While Sarah Binder and Mark Spindel pose a fascinating question to start their piece "This is why Trump’s legislative agenda is stuck in neutral" (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2017/04/26/this-is-why-trumps-legislative-agenda-is-stuck-in-neutral/) They go on to do a terrible job of answering that question.
Party polarization is of course a real thing. Extremists refusing any and all compromise are numerous in the House of Representatives (due to very effective computer-driven gerrymandering, I believe). But the main cause of the Right Wing Wackos‘ inability to legislate, despite staring them in the face, is unmentioned.
Almost all of the items generally included in summaries of Trump’s agenda have a sharp conflict with reality. For example:
Why hasn’t Congress passed a bill to make Mexico pay for the wall? So far the only mechanism mentioned by which the Mexican government might be forced to finance such a project, is a veiled tariff on Mexican goods. This is doable, but only at the cost of a trade war with a very important trading partner. Even if we could win such a trade war, is making our southern neighbor poorer really something we want to do? In any event the entire business community will fight tooth and nail to keep the orange Republican from destroying profitable trading opportunities with the 100M+ people immediately to the south.
Most Republicans promise enormous tax cuts, so of course the guy who went bankrupt 6 times has to promise the biggest ever. During the campaign he once promised to raise taxes on rich people, but apparently he forgot about that promise. (Yes, to a very large degree, the son of the Brooklyn landlord can’t keep his promises because he has usually promised the opposite as well.)
Just like with Reagan, the Right Wing Wacko Republicans of 2017 will find that dramatically cutting taxes, while raising defense spending, will explode the deficit. Cutting the national debt as The Donald promised is simply incompatible with other major projects that he promised to finance (with our money) Unlike Reagan DJT also promised massive infrastructure spending on top of all the other ridiculous and expensive promises like a deportation force and increased border security.
Quite simple the entire platform of the orange-tinted Republicans is Voodoo Economics on steroids. Facts are very stubborn things, and the numbers don’t lie. Trump’s Republican agenda smashes head first into the wall of reality.
Then we come to health care. No small matter. The health care industry is about 1/6th of all economic activity in the US. Since the Republicans have spent years promising to destroy Obamacare they feel obliged to do it. The Orange One promised almost daily on the campaign trail to rid the world of Obamacare as soon as he got into office. But somehow, the GOP House keeps refusing to vote on repeal. It is as if they have been smacked in the face by reality. If they follow through on their promises thousands of people will die. Thousands more will go bankrupt due to medical bills. Countless others will lose insurance coverage. Cost increases in employer plans will accelerate.
Trump-Ryan-Republican-Right-Wing-Lunacy is stalled because the agenda item here is a free-market health care system that will ensure everybody gets great health care. Nothing like that exists anywhere in the world. It is not only theoretically impossible, it is practically impossible as well. So having spent the last 8 years promising a unicorn, they are stalled, because they have no unicorn to give.
This Republican President’s agenda is stuck in neutral mostly because it is a big bag of mutually contradictory fantasies. It is unreal. It is undoable. Even the most competent and dedicated Congress and Administration couldn’t make it happen.