Behind New Obamacare Repeal Vote: Furious G.O.P. Donors

[applegrove]

by Cark Hulse at the NY Times

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/22/us/politics/republican-donors-obamacare-repeal.html?src=twr&smid=tw-nytimes&smtyp=cur&_r=0

"SNIP.............


WASHINGTON — As more than 40 subdued Republican senators lunched on Chick-fil-A at a closed-door session last week, Senator Cory Gardner of Colorado painted a dire picture for his colleagues. Campaign fund-raising was drying up, he said, because of widespread disappointment among donors over the inability of the Republican Senate to repeal the Affordable Care Act or do much of anything else.

Mr. Gardner is in charge of his party’s midterm re-election push, and he warned that donors of all stripes were refusing to contribute another penny until the struggling majority produced some concrete results.

“Donors are furious,” one person knowledgeable about the private meeting quoted Mr. Gardner as saying. “We haven’t kept our promise.”

The backlash from big donors as well as the grass roots panicked Senate Republicans and was part of the motivation behind the sudden zeal to take one last crack at repealing the health care law before the end of the month. That effort faltered Friday with new opposition from Senator John McCain of Arizona, the perennial maverick who had scuttled the Senate’s first repeal effort. Now Republicans must confront the possibility that they will once again let down their backers with no big win in sight.


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[Stuart G]

1. I sure hope that this repeal of ACA goes down in flames...

not repealing and keeping the ACA as it is, will save thousands of lives..I guess that doesn't matter to "big donors" to the GOP.

[KY_EnviroGuy]

2. Clearly puts GOP corruption out in the sunlight!

Get high-wealth and corporate money out of our politics! All funding should be from grass-roots.

Most wealthy donors are disconnected from the public and don't give a shit about us.

[Hortensis]

8. +1000, but EXTREMELY timidly. Notice the striking hedging of identities.

Secretive as these big-donor groups are, investigative journals undoubtedly know a great deal they're not reporting about who's met/colluded with whom, when, what was discussed. Why they're not reporting is a huge scandal in itself. I suspect they feel some of these people are too big to take on, but the people they're protecting are not just intensely ruthless, powerful and corrupt, but extremely corrupting.

[KY_EnviroGuy]

9. Right! And, only a tiny ray of sunlight via a leaker.

We only get an occasional peek into the vast web of dark right-wing money that controls Republican politicians and right-wing media, and what's seen is very ugly for our future. These people operate like a white-washed mafia in an airship well above our heads, lifted by billions of dollars skimmed off America's economy. I don't think the general public has a clue that this even exists. Ironic that it's fed by the public's money from trickle-up capitalism.

I recall vague details of when the Heritage Foundation (2014 revenue $97 million) and American Enterprise Institute (2015 revenue $85 million) were started. My, what lovely red-meat American names! Afterward, leakers let it be known that these and other groups are feeding daily talking points and sending policy papers to Faux News, the White House, and our Congress.

You hit the nail right on its head that our press is corrupted by constant, relentless pressure from the big boys and I would bet it comes from the executives of those media corporations. After all, they do all play golf and party together.

[Hortensis]

10. THIS! Extremely well stated.

[KY_EnviroGuy]

11. Thank you.

This had been a fire in my belly for many years, as I've collected mental tidbits since the Nixon years. However, with my limited knowledge, I cannot see a practical way out of this mess.

[Hortensis]

12. Actions beget reactions. Powerful as they are, they're not

able to keep control what they've created so far, much less the growing reactions to it. More and more people who thought the wealthy they enabled would share the big cake with them are finding they're intended to be soup instead.

[KY_EnviroGuy]

14. It's frightening, Hortensis.

When I do even cursory amateur study of the international financial and economic systems, it scares the shit out of me to think what will happen if it all comes tumbling down. And, as you say, I'm not convinced they could control it. They sure as hell didn't control our '08 crash very well, at least not from the average worker's standpoint because we basically absorbed it penny-by-penny. And, at least in that instance they were protected from much of the harm with hedges and off-shore investments, which we can't access.

The levels of debt worldwide simply cannot be sustained and should never have been allowed.

[justhanginon]

3. I can understand why these donors are so upset

After so many billionaires have spent a lot of money to purchase these republican senators they want them voting the way they are told. They want a return on their investment and they are getting impatient. Now they are blatantly threatening to withhold any more money unless they get the results they paid for. You cannot get much more obvious than this. Absolutely disgusting!

[NCjack]

4. The bill may pass, because it's not about policy, it's about campaign funds. And the

GOP is in desperate need.

[dalton99a]

5. The Kochs and their ilk demand it

[WinkyDink]

6. NS, Sherlock, AGAIN. Geez, major newspapers sure like to print the glaringly obvious.

[Wounded Bear]

7. They have us confused with someone who gives a shit...

[spanone]

13. dumbfucks hitched their horses to trump and the party that can't shoot straight

they deserve to disappear

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

15. Kick