James' World 2

Click the link below the picture

.

Bannon, who at the time was a senior White House adviser, read them the riot act: “This is not a debate,” he said, as Axios reported at the time. “You have no choice but to vote for this bill.”

Eight years later, Trump and the Republicans are back in power ― and maybe laying the groundwork for a similar vote. The budget proposal House Republicans voted out of committee on Thursday night envisions massive spending reductions virtually certain to include Medicaid, in part to finance the tax cuts Trump has said are his top legislative priority.

But this time around, Bannon has some different advice for the Republicans ― and the Trump White House, too.

“A lot of MAGA is on Medicaid,” Bannon said on Thursday on his “War Room” podcast. “If you don’t think so, you are dead wrong. Medicaid is going to be a complicated one. You just can’t take a meat ax to it, although I would love to.”

Bannon probably understands this better than most high-profile figures in American politics. The proposed Medicaid cuts during Trump’s first term were part of legislation to repeal the Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacare. That bill proved spectacularly unpopular ― and ultimately failed to pass ― in part because even many diehard Trump supporters would’ve stood to lose health coverage had it succeeded. Which is exactly what could happen now, as Bannon knows.

But these days, it’s not just cuts to Medicaid threatening Trump supporters.

Since reassuming the presidency, Trump has issued a torrent of executive orders that seek to limit, downsize or even eliminate key federal programs and agencies. To implement all of this, Trump has deputized adviser and billionaire tech tycoon Elon Musk, whose Department of Government Efficiency has been laying off federal workers by the thousands and blocking federal spending by the billions.

Trump says the purpose of these orders and Musk’s demolition tour of the executive branch is to eliminate wasteful spending ― and, no less important, to clean out the left-wing, “woke” politics that he says have infected these federal initiatives. Which may or may not be worthwhile on the merits, depending on your perspective.

But whatever the rationale, the effect is likely to be especially strong in communities where Trump is popular. Some have already taken a hit. The question now is how quickly that realization sets in, and whether anything changes as a result.

What DOGE Looks Like In Rural America

One Republican who seems to understand is Katie Britt, the senator from Alabama. Last weekend, a reporter from AL.com asked her to react to news that the National Institutes of Health was sharply reducing its research grants. The University of Alabama-Birmingham is a top recipient of NIH grants, and also Alabama’s largest employer.

.

.

.

Click the link below for the complete article:

.

__________________________________________