{"id":14964,"date":"2016-11-17T19:18:07","date_gmt":"2016-11-18T02:18:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lastbestnews.com\/site\/?p=14964"},"modified":"2016-11-17T19:19:53","modified_gmt":"2016-11-18T02:19:53","slug":"tpm-zinke-serving-in-snow-job-caucus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/2016\/11\/tpm-zinke-serving-in-snow-job-caucus\/","title":{"rendered":"TPM: Zinke serving in ‘Snow Job Caucus’"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Ryan<\/a>

Ryan Zinke<\/p><\/div>\n

U.S. Rep. Ryan Zinke, R-Mont., has been placed in the \u201cSnow Job Caucus\u201d<\/a> by Talking Points Memo.<\/p>\n

The caucus, according to TPM, consists of members of Congress who have used \u201cWord Salad to Avoid Giving a Position\u201d on House Speaker Paul Ryan\u2019s plan to replace Medicare with some sort of private insurance and voucher system.<\/p>\n

Zinke \u201ctold a TPM reader that there was no plan to phase out Medicare, therefore he does not support a plan to phase out Medicare,\u201d the liberal web site reported.<\/p>\n

Sen. Steve Daines, R-Mont., was placed on the \u201cWe\u2019ll Get Back to You:\u201d list of those \u201cwhose offices were caught unaware, or claimed they would pass on constituents\u2019 concerns.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sen. Jon Tester, D-Mont., was listed as opposing the Medicare changes.<\/p>\n

TPM disputed<\/a> Zinke\u2019s claim that there is no plan to replace Medicare: \u201cWhat Zinke’s office says isn’t true. There definitely is a plan. It’s in the Ryan Budget Zinke and most of the rest of the House GOP caucus has\u00a0voted in favor of every year since 2011. This is what members of Congress do when they’re trying to avoid taking a position until the vote is already taken and it’s too late.\u201d<\/p>\n

The issue is one of many that the delegation may face as Congress and President-Elect Donald Trump attempt to resolve differences over his legislative approach. While Republicans have embraced Trump\u2019s election as an opportunity to push through legislation that has been on the back burner since the election of President Obama, it isn\u2019t clear how smoothly that will play out.<\/p>\n

During his campaign, Trump repeatedly criticized Ryan, and Ryan kept his distance from Trump. Given Trump\u2019s high negatives from voters, and the even higher negatives Americans have for Congress, it isn\u2019t clear that his agenda will match that of congressional Republicans.<\/p>\n

A key point of contention will be Obamacare, which Republicans have repeatedly voted to repeal. But Trump seemed to soften his objections to the bill after meeting with President Obama, and even some Republicans say it could take years<\/a> to fully repeal and replace the law.<\/p>\n

Zinke was an early and stalwart supporter of Trump, and he has called Obamacare a \u201csinking ship.\u201d But voting to end health insurance for thousands of Montanans who got it under Obamacare could prove a hard choice to make. Changing the popular Medicare program could be even harder.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a sticky situation. Despite losing the popular vote in the presidential election, plus losing a couple of Senate seats and a few House seats, the GOP is reading the results as a mandate to pursue a longstanding agenda. But Trump ran as much against the Republican establishment as he did against Democrats, and his own political idea seem at best unformed.<\/p>\n

Could be a fun four years, if you like amusement park thrill rides.<\/p>\n

\"CapreAir_Variable\"<\/a><\/div><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

U.S. Rep. Ryan Zinke, R-Mont., has been placed in the \u201cSnow Job Caucus\u201d by Talking Points Memo. The caucus, according to TPM, consists of members of Congress who have used \u201cWord Salad to Avoid Giving a Position\u201d on House Speaker Paul Ryan\u2019s plan to replace Medicare with some sort of private insurance and voucher system. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":3951,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[2853,3084,628,528],"class_list":["post-14964","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog","tag-donald-trump","tag-jon-tester","tag-ryan-zinke","tag-steve-daines","prominence-category-featured"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14964","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14964"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14964\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3951"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14964"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14964"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14964"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}