic ratings, on inflation, and even immigration now is underwater. So you would think that his total job approval, currently around 44 percent, would be lower.
The bottom line is based on historical standards, Trump and the Republicans should be headed to a really bad midterm election. But because of these changes in our politics, due to realignment based on education, they’ll be more insulated than they would have been in the past from a tsunami-type of midterm.”