After it became clear that repeal and delay, what could charitably be called Plan C in the GOP’s tortured attempts to dismantle Obamacare, was dead, there were signs that the White House and congressional Republicans were ready to move on to greener pastures like infrastructure and tax reform. Granted, these issues don’t entail taking life-saving benefits away from tens of millions of people, but they’re not necessarily easier to get done. One problem? The budget, which is far from certain to pass. “This Congress is redefining what we consider success,” a House insider told Politico. “Case in point, House Republicans will proudly tout the passage of a budget that barely squeaks through committee and is [dead on arrival] on the [House] floor.”
And while infrastructure has been touted as Trump’s specialty, the White House doesn’t seem to have a real plan—as with health care, its infrastructure ideas mostly involve tax breaks for the rich. Infrastructure is theoretically something that Democrats and Republicans could work together on, which might explain its appeal, but right now there is no plan, let alone one that could get bipartisan support.
There isn’t much going for tax reform either, which will be just as difficult to pass as health care if Republicans want to make its tax cuts permanent. In fact, the appeal of these proposals for the White House is mostly that they’re not health care, which has turned into a combination of Waterloo and Groundhog Day. But one person doesn’t seem ready to move on.
This second tweet, in particular, has the feel of Beat poetry—Donald Trump doing his best Gregory Corso. But the takeaway here is that Trump is out of step with the rest of the White House, which wants to move on to anything but health care. Trump appears to be determined to repeat the same mistakes he has made over the last six months, again and again.