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The Tax Reform Tipping Point - Breitbart’s Steve Bannon is lighting up media coverage by championing primaries, but GOP operatives are more concerned with.........
The Tax Reform Tipping Point Breitbart’s Steve Bannon is lighting up media coverage by championing primaries, but GOP operatives are more concerned with snagging a legislative win to calm the growing strife. By David Catanese, Senior Politics Writer Oct. 11, 2017, at 5:32 p.m.
Republican strategists and activists increasingly fear that a failure to deliver on tax reform in the coming months will intensify primary challenges to sitting incumbents next year and imperil the party's already precarious standing in the midterm elections.
Angry GOP donors, a restless conservative base, a standstill Congress and a uniquely impetuous president are raising the stakes for a fourth-quarter legislative agenda that will be largely defined by an attempt at revamping the tax code that has languished for months.
An outside insurrection by Breitbart News head and former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon already is ominously fanning the flames of internecine warfare. But many top Republican minds believe the most powerful tipping point for the GOP is whether it can deliver on Trump's key campaign promise of producing tax relief for Americans.
"If Congress passes the key elements of the conservative agenda, including repealing Obamacare and cutting taxes, some of the anger at the grass roots will dissipate," says Ralph Reed, founder and chairman of the Faith & Freedom Coalition. "But if Congress fails to do so, I think there will be a lot of primaries in 2018 and 2020, and I think there will be a lot of vulnerable incumbents."
Saddled by multiple failed attempts to repeal former President Barack Obama's health care law, President Donald Trump and congressional Republicans are now turning their concerted attention to pitching lower tax rates and a simplification of the filing system. But there's a growing realization they are now up against a calendar that leaves only two and a half months until an election year – and some of the most fiery activists already have lost their patience
The latest evidence of intraparty unrest came Wednesday in the form of a blistering letter from leading conservative groups asking Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and members of his leadership team to step aside, citing their failure to act on an array of issues from illegal immigration and deficit spending to Planned Parenthood funding and a repeal of the Affordable Care Act.
"Republicans were given full control of the federal government. They – you – have done nothing," the letter reads. "Worse, it is painfully clear that you intend to do nothing because, as is most apparent, you had no intention of honoring your solemn commitments to the American people. You were not going to drain the swamp. You are the swamp."
The searing missive was signed by Ken Cuccinelli, president of the Senate Conservatives Fund; Jenny Beth Martin, co-founder of Tea Party Patriots; Adam Brandon, president of FreedomWorks; David Bozell, president of ForAmerica; Brent Bozell, chairman of ForAmerica; and conservative activist Richard Viguerie.
The cadre also questioned McConnell's "commitment to real reform" on taxes – and a key GOP member of the House Ways and Means Committee on Wednesday acknowledged lawmakers will have to settle for at least some changes that won't be permanent. "We're not going to do as well as we had hoped in terms of permanence. It's obvious," said Rep. Pete Roskam of Illinois.
Meanwhile, even as Bannon's clarion call for primary challengers to half a dozen GOP Senate incumbents has shaken the political media establishment as he intended, many GOP campaign veterans privately contend his influence has been widely overblown.
Plenty of anti-establishment candidates and would-be contenders mulling 2018 bids were stirring the pot long before Bannon came along. Alabama's Roy Moore, for example, was beating Sen. Luther Strange ahead of Bannon's blessing. Arizona's Kelli Ward had run in 2016 against Sen. John McCain, and shortly after that defeat switched her focus to Sen. Jeff Flake.
Strategists working to preserve and expand the 52-member Republican Senate majority are also pinning their hopes on tax reform to hand their incumbents a tangible accomplishment that will land in voters' pocketbooks. At the same time, they know it stands to impact their own bottom lines.
A Senate GOP source acknowledges fundraising has begun to lag since June and that the National Republican Senatorial Committee – the entity tasked with electing GOP senators – has spent more than it's raised over the preceding two months.
"Donors are so pissed off," the source says. "If we don't get tax reform, we won't have the money to fund all our races. They just don't understand why nothing's been done."
Terry Schilling, executive director of conservative think tank the American Principles Project, agrees that Republicans need an accomplishment on tax reform that they can hold in front of voters next year.
But unlike others, he doesn't view Bannon's efforts as necessarily counterproductive. Instead, Schilling says, Bannon's looming threat of outside fire provides a constant incentive for even the most dependable incumbents to make good on Trump's agenda.
"It's probably not fair to target Barrasso, but then Barrasso gets to go to [John] McCain and [Lisa] Murkowski and [Susan] Collins and say, 'I'm your friend and I'm getting heartburn for this.' It's pressure; it's just politics," he says. "These incumbents better be able to point to how they've been supportive of Trump. Otherwise, they're going to be Luther Strange."
Would these be the same GOP operatives who laughed at Trump during the primaries, and who behind closed laughed at the idea of border security in the form of a wall ?? Sounds like they are as dense as Hillary regarding the presidential election.
Illegitimi non Carborundum
During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act.- Orwell
The further a society drifts from the truth, the more it will hate those who speak it - Orwell
Yesterday TRUMP was kissing McConnell arse again and saying he will talk to BANNON about backing off the RINOS running for reelection. Why TRUMP does this is beyond my understanding. He has to know McConnell hates his guts and will screw him the first chance he gets after he gets what he wants. KISSING up to the RINOGOPe does not work and he just did it in AL and TRUMP looks like a Fool. He must be ok with that and is doing it again. I HOPE it is only lip service???? As far as BANNON is concerned he has McConnell and RYAN + the RINOS up for reelection in his cross hairs and with or without TRUMP BANNON will win. If TRUMP supports McConnell's RINOS so be it. He will find that his endorsement is about as effective as it was in AL and it will make him look like a FOOL, again only this time x 6. BANNON made TRUMP politically and is the only ONE that can destroy TRUMP politically if he chooses. BANNON is the leader of the grass roots movement if he likes it or not and that who elected TRUMP. If TRUMP continues to go RINO Bannon I am sure has a backup plan and that does not include RINO Pence. Below are the TP groups that smell a financial opportunity with the grass roots again. They made a fortune off the 5-10 dollar donations from the TP members. See they are smelling the money again and the grass roots are being targeted ,AGAIN. Hopefully BANNON keeps them out of the Grass Roots Movement he is involved with. They are ONLY looking at the MONEY and if in-bedded again like these groups will be operatives of the RINOGOPe, AGAIN.
"The searing missive was signed by Ken Cuccinelli, president of the Senate Conservatives Fund; Jenny Beth Martin, co-founder of Tea Party Patriots; Adam Brandon, president of FreedomWorks; David Bozell, president of ForAmerica; Brent Bozell, chairman of ForAmerica; and conservative activist Richard Viguerie."