Defunding Medicaid And Impeaching Judges— 2 Bad Ideas
The most electorally vulnerable swing district Republicans are worried about how to explain to their restive independent and moderate constituents why cutting the social safety net to cut taxes is a good idea. The last thing they need is to be forced to choose between pissing off the MAGA base in their districts by not voting to impeach judges who disagree with Trump and Musk or pissing off normal voters aghast at the prospect.
Let’s get to the impeachment nonsense in a minute. First the safety net. Yesterday, Jacob Bogage did some more reporting on the GOP plans for Medicaid. “A ‘cut,’ as many Republicans are defining it, means a decrease in dollars going to enrollees— while imposing work requirements, shifting federal cost sharing to states or eliminating some covered services seem to be fair game. The Yale Budget Lab is out this morning with research that stacks those proposed spending cuts on top of what they’re meant to pay for— extending the expiring Tax Cuts and Jobs Act— and measures their impact on people of varying income levels. The tax cuts lowered rates for people of all income levels but concentrated the largest benefit among the wealthiest. Combining an extension— which would concentrate benefits among the same groups— with cuts to safety net programs would actively transfer money from low-income people to high-income earners, the Yale researchers found.
The Budget Lab looked at the effects of a 30 percent across-the-board cut to… food stamps, and a 15 percent cut to Medicaid. Those are proxies for policies the GOP congressional majority would need to implement to meet its goal of cutting at least $1.5 trillion in spending over 10 years.
…Researchers found that the lowest-income taxpayers would see a loss of $1,125, factoring in their tax rate and the lost value from leaner federal benefit programs. The richest 0.1 percent of taxpayers would see a more than $180,000 benefit from the lower tax rates and would not be affected by the benefit reductions. The median U.S. taxpayer, in the middle quintile of at least $38,065 of income, would see a net benefit of $365.
As for the impeachments… well, no one’s getting impeached, let alone convicted, but the MAGA fringe wants to force a vote, even if it further jeopardizes the vulnerable members of their conference. Rachael Bade and Meredith Hill reported that this is quickly turning into a distraction and another headache for MAGA Mike. “It threatens to sap political capital and antagonize key GOP blocs just as Johnson is hoping to put Trump’s sweeping domestic policy agenda into overdrive. Rep. Brandon Gill of Texas, a [neo-fascist] hard-liner, quickly followed through on Trump’s call, filing a measure to remove U.S. District Judge James Boasberg for seeking to ‘prioritize political gain over the duty of impartiality owed to the public.’… [T]here is dread inside Johnson’s leadership circle about the prospect of having to pursue messy, certain-to-fail impeachments that could ultimately backfire on the GOP’s razor-thin majority.”
It’s never going to happen,” said a senior House Republican aide. “There aren’t the votes.”
“It would be such a heavy lift and we’ve got too many heavy lifts coming up,” said another top GOP aide. “What is the endgame here?”
A third said GOP leaders and even some [neo-fascist] House members are “rolling their eyes” at the impeachment filings that “aren’t going to go anywhere.”
The decision on how hard to push will ultimately fall to Johnson, a former constitutional lawyer who has so far resisted the hard-liners’ push to wage what many within his own leadership circle view as an unprecedented and wide-reaching congressional assault on the courts.
But Trump’s intervention this time could change that calculation— even as he stares down a punishing self-imposed deadline for advancing a massive tax, energy and border policy package before his members leave Washington next month for the Easter and Passover break. Johnson is heavily reliant on Trump to maintain his tenuous control over his fractious conference, and senior Republicans believe the speaker will likely need to offer some sort of concession to serve as a release valve as pressure builds on the MAGA right.
Fellow hard-liners cheered Gill on Tuesday, but there were signs of discomfort elsewhere in the House GOP.
“I don’t support it,” said Rep. Don Bacon (R-NE). “If their behavior was criminal, that is different.”
“I do not support impeaching a sitting judge based solely on a decision with which I disagree,” said another House GOP lawmaker, granted anonymity to speak candidly, who nevertheless agreed that Boasberg had “overstepped his authority” in ordering the halt to deportations under the 1798 Alien Enemies Act.
Both members echoed Chief Justice John Roberts in arguing that the courts, not Congress, were the proper place for Trump to address an adverse ruling.
Outside of the House, there appears to be even less of an appetite for impeachment.
In the Senate, which would be required to take up any impeachment as soon as articles come over from the House, Republicans have previously greeted the idea with disdain.
“Idiotic,” said Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA) when asked about the proposed judicial impeachments earlier this month, before Trump weighed in.
“You don’t impeach judges who make decisions you disagree with, because that happens all the time,” Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) said around the same time. “What you do is you appeal, and if you’re right, then you’re going to win on appeal.”
Both men sit on the Senate Judiciary Committee, whose chair, Chuck Grassley (R-IA), has spoken out about the need to “solve the problem of judicial overreach,” citing trial court orders that have national impacts, but has not commented on the calls for impeachments.
Some conservative lawyers with close ties to the administration have also warned against such a confrontation with the judiciary.
“Unpopular opinion: No judge will be impeached in connection with activist unconstitutional TRO’s & injunctions against the Trump Administration,” attorney Ron Coleman, a former law partner of Trump White House Counsel David Warrington, wrote of Twitter amid a prior flurry of impeachment talk. “Strategically the Administration would be insane to try.”
Coleman stood his ground Tuesday, saying he supports Roberts’ statement urging politicians not to impeach judges over their rulings.
Despite Trump’s public posting Tuesday, it remains unclear just how hard he will push for impeachments of Boasberg or any other judges who have questioned his powers. Multiple Republicans close to the issue on the Hill say that Trump has not urged them to impeach anyone. But that could change if judges continue to hand down unfavorable rulings.
A small faction of Trump’s most diehard Hill supporters have been railing against the judiciary for weeks already— and are likely to keep the heat on Johnson to move forward.
While there is wide skepticism about the impeachment efforts— some Republicans have privately noted errors in some of the articles already filed— there are more serious talks among conservatives about trying to block funding for lower-level courts.
“They’re activists trying to stifle his agenda … radical left-leaning nutjobs in black robes trying to stop Trump,” said Rep. Troy Nehls (R-TX), adding that lawmakers need to “send a message” even if the impeachments don’t ultimately succeed.
Roberts’ decision to speak out Tuesday only emboldened the GOP’s right flank, which has never been especially fond of the George W. Bush–nominated chief justice.
“Respectfully, Mr. Chief Justice, both James Madison and Thomas Jefferson disagree with you. So does the Constitution,” read a Twitter posting from Rep. Andy Ogles (R-TN), who filed impeachment articles against two federal judges last month.
“We are going to keep the impeachments coming,” Ogles added.
It’s worth mentioning that Ogles’ gerrymandered district includes part of Nashville and isn’t as red (R+9) as many Tennessee districts— nor is he as popular as most of his Tennessee colleagues. Last year, it was Trump’s worst-performing district among any of the 8 red congressional districts— 56.85% to 39.47%. And Ogles did worse than any GOP incumbent in the state, beating an un-funded Democrat 56.9% to 39.5%, badly losing the Nashville part of the district with just 39%. Could he be beaten if the DCCC decided ti prioritize his race? Absolutely. Will the DCCC prioritize his race? Absolutely not. It would be a far heavier lift than anything the DCCC has gotten involved with in many years. Villains like Andy Ogles is something they use for fundraising, not something they try to actually defeat. They certainly could have beaten him in 2022 when they ignored Heidi Campbell’s race against him and she brought in over 42% of the vote.
Meanwhile, to complicate matters, the billionaire South African Nazi just maxed out to the campaigns of 7 Republicans working towards impeaching judges— aside from Gill and Ogles, Eli Crane (AZ), Lauren Boebert (CO), Andrew Clyde (GA) and Derrick Van Orden (WI).
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