Tag: house republicans
House Republican Furious Over New York Social Security Office Closing

House Republican Furious Over New York Social Security Office Closing

One House Republican in a swing district is now publicly rebuking President Donald Trump's administration after one of his budget cuts directly impacted his constituents.

Acting Social Security Administration (SSA) head Leland Dudek recently announced that he would be not be renewing the lease on the agency's office in White Plains, New York when it comes up on May 31, and that he was rejecting a bipartisan effort by Reps. George Latimer (D-NY) and Mike Lawler (R-NY) to keep it open. Dudek attributed the closure to persistent mold issues in the building that the General Services Administration (GSA) had been unable to address.

In a letter to Dudek, both Latimer and Lawler emphasized that the White Plains office was the only one serving residents in the Lower Hudson Valley, and that closing it would make it that much harder for their constituents to be able to attend hearings that will determine their benefits. He tweeted: "Concerns about mold don’t justify abandoning folks in the Lower Hudson Valley."

"The decision to close the only Social Security Hearing Office in the Hudson Valley is a slap in the face to thousands of my constituents who rely on these services," Lawler stated. "This office handles over 2,000 backlogged cases and conducts hundreds of in-person hearings every year. Telling my constituents that they now have to travel hours to Lower Manhattan, New Haven, the Bronx or Goshen is completely unacceptable."

According to South African centibillionaire Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), the lease on the White Plains office is approximately $511,000 per year. And that lease is one of nearly two dozen cancelled for the SSA across multiple states. Like Reps. Latimer and Lawler, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) has cautioned against closing the White Plains office, stressing that the building is vital for thousands of New Yorkers who rely on SSA benefits.

"As the only hearing office in the lower Hudson Valley region, it’s closure will negatively impact thousands of constituents who reside in these seven counties," Gillibrand wrote in a February letter. "If SSA does not open an alternative site, beneficiaries will be required to travel between 24 and 135 miles to be serviced by the closest office in New York City, Albany, New Jersey and Connecticut."

Lawler's public stance against one of Trump's budget cuts is particularly noteworthy, given that he recently lauded the administration's efforts to cut out "waste, fraud and abuse" in government agencies during a tele-town hall. The New York Republican didn't specifically talk about DOGE's cuts to the SSA, but he did tell constituents: "There are things they're doing that I think are beneficial. There are other things where I think they're going very fast, and they need to dot their i's and cross their t's before pulling the trigger."

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.

Top GOP Senator: Republican Threat To Impeach Judge Is 'Idiotic'

Top GOP Senator: Republican Threat To Impeach Judge Is 'Idiotic'

Egged on by wannabe dictator Donald Trump, House Republicans are pushing GOP leadership to let them embark on impeachment proceedings against federal judges who dare to rule against their Dear Leader—a time-consuming and destined-to-fail effort that harms the rule of law and could even wound the Republican Party in elections moving forward.

Multiple Republican lawmakers have filed articles of impeachment against four federal judges who recently ruled against the Trump administration.

“Congress has the constitutional power to impeach rogue activist judges—and we intend to use it,” Republican Rep. Brendan Gill of Texas, who filed articles of impeachment against a federal judge who ordered the Trump administration to turn around planes that were deporting alleged Venezuelan immigrants to a gulag in El Salvador, wrote in a post on X.

House Republicans are pushing for the impeachments to move forward even as Politico reported that some GOP lawmakers view the effort to be “idiotic.”

“You don’t impeach judges who make decisions you disagree with, because that happens all the time,” Republican Sen. John Cornyn of Texas told Politico in early March. “What you do is you appeal, and if you’re right, then you’re going to win on appeal.”

Even Chief Justice John Roberts warned that impeachment is not the way to handle disagreements with judicial decisions.

“We are going to keep the impeachments coming,” Republican Rep. Andy Ogles of Tennessee wrote in a post on X. Ogles himself filed articles of impeachment against a judge who ordered the Trump administration to restore websites it had taken down to comply with Trump's executive order targeting “gender ideology extremism.”

But complicating things for Republican leadership is that Trump blessed the impeachment efforts on Tuesday, saying that the judge who tried to block his effort to deport immigrants without due process is a "Radical Left Lunatic of a Judge, a troublemaker and agitator who was sadly appointed by Barack Hussein Obama."

“This judge, like many of the Crooked Judges’ I am forced to appear before, should be IMPEACHED!!! WE DON’T WANT VICIOUS, VIOLENT, AND DEMENTED CRIMINALS, MANY OF THEM DERANGED MURDERERS, IN OUR COUNTRY. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!!!” Trump wrote in a deranged Truth Social post.

Co-president Elon Musk, who has threatened to fund primary challenges to Republicans who don’t do what Trump says, also wants judicial impeachments.

“This is a judicial coup. We need 60 senators to impeach the judges and restore rule of the people,” Musk wrote in a post on X on Tuesday after another federal judge ruled against the Trump administration, this time on its attempted ban of transgender troops.

Given that GOP leaders acquiesce to all of Trump's wants, no matter how immoral or unconstitutional, his demand puts them in a difficult place of having to choose what’s right or to make their Dear Leader happy.

“Everything is on the table,” Russell Dye, a spokesperson for House Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan, toldPolitico. An unnamed spokesperson for House Speaker Mike Johnson also told Politico that judges “with political agendas pose a significant threat” and that Johnson "looks forward to working with the Judiciary Committee as they review all available options under the Constitution to address this urgent matter.”

But as aides for Johnson publicly said all options are on the table, top GOP aides privately admitted the impeachment route is stupid and will take up time the House needs to pass the rest of Trump’s destructive and unpopular agenda.

“It’s never going to happen,” an unnamed senior Republican aide told Politico. “There aren’t the votes.”

Plus, forcing Republicans to vote on impeachment could be politically damaging for the GOP.

Polling from February—when Republicans began crowing about impeaching judges who ruled against Trump—showed that voters want Trump to follow court orders.

"This court issue is a big loser for Trump," CNN's Harry Enten wrote in a post on X, referring to a Washington Post poll from February. "The belief that Trump must follow court orders is more popular than Mother Teresa: 84% of all adults, 92% of Dems, 82% of Indies & 79% of the GOP."

Other polls have similar findings, including an NBC News survey released Wednesday. It found that a 43 percent plurality of voters believe the president and executive branch have too much power, as opposed to 28 percent who believe the Supreme Court and judicial branch have too much.

The cherry on top of this for GOP leaders is that their members would be taking potentially damaging votes on impeachment for nothing. The charges would be disposed of in the Senate, where there is no way on earth that two-thirds of the chamber would vote to convict and remove judges. Republicans have just 53 votes there. To impeach a judge, they’d need 14 Democrats to also join in.

But never put it past Republicans to do stupid things in the name of subservience to Trump.

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos.

House Gridlock: GOP Factions Spar Over Tax Breaks And Medicare Cutbacks

House Gridlock: GOP Factions Spar Over Tax Breaks And Medicare Cutbacks

When Republican President Donald Trump started his nonconsecutive second term on Monday, January 20, small GOP majorities in both branches of Congress and a 6-3 GOP-appointed supermajority on the U.S. Supreme Court awaited him. But Republicans in Congress don't necessarily see eye to eye when it comes to funding Trump's legislative and budgetary goals.

Politico reporters Benjamin Guggenheim and Meredith Lee Hill, in an article published on February 9, detail some major tax disagreements within House Speaker Mike Johnson's (R-LA) Republican majority.

"Prominent House Republicans are privately warring over how to advance tax cuts that are expiring and President Donald Trump's long list of other tax demands — with Budget Committee Chair Rep. Jodey Arrington (R-TX) and deficit hardliner Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX) locked in a struggle against Ways and Means Chair Rep. Jason Smith (R-MO) and other senior Republicans," Guggenheim and Hill explain. "The dispute is hindering Speaker Mike Johnson's plan to advance a budget blueprint this week, as different GOP factions continue to squabble over the costs of the tax plan, how to offset them to reduce their deficit impact and possible cost-saving changes to programs including Medicare and assistance for low-income Americans."

The Politico journalists note that "budget hawks" like Roy and Arrington are "still scouring for additional and highly controversial spending cuts."

"The number that lawmakers had tentatively settled on last Thursday — around $4.7 trillion — would make it virtually impossible to implement anything above an extension of the expiring tax cuts," Guggenheim and Hill report. "House Republicans agreed during their White House meeting last week that they would permanently extend the 2017 tax cuts, which are estimated by Congress' official accountants as costing $4.6 trillion."

But a House Republican, quoted anonymously, told Politicothat Roy and Arrington "will make the tax cut portion not passable."

According to Guggenheim and Hill, "Centrists and even some more conservative Republicans are also increasingly alarmed that Arrington keeps raising Medicare reforms as a potential spending offset, according to three Republicans familiar with the ongoing talks. Trump made it clear on the campaign trail that he doesn't want to touch Medicare, but Arrington has suggested a variety of changes to the program that would lower costs in the Ways and Means’ jurisdiction."

Reprinted with permission from Alternet

Senate Republicans Threaten To Move Trump Mega-Bill Without House Nod

Senate Republicans Threaten To Move Trump Mega-Bill Without House Nod

Top Republican senators are becoming impatient with the hold up around passing President Donald Trump's huge bill containing his main priorities – immigration, energy and defense — according to Politico.

Per the report, Senate leaders like Budget Committee Chair Lindsey Graham (R-SC) believe his fellow Republicans should move the legislation forward even before the House weighs in."We need to get moving,” the South Carolina leader told Politico.

The senator did send "a soft warning to the House," according to the news outlet, "saying he wanted to see what happened over there 'in the next day or two.'"

Similarly, Senator Ron Johnson (R-WI) said,"We ought to move," referring to his Budget Committee colleagues.

Senator Markwayne Mullin (R-WI) told Politico, "I think if they fail to meet those deadlines that they set on themselves, then I think the Senate has to start moving forward."

Mullen has been assisting with coordination between Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) and House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA).

Reprinted with permission from Alternet

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