Democrats should work with Trump on healthcare

I think that Trump might well be willing to focus on fixing the Affordable Care Act rather than repealing it if Democrats offered to work with him on a fix.  And the Affordable Care Act really does need some fixing. The alternative is what seems to be happening now, Trump deciding to work with the Freedom Caucus. What they want is to repeal the Affordable Care Act without any real alternative offered.

I am not sure that there is more than one other area where working with Trump in this way makes sense, but in terms of healthcare I think the other available choice is too horrible to let happen. As I write this I am listening to Maxine Waters say that Democrats should never work with Trump on anything. I think if that’s the approach that party leaders take the Democratic party is in big trouble nationally. I think that infrastructure spending also deserves this approach since it is something Democrats have been seeking for a long time but have been unable themselves to bring Republicans to support.

 

Immigration policy

Source: Immigration policy

Term Limits

There need to be term limits for members of congress or some kind of limits on the age that members can be during their term. To my mind the notion of an age restriction should be a better alternative because in my view there is some value in having experience but also a tendency for people to stay so long that they prevent others from ever getting a chance.

I think Nancy Pelosi represents a great example of the type of person who stays too long and by doing so prevents younger people from rising to leadership positions. I think that Diane Fienstein also represents this tendency. John McCain and Lindsey Graham as well.

Some people do this in order to build a resume to try and get a lobbying job when they finally decide to leave, others like the power. Think that with respect to the Democratic party this decision to stick around forever will cause the party to ultimately lose it’s current lead among younger people.

Syrian attack

What Trump just did in Syria is something that President Obama made a big point of threatening to do but then never actually did. I think that taking the action without giving the opponent a warning and thereby a chance to take defensive measures makes way more sense than Obama’s idle threat.
It also seems to me that the use by Assad of chemical weapons is worth acting to try and end.  I think the same is true with respect to Assad’s use of barrel bombs. I do not like  agreeing with things that Trump is doing and thinking that some are better than the way President Obama handled the same call but when I think it is true I want to acknowledge that.

I am pretty sure it will be a rare occurrence.

The Nuclear Option

I think that the attempt to get Judge Gorsuch through the confirmation process by use of the so-called nuclear option and thereby taking Democrats completely out of the process is really terrible. But we should also recognize that that it was Democrats who used this same approach first. They did so with respect to all the other federal judgeships and also Cabinets appointees. If it is a bad idea now, and it is, then it was a bad idea then as well.  Democrats use of the tactic earlier makes complaints about Republicans use of it now hard to support. This approach really does stink regardless of which party is doing it but Democrats by doing it earlier have lost their right to complain about it now when it is used against them.

Back when the Democrats used this approach earlier I wrote a post complaining about Democrats doing it. Clearly this approach will lead to a far more polarized Judiciacy which I think regardless of your politics we should all see as a bad direction for our courts to be heading in. It will only lead to political beliefs playing even a bigger role in judicial selections. It perpetuates the notion that the facts of a case do not really matter.