WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump’s plan to help Republicans maintain control of the U.S. House and U.S. Senate in the midterm election is to promise to give money to potential voters.
At a midterm party convention in Dallas this week, Trump pledged a $5,000 dividend to every American adult if Republicans retain control of Congress in the November election.
Federal law prohibits payouts to influence voting. And Congress would have to appropriate the money, which back-of-the-envelope estimates say would come to more than $1.3 trillion.
Trump has proposed bonuses to Americans before that never materialized. But the promise of cash may motivate some voters who are disillusioned with the Republican Party over continuing inflation and actions Trump has taken, such as involving the United States in an open-ended conflict with Iran. The president’s national job approval rate is hovering around 37% to 40%.
On Thursday, Trump promised another bonus to about one million Americans who bought their health care through the Affordable Care Act. This $500 payout would be given to all ACA customers who did not receive a government subsidy to purchase their insurance.
Trump said the Biden administration collected unwarranted fees from insurers that were passed on to ACA customers and that those fees should be reimbursed.
But the money, which would be disbursed in October and before November’s midterm election, would be limited to those who purchased health care coverage in a federal exchange, not a state-run exchange like MNSure.
That may not matter much and $500 may not be of much help as private insurance premiums have sharply increased — and enrollment in ACA marketplaces have fallen.
According to the Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF), ACA enrollment fell from 22.1 million to 19.2 million this year. While the Trump administration attributes the drop to their attempts to address fraud, this coverage loss happened at the same time millions of people faced steep increases in their premium payments — often in double or triple digits — when Republicans in Congress allowed the expiration of enhanced tax credits. Many enrolled in cheaper plans with higher deductibles.
KFF said the net result was that premium payments increased 58% and deductibles increased 37%, or more than $1,000 per person.
Related: In one year, 17,000 Minnesotans left the Affordable Care Act marketplace
While several dozen Minnesotans attended the big GOP rally in Dallas this week, which will provide Republican candidates with lots of content for campaign ads, several prominent state Republicans decided to skip the event.
Those included Minnesota House Speaker Lisa Demuth, who is running for governor, and Michele Tafoya, a former sportscaster who is running for U.S. Senate.
However, Rep. Tom Emmer, R-6th District, not only attended what was dubbed the “Trump-a-palooza” but also had a speaking role. He elicited chants of “USA, USA” when he said “the Democratic Communist Party may not like it, but I’m proud to be an American.”
Emmer, a member of the House GOP leadership, was merely amplifying a main theme at the convention. With growing Republican anxiety about the midterm election, speaker after speaker claimed the Democratic Party has turned away from its traditional liberalism into what they said was dangerous anti-American ideology.
Pratt hit by Groyper problem
A problem facing the Republican Party swamped state Sen. Eric Pratt this week and that’s a concern that young GOP activists who usually serve as a talent pool have increasingly become anti-establishmentarian with antisemitic and misogynistic views.
Pratt, the GOP candidate for retiring Rep. Angie Craig’s 2nd District congressional seat, announced the resignation of his field director, Austin Brown, shortly after his Democratic rival, former Lakeville Mayor Matt Little, held a press conference unveiling a number of Brown’s social media posts.
Those posts included racist, antisemitic and Islamophobic stereotypes and slurs. In them, Brown described himself as a “White Christian Nationalist” and “Groyper,” a movement started by far-right white supremacist and antisemitic internet personality Nick Fuentes.
At the press conference, Little called on Pratt to “terminate” his staffer and “disavow what Brown said.”
That’s exactly what Pratt scrambled to do.
“The central theme of my campaign has been stability over chaos,” Pratt said in a statement. “Throughout my career, I have prided myself on the ability to lead with compassion, accountability and focus. I have always been clear that antisemitism, racism, and discrimination of any kind have no place in our politics or our communities.”
Media investigations into the appeal of white nationalism to some young GOPers lay the blame on conservative organizations like the Heritage Foundation, which vets and trains young Republicans for jobs in government.
A Politico story said critics in the party say “such institutions have spent the last decade selecting for rigid conformity to Trumpist ideology over more typical markers of expertise.”
“Maybe that helps for enforcing the party line in the new GOP,” Politico wrote. “But these critics fear a decline of merit and skill, along with a tolerance for darker ideologies that could cripple the party’s ability to govern in the long run.”
Omar cleared of wrongdoing
Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-5th District, was accused by President Donald Trump and congressional Republicans, including Rep. Tom Emmer, R-6th District, of wrongdoing when she reported that husband Tim Mynett’s businesses suddenly increased in value and were worth between $6 million and $30 million.
Omar amended that filing, saying her accountant failed to account for Mynett’s partial ownership in the companies and their liabilities and debts. The amended financial disclosure form listed the couple’s assets as ranging between $18,000 and $95,000.
Related: Omar responds to Trump, GOP charges of financial malfeasance and fraud with new financial disclosure filing
Nevertheless, the issue was forwarded to the U.S. House committees that investigate possible ethical breaches.
The bipartisan Office of Congressional Conduct, in a 5-1 vote, recommended that the House Ethics Committee drop the matter because it determined that there was no reason to believe that Omar reported false or incomplete information on her financial disclosure form.
In other news:
▪️Reporter Cleo Krejci wrote about attempts at Minnesota’s colleges and universities to combat “ghost students” — criminals who enroll in classes using stolen or fake identities just long enough to receive financial aid, and then disappear.
▪️To try to appease ranchers and cattlemen who were angered by a plan to import beef to lower meat prices, President Donald Trump has asked his administration to pursue dropping protections on the gray wolf and has also hit meatpackers like Cargill.
▪️Metro reporter Trevor Mitchell wrote about Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey’s proposal to cut funding for the city’s “violence interruptors” — people with deep community connections who seek to alleviate tensions and connect neighbors to resources.
▪️In his weekly Capitol Conversations installment, state government reporter Matthew Blake reported on Minnesota’s tireless efforts to vet thousands of Medicaid services providers that had been disenrolled under pressure from the Trump administration
▪️And we shared an Associated Press story about how U.S. tariffs on Canadian goods could send prices for already-expensive hockey gear even higher.
Please keep your comments, and any questions, coming. I’ll try my best to respond. I can be reached at aradelat@minnpost.com.
The post D.C. Memo: Trump promises money to court voter loyalty, again appeared first on MinnPost.
Leave a Reply