This set of demands by the GOP Revolutionary Front, otherwise known as the House Republican caucus, should be read as a likely list of actual bills that will be passed -- with as little debate as possible -- in a blitz of legislative hardball in the early days of 2017 if Republicans sweep the 2016 elections:
On Tuesday, a House Appropriations subcommittee formally drafted legislation that would cut the Environmental Protection Agency’s budget by 34 percent and eliminate [President Obama's] newly announced greenhouse gas regulations. The bill cuts financing for the national endowments for the arts and the humanities in half and the Fish and Wildlife Service by 27 percent....Right now, because Democrats control the White House and (at least for another year and a half) the Senate, these are shots across the bow. In 2017, if Republicans win, they will be actual laws. And as I keep saying, don't assume it's impossible -- no Democrat other than Hillary Clinton ever beats the leading Republicans in 2016 polls, and Hillary could have a health crisis between now and then, or falter in 2016 the way she did in 2008. Or the public could shrug and decide it's "time for a change."
A House bill to finance labor and health programs, expected to be unveiled Wednesday, makes good on Republican threats to eliminate the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. [In the] labor and health measure ... education grants for poor students will be cut by 16 percent and the Labor Department by 13 percent, according to House Republican aides.
... The House transportation and housing bill for fiscal 2014 cuts from $3.3 billion to $1.7 billion the financing for Community Development Block Grants, which go mainly to large cities and urban counties for housing and social programs, largely for the poor. That level is below the number secured by President Gerald R. Ford when he created the program -- without adjusting for inflation.
The Securities and Exchange Commission, which has been flexing its muscle against hedge fund managers and insider trading schemes, would see financing cut 18 percent from the current level. Though Mr. Obama will finally get a fully operational National Labor Relations Board under a Senate agreement that forced Republicans to drop their filibuster of his three board nominees, House lawmakers are slashing spending on the board's operations.
Under other House legislation, the budget for the Internal Revenue Service would be cut by 24 percent, Amtrak would lose a third of its financing, and clean water grants from the Environmental Protection Agency would be slashed by 83 percent.
The 2016 Republican presidential candidate will not run on a "massive cuts to popular programs" platform. Some of this stuff will be in the candidate's budget blueprint, but the press will ignore the plain evidence in that budget and focus on trivialities. (See Hillary's wrinkles! Biden -- what a buffoon!) And many of the GOP's agenda items in 2017 will be bolts from the blue -- even people who were anticipating the worst won't have seen them coming.
As bad as the Democrats often are, Republicans are immeasurably worse. It's that simple.
