These 7 Senators Can Sink The GOP’s “Tax Reform” (Health Care Repeal) Bill, Call Them

By Jacob Weindling  |  November 15, 2017 | 3:34pm
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These 7 Senators Can Sink The GOP’s “Tax Reform” (Health Care Repeal) Bill, Call Them

The Republican health care plan has turned into yet another Obamacare repeal, as we noted here yesterday. It first has to pass through the House, and it will given that their first crack at designing this bill resulted in literally taking money from orphans and giving it to billionaires, so we can assume that the House GOP would be willing to pass legislation that’s simply a middle finger emoji extended towards America’s middle class, so long as it contains heavy tax cuts for the wealthy within it.

The Senate is where we may actually find some principled opposition, and we need to focus our energy on calling these people. Each Senator’s name below will be hyperlinked with information as to where you can call them, and we need to tell them that we see through this ruse that is “tax reform” and we know that it is simply another attempt to gut health care in order to give that money to the richest people in this country. Call them armed with the knowledge that only 16% of voters expect this bill to reduce their taxes.

1. Marco Rubio
2. Jeff Flake
3. Mike Lee

The Congressional Budget Office determined that the Senate GOP tax plan will add $1.4 trillion to the debt over the next decade. These three Senators expressed concerns over that fact. Call them. Every Republican loves to lecture us about the debt, so are they really going to vote for a bill that adds $1.4 trillion to the debt—all in the name of giving it to the top 1% and .01%? (and oh, by the way, again, only 16% of voters are buying your shtick, GOP).

4. Susan Collins
5. Lisa Murkowski
6. John McCain

These are the three who sunk the last health care bill, and they have already expressed reservations about this “tax plan.” Call them.

7. Ron Johnson

Seemingly out of nowhere, one of the more conservative members of the Senate announced his opposition to the plan. Stay on him.

Here’s the plan, folks. There are 52 Republicans in the Senate. With Mike Pence breaking the tie, 50 wins. That means we need to knock three Republicans off this bill. Here’s how we do it:

Step 1. Delay, delay, delay

Get them to delay the “tax plan” process. The Republicans want to get this done by Christmas, so we need to convince as many of our representatives as possible to stall. Why? Because of Step 2.

Step 2. Elect Doug Jones in Alabama

The special election for Jeff Sessions’ seat is next month in Alabama, and the Republicans are running (and some are defending) a serial child molester. This race went from a longshot to a real opportunity the moment The Washington Post published the disgusting allegations that Roy Moore has at least partially confirmed. If the Democrats in Congress can stall this health repeal masquerading as a tax plan, and we take Jeff Sessions’ seat, then we only need two of these seven Republicans to stop this monstrosity. Your Democratic Senators want to join you in this fight. Claire McCaskill is fired up.

Regardless of how this plays out, we should all be calling Congress right now, and we need to especially focus on these seven Republicans. Phone calls work, folks. We’ve proved it already this year and we can do it again.

Jacob Weindling is a staff writer for Paste politics. Follow him on Twitter at @Jakeweindling.

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