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March 13, 2017 - The Ben Shapiro Show

19:10

Ep. 267 - Will Trumpcare Live or Die?

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	On Friday, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported a major job spike of 235,000 jobs in February, dropping the unemployment rate to 4.7%.
	According to CNBC, the good news didn't stop there.
	Average hourly earnings bumped 2.8% on an annualized basis, construction jumped by 58,000 jobs, and manufacturing added 28,000 jobs.
	The U6 unemployment rate, which includes the underemployed, is now at a recent low of 9.2%.
	Fully 326,000 new full-time positions were added to the market.
	So, Why the boom?
	Analysts say that Trump's election is indeed the reason.
	But it's not just President Trump's election.
	It's the fact that Republicans hold Congress as well and are looking to pare back regulations.
	While the media focus on Trump's Twitter imbecilities, the markets are far more focused on the fact that a predictable economic backdrop has finally been created for the market.
	Now, a few caveats.
	The labor force participation rate decreased in February, but it remains historically weak at just 63%.
	We would have to gain about 10 million new jobs in order to maintain this unemployment rate with the same labor force participation rate we had in 2000.
	It is important to recognize that despite the weakness of President Obama's economic recovery, Trump did inherit a growing economy and one with significant breakout potential.
	You can't ignore the same unemployment statistics you used to rip Obama and retain credibility.
	You can't cite the stock market as evidence of Trumpian genius if you ignored it for eight years under Obama.
	Trump and his allies have touted the stock market jump since his election, but the reality is that the stock market boosted significantly and continuously during the Obama years.
	President Obama's recovery was the weakest in modern American history, but that's because his job-killing regulations and penalties on investment drove people to sock away money and invest in stock buybacks, Rather than investing in new research and development or hiring.
	So how robust is the market's confidence in Trump?
	We'll find out in the next few months as the Federal Reserve hikes interest rates, as Congress struggles to move forward with the tax restructuring.
	We'll also find out if the systemic problems plaguing the job market, new technology replacing jobs, the movement toward the service-based economy rather than manufacturing, if it somehow bucks all the long-term trends for the last decade and a half.
	That's unlikely in the years to come.
	But there's no question, markets are more confident than they've been for eight years because finally they believe they won't be hit over the head by an unexpected economic sledgehammer from the left side of the aisle.
	I'm Ben Shapiro.
	This is The Ben Shapiro Show.
	I should note here, by the way, that it's always very dangerous to talk about attributing economic movements to particular presidents or politics because there is a lag effect.
	You know, the fact is that President Reagan, for the first couple of years of his administration, had a very weak economy.
	That wasn't because of Reagan.
	That was because of a lag effect.
	From Carter.
	Bill Clinton had a very strong economy when he came into office.
	That wasn't because of Clinton.
	That was because of a lag effect from George H.W.
	Bush's economy.
	So to try and attribute all of the current economic goings-on to Donald Trump is a little bit overwrought.
	I think that consumer confidence is a lot higher because of Trump.
	I think that the markets are optimistic because of Trump.
	The stock market particularly thinks there's breakout potential.
	But You know everybody needs to hold off a little bit before attributing all sorts of great God genius to Trump because the markets are doing great because the fact is it's not quite that simple.
	Using these sorts of metrics is what generates the false statistics you hear from Democrats all the time about the idea that Jobs do better under Democrats, which ignores, again, that lag effect and also ignores who's in control of Congress.
	I think that if the markets are in a comfortable position, it's because they feel comfortable that nobody's going to do anything truly terrible to the markets right now.
	But we'll talk more about that in just a second, plus the continued failure of the rollout of Trumpcare.
	But first, we have to say thank you to our friends over at Helix Sleep.
	So, my wife and I like Helix Sleep so much that when Helix Sleep sent us a mattress and we tried it out, we actually dumped a more expensive mattress and moved it into the other room because Helix Sleep mattresses are so good.
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	Okay, so the big story continues to be the rollout of the Obamacare repeal and replacement.
	Ryancare, Trumpcare...
	As I said yesterday, I'm calling it Trumpcare, and the reason I'm calling it Trumpcare is specifically because we called it Obamacare.
	We didn't call it Pelosicare or Schumercare or Or, uh, Harry Reidcare.
	It was called Obamacare, so now this is Trumpcare.
	So, the rollout of Trumpcare is going poorly.
	The reason it's going poorly is because nobody is very committed to this Trumpcare replacement bill because the bill isn't very good.
	We discussed all the problems with the bill before.
	Paul Ryan is the only one out there really stumping for it, because Paul Ryan has the worst job in the universe.
	Being Speaker of the House with a fractious Republican caucus is not an easy job.
	It's particularly not an easy job when you think that your job is to pass things.
	Now, this is something that has bothered me for a long time.
	The job of Congress is not necessarily to pass things.
	In fact, when Congress decides it is imperative that they pass things, usually you end up with a crap sandwich of a bill.
	What you really ought to do is pass a bunch of little bills.
	People have asked me, what's the constitutional amendment that you would pursue if you could pursue one?
	I would say, no bills longer than three pages, all in plain English.
	Right, that seems to me the way to do the bill.
	And it would be great if there was like an explainer.
	So instead, all these bills have to be written in legal language, so they'll say, remove the word in provision 4D of this separate section of the U.S.
	Code.
	It'd be great if there was an explainer in the back that said, here's what that actually does, you know, that would be useful.
	And then Americans could actually see what the representatives are doing instead of having a 120 page bill dumped on them with no notice and no explanation.
	And that bears a lot of confusion because they keep saying it's stage one and they're stage two and three.
	We don't know what stages two and three are.
	This is a bad way to do business and it's disappointing to me that Republicans keep participating in it because they want to prove that they can get something done.
	I'm less interested in Congress doing something than in Congress doing something good.
	But Paul Ryan was out there basically making a presentation yesterday.
	He rolled up his sleeves and he did a presentation that is the most entertaining thing that you will see anywhere outside of H&R Block.
	Because Paul Ryan is basically a really boring accountant.
	So here's Paul Ryan talking about the American Health Care Act, which is not the Affordable Care Act, it's the American Health Care Act, and he put up a TV screen behind him and he jabbered about it for a bit.
	We as Republicans have been waiting seven years to do this.
	We as Republicans, who fought the creation of this law and accurately predicted that it would not work, ran for office in 2010, in 2012, in 2014, and in 2016 on a promise that we would, if given the ability, we would repeal and replace this law.
	How many people running for Congress and the Senate did you hear say that?
	How many times did you hear President Donald Trump, when he was candidate Donald Trump, say that?
	This is the closest we will ever get To repealing and replacing Obamacare.
	The time is here.
	The time is now.
	This is the moment.
	And this is the closest this will ever happen.
	It really comes down to a binary choice.
	We now have the ability, through the budget rules that we have in the Senate, with our three-pronged approach, to actually make good on our word.
	Okay, here's what I hate and here's why I'm groaning and grunting and making all sorts of animal noises.
	Okay, the reason that I'm upset about this is I am very, very sick of Republicans telling us that we have a binary choice.
	It's always a stupid damn binary choice.
	It's a binary choice.
	It's either this bill or you get Obamacare.
	It's either Trump or you get Hillary.
	It's always, at least with Trump and Hillary, there was an argument because it actually is a binary election.
	But here, You can propose any bill that you possibly want, right?
	I mean, here, it could be tons of different bills.
	You could do it the way I want it.
	You can do a piecemeal.
	You can have a different bill completely.
	You can go back to the drawing board.
	You can have a conciliation meeting between Trump and McConnell and Ryan and hash this thing out.
	You could just pass the repeal and not the replace.
	There are tons of things you can do.
	I'm so tired of Republicans trying to cram down crappy policy by saying it's a binary choice.
	It's either this or the highway.
	Well, guess what?
	It isn't.
	Guess what?
	It isn't.
	Go back to the drawing board and do better.
	Stop sucking.
	And when he talks about, when Paul Ryan says, you know, the Senate rules prevent us from doing more than this, because if we do more than this, then it violates the Senate rules.
	So, use Mike Pence to overrule the committee rules chair, right?
	The way that this works is that reconciliation rules allow you, through reconciliation, without having to meet the 60 vote threshold, reconciliation rules allow you to mess around with the specific provisions of Obamacare, but you're not supposed to go much beyond that.
	Okay, well, if you don't like that, then you can either invoke the nuclear option, or you can just have Mike Pence preside over the rules and overrule the Senate chair when it comes to the rules.
	So, no, there are a bunch of different options that happen here.
	But, again, we just keep hearing, I'm sick of this blackmail.
	I'm sick of Republicans blackmailing you.
	I'm sick of Republicans blackmailing me.
	I'm sick of this routine where it's, we came up with this crap sandwich with a bill, and if you don't get this, you don't get anything.
	Screw you, you work for me!
	Okay, Paul Ryan works for me.
	These congresspeople work for me, and they work for you.
	And it's not their job to tell you what options are on the table.
	All options are on the table because we are the consumer.
	We are the customer.
	We are the people who have rights.
	We are the people who put these people in their job.
	We are the ones who create the job description.
	When I hire somebody at Daily Wire, I create the job description.
	They don't create the job description.
	Paul Ryan does not create his own job description.
	He doesn't get to tell me what the options are.
	The options are what we say they are.
	And if we don't like these options, go get some new options.
	I'm so sick of this.
	And the reason I'm sick of this is because, again, it's used to take conservatism and throw it out by the side of the road and then say, well, you know, this is the best we could do.
	This is the best we could do.
	I've been living my entire life under Republicans who say this is the best we can do.
	And very rarely is it the best they can do.
	Usually it's just some sort of crappy halfway bill that doesn't do what it's supposed to do and leaves in place most of the provisions that Democrats get.
	Why is it that when Democrats get power, they immediately ram through bills that they love, that their base loves?
	When Republicans get power, they immediately start trying to ram through bills they think will make them more politically popular, and then they don't even succeed in being politically popular.
	It's so stupid.
	George W. Bush did the same thing.
	He said, oh, Medicare Part D. This is what you're going to get.
	And then we did it.
	And did it make George W. Bush wildly popular?
	He didn't win re-election in 2004 based on Medicare Part D. He won re-election in 2004 based on the fact that he was a wartime president.
	If he was not a wartime president, very little doubt that George W. Bush loses in 2004.
	And it wasn't campaign finance reform that put him over the top, and it wasn't Medicare Part D that put him over the top.
	Every Republican who does this routine where they say, well, you know, if we just do this thing that's sort of half leftism, and that's the best we can do, why is that always the best we can do?
	It's so frustrating.
	And not only that, now they're trying to jam it through.
	Now they're trying to jam it through.
	Okay, so here is Jim Acosta on CNN.
	He's right.
	Paul Ryan is trying to jam this stupid bill through that nobody likes.
	Seriously, nobody likes this bill.
	The only people who like this bill, apparently, are Trump and Ryan.
	And Trump is escaping all criticism because I know we have to be very careful about President Trump.
	We must not offend the Great One.
	We must never say anything bad about President Trump.
	We have to say that it's all on Paul Ryan.
	Donald Trump is behind this thing.
	Donald Trump wants this thing.
	Donald Trump wants this thing because this thing is half-leftism.
	Donald Trump is not a hardcore conservative.
	He's never been a hardcore conservative, particularly on this issue.
	During the campaign, he basically came out at one point for single-payer before walking it back.
	So this idea that this is all Paul Ryan's fault is just a bunch of asinine nonsense.
	If Paul Ryan put in front of him a bill that just repealed Obamacare, there's no guarantee that Trump would actually sign it.
	Because he'd be afraid that there'd be blowback for all the people who would quote-unquote lose their insurance under Medicaid from Obamacare.
	The White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer saying we're not jamming this bill through, this health care bill through.
	Well, when you have committees working almost through the night, when you have members of Congress being asked to weigh in on a proposal that has not been scored by the Congressional Budget Office, I think you would have a lot of people up on Capitol Hill.
	And also, by the way, you have A lot of the stakeholders that were involved in the formulation of Obamacare, doctors, hospitals, and so on, they really have not been part of this process.
	That pretty much meets the definition of jamming things through, Brooke.
	So the White House may be saying we're not jamming it through, but they are jamming it through at this point.
	They want this on a fast track because they know how incredibly difficult this is going to be with so Only CNN is wildly biased, and they are.
	And Jim Acosta is wildly biased, and he is.
	But what he's saying here is actually true, okay?
	Obamacare took a year to roll out.
	A year.
	And there was vast debate over it, which is why it almost died.
	It's why Scott Brown ended up being a senator in Massachusetts to replace Ted Kennedy.
	Because the American people didn't want Obamacare.
	Democrats pushed it through over the objections of the American people.
	And then they lost the House, and then they lost the Senate, and then they lost the presidency.
	Okay, but Republicans are jamming this thing through.
	They are.
	It's been like two weeks.
	This thing came out, what, on Monday?
	On Monday this thing came out and they're talking about voting on it, I think, in two weeks?
	Three weeks?
	I mean, come on.
	Come on.
	And it's a garbage bill.
	It's filled with garbage.
	It's just, it's so foolish on every level.
	And it's not just Acosta saying it, right?
	Tom Cotton is saying people are upset we're jamming this thing through.
	I'm with the American people and the promises I made to Arkansans that we're going to reduce the cost of their health care and make it accessible and give them more control over their health care choices.
	Look, there are a lot of Republicans who are saying these exact same things in private.
	Frankly, some of them on Steve Scalise's whip team are saying the same thing.
	I'm simply saying in public what many Republicans are voicing, that the legislation as it's written, one, probably cannot pass the Senate, but two, would not solve the problems of our health care system, problems that Obamacare made worse.
	I think the American people care much more that we solve those problems than that we meet some kind of arbitrary legislative deadline.
	Okay, and that's exactly right.
	What he's saying here is exactly right.
	Tom Cotton, by the way, is a major ally of President Trump.
	So, when he says this, what he's really doing is he's force-aging what is actually going to happen here.
	What's actually going to happen here is this thing is going to go down in flames.
	Trump's going to blame everybody.
	And then we're going to get stuck with Obamacare.
	Now, I'm going to talk about the dangers of that in just a second.
	But first, we have to say thank you to our sponsors over at the U.S. Concealed Carry Association.
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	Okay, well, I want to talk just briefly here about the fact that this thing probably will go down, you know, and what the plan is after this.
	So Rand Paul is also saying that this thing is going to go down in flames.
	Here is Rand Paul saying, you know, you've basically been, Republicans have been fibbing about what's in this thing.
	It is a conundrum.
	That's why we should vote on the one thing that we all agreed on.
	About a year ago, we voted on clean repeal.
	We don't agree on replacement, but we could have a separate vote on Medicaid expansion.
	And I'm guessing Democrats and big government Republicans would probably come together and find that they will expand Medicaid.
	Many conservatives aren't going to vote for that, mainly because it doesn't work.
	We're dishonest in the accounting.
	We can't pay for the current Medicare.
	$35 trillion in the hole, the current Medicaid is unfunded, and then we're going to add new entitlement programs to that?
	If you really want to have Medicaid for everyone in all these states, you should be honest with the people, and you should double or triple the state income tax, and double or triple the sales tax.
	Now, I'm not for that, but that's what it would take if you were honest.
	Instead, we say, oh, federal government's going to pay for it.
	Federal government has no money.
	We borrow a million dollars a minute, so it's just dishonest accounting.
	Okay, Senator Paul is exactly right here, and this is the problem.
	Republicans have decided they are going to get in the ballgame of more efficient government.
	The conservatism, the new conservatism isn't about less government, it's about more efficient government with the same exact mandate as the Democrats.
	No.
	No.
	It's bound to fail, and it should fail.
	Now, what this leaves is a backup strategy.
	And to hear about the backup strategy, which is going to be basically let Obamacare stay in place, we'll talk about that, but you have to be a subscriber over at dailywire.com.
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