This is one of those paradigm shift CTH predictions that many people scoffed at back in 2015/2016 when we discussed a Trump federal budget, and how Washington DC politicians would respond to a president who actually planned to cut spending.  Back in February we warned:

[…] The UniParty is going to fight hard, very hard, to retain their spending. Don’t be surprised to see GOPe “conservatives” demanding President Trump spend more money. We have been repeating this warning since he announced his bid for the presidency in 2015. (link)

Today’s headline reads “Fears Grow That Trump Could Ignore Congress on Spending“. Traditional thinking, at first glance of the headline, would be the President might ignore budgetary levels and spend more than he should. However, in reality, the paradigm shift is the exact opposite.  DC is worried that President Trump won’t spend enough money.
Let that sink in for a minute.
THAT’S a prime example of: A.) evidence of the DC UniParty; and, B.) how ridiculously dysfunctional and broken the federal budgetary and spending process has become.  DC lawmakers are now consulting attorneys and planning to sue the President and force him to spend money.

WASHINGTON – Lawmakers and activists are preparing for the possibility that President Donald Trump’s administration, in its zeal to slash the federal budget, will take the rare step of deliberately not spending all the money Congress gives it — a move sure to trigger legal and political battles.

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Lara Trump outlines a review of the weeks events for President Trump and Vice-President Pence via a Trump TV week #30 update:

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Camp David National Security Meeting, August 18th, 2017

Following a briefing and meeting with cabinet members and national security officials President Trump and Vice-President Pence held a rather lengthy Q & A with media reporters to answer a myriad of questions surrounding national security and ongoing administration policy.
The president discussed North Korea, regional partners, the United Nations, China, Russia, Syria as well as leaks, Jeff Sessions, Mitch McConnell, healthcare reform, taxes etc. together with Vice President Mike Pence in Bedminster, New Jersey.

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Speaker of The House Paul Ryan was interviewed by Maria Bartiromo on the current framework for the proposed Tax Reform legislation currently under construction in congressional committees.
Many of Ryan’s responses range the gambit from willful blindness (ex. how to fill the budgetary hole created by expanding medicaid; can’t see how to achieve 3% GDP growth, etc.) to outright opaque misinformation, claims congress decided to eliminate B.A.T. (they didn’t, Trump, Mnuchin, Ross did), on revenue.
It is always important to remember that Ryan’s points of advocacy all stem from the Wall Street’s lobbying complex on K-Street.  The epicenter of those interests is the crony capitalistic U.S. Chamber of Commerce (Tom Donohue).   Watch:

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CTH remains cautiously optimistic that Trump, Mnuchin, Cohn and Ross can defeat Ryan Inc on the larger tax reform issues.  However, CTH is not naive to the scope of the UniParty confrontation that will stem as an outcome.  You can hear it within Ryan’s words.
America voted for Trump’s agenda, not Ryan’s Corporate “Better Way” bulls**t !!
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At 1:45am on July 28th 2017, Republican Senator John McCain together with Lisa Murkowski and Susan Collins voted against the ObamaCare repeal in the Senate; ensuring the failing ObamaCare health care takeover and economic drag continues.
This should not come as a surprise.  McCain has a legacy of voting against the American people to the benefit of his corrupt legislative corporate handlers.  Yet, the vote was still blood-boiling in ramification and consequence.
Additionally, it should be noted for an accurate record that Nevada Republican Senator Dean Heller delayed his own roll call vote, skipped his name when called, until he was able to see that McCain cast the vote against America.
When Heller was safe – as in: able to hide his malicious intent and vote “aye” at the conclusion of the roll- he gave the appearance of support.  A very typical albeit Machiavellian maneuver, customarily subtle and historically utilized by Senator Ted Cruz with few paying attention.
Senator McCain’s vote holds much larger ramifications than just the continuance of ObamaCare.  Inherent within the retention is a reality that any tax reform, tax cuts to benefit the middle-class, will also necessarily be diminished.
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If you watch or listen to the interviews today with new White House Communications Director Anthony Scaramucci, and then overlay them against a backdrop of ongoing events (including last week), there’s a very solid outlook that Reince Priebus is close to being replaced as Chief of Staff.

Scaramucci says today: “If they want to stay on the staff, they’re going to stop leaking.” Where “they” are clearly White House staffers who have been identified as leaking to the media.
When you step back and remind yourself where “they” came from, you recognize this staff is primarily made up of former RNC staff brought into the White House by Reince Priebus the former head of the RNC and now Chief of Staff.
When you step back further you find yourself reminded what ideology those same RNC staffers carried before following Priebus to the White House. Then we quickly realize these are Scott Walker/Ted Cruz type GOPe loyalists who have no affinity for the populist approach of Trump.
There’s the problem that has existed in nuanced form from the outset of the decision to keep Reince Priebus inside the Trump administration as a bridge to the parties legislative and political apparatus in DC.
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Earlier in the year President Trump established a commission to review U.S. election integrity.  Earlier today the first meeting of that Commission on Providing Election Integrity took place.
The meeting video is below which begins with remarks by Vice-President Mike Pence and President Donald Trump. (A Transcript follows):

[Transcript] 11:28 A.M. EDT – THE VICE PRESIDENT: Well, good morning. Please be seated. On behalf of the First Family, welcome to the White House. And welcome to the inaugural meeting of the Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity.
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It would appear Mitch McConnell, and the larger congress, just lit the fuse on “the big ugly“.  Winter is coming.

• President Trump has requested all Republican Senators to attend a White House luncheon, held entirely in their honor, tomorrow.  • President Trump has also announced a MAGA rally to be held in Youngstown Ohio, next week.   • Not coincidentally this rally announcement comes on the same day Ohio governor John Kasich writes an op-ed in the New York Times gleefully celebrating the defeat of the senate healthcare reform and  ObamaCare repeal. • HHS Secretary Tom Price is NOT HAPPY.
Oh yeah, the Big Ugly is coming.  President Trump is not a politician.

The failure of congress to pass Obamacare reform means the tax reform agenda for the middle class is now far less likely.  The UniParty Congress know this.  The UniParty Congress is doing the bidding of the lobbyists.
The escalating costs of ObamaCare, specifically because of the Medicaid expansion, means increased tax revenues are needed to pay for the program.  John Kasich, and his crew of like-minded governors (there are eleven) demand their state get more federal dollars.  This means more income tax revenues are needed.  This means no middle-class tax relief.
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President Donald Trump expresses strong “disappointment” in the GOP healthcare bill failure:

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As we have said since before last year, the senate will not vote on a ‘repeal only’ bill because: A.) repeal takes 60 votes, and B) there are not even 50 republican votes for a repeal.
Again, as we have said from the beginning, changing the senate rules to a 51 vote threshold for legislative passage is not workable because: A.) it takes 67 senators to agree to change the rule (eliminate the Byrd Rule), and B.) The senate doesn’t want to change the rules.
The GOP have never voted to repeal Obamacare because the GOP doesn’t want to repeal Obamacare.
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Sometimes we just sits and thinks… and sometimes we just thinks and laughs… This truly is the greatest of times to be alive and engaged.  All, because, Trump stuff.

After reminding ourselves there’s no longer an actual media apparatus (per se’) in the historic sense of assembling facts, just facts, that explain situations; we once again see a brutal example of an answer to a simple economic question ignored by media.
Yesterday, within a MAGAnomics discussion thread, the question was asked:

♦ How long do you think the Chinese economy can sustain itself? When will it run out of steam? Could you maybe add some meat to the bone of what a trade war may look like with China, in terms of what we can expect to happen?

My own reply was rather simplistic:

♦ A trade confrontation with China will remove the cloak of capitalism and show the true colors of totalitarian control behind the Chinese economic mask.  Confronting China’s Oz, economically, is simply sending in Toto (Wilbur Ross) to pull back the curtain. Easy peasy.

As if on cue… here comes Xi Jinping to deliver the audio visual demonstration. (more…)