Republicans Benefit from Federal Programs

Many Americans, including Republicans, depend on federal services and assistance.

Melanie Zanona, Sahil Kapur and Ben Kamisar at NBC:

The House’s sweeping budget plan to advance President Donald Trump’s agenda could result in steep cuts to Medicaid and food stamps, putting a key group of Republicans in a politically difficult position ahead of a potential vote next week in the narrowly divided chamber.

There are a handful of House Republicans who represent parts of the country where sizable shares of the populations receive government assistance from Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, according to an NBC News analysis of the most recently available Census Bureau data.

The lawmakers from the 10 GOP-held districts with the highest percentages of Medicaid or SNAP beneficiaries span the ideological and geographical spectrum. They include members from deep-red districts, such as Speaker Mike Johnson of Louisiana and veteran Rep. Hal Rogers of Kentucky, as well as those in competitive battlegrounds, such as Reps. David Valadao of California, Rob Bresnahan of Pennsylvania and Monica De La Cruz of Texas.

While Democrats represent more districts with the largest portions of adults receiving federal assistance, the prevalence of constituents who are dependent on anti-poverty programs in GOP-held seats could test Republicans who are on the hunt for steep spending cuts and under pressure to implement Trump’s agenda. And it underscores why the issue has become such a sticking point in the budget talks.

Zack Stanton at Politico:

As Elon Musk brandished a chainsaw onstage at CPAC yesterday, it wasn’t just those with front row seats running for cover. A number of Congressional Republicans are starting to flee the blowback of his Department of Government Efficiency’s slash-and-burn approach to federal budget cuts, driven by growing evidence of a groundswell of concern among groups of ordinary voters. And if you think this is only a dynamic in moderate swing seats, consider this morning’s newsletter a wake-up call.

In an R+18 district: Speaking at a business luncheon yesterday in Westerville, Ohio, GOP Rep. Troy Balderson “described President Donald Trump’s flurry of executive orders as ‘getting out of control’ …. [and] expressed some pushback to the idea of sole decision-making power lying with Trump and billionaire advisor Elon Musk,” the Columbus Dispatch’s Samantha Hendrickson reports. “‘Congress has to decide whether or not the Department of Education goes away,’ Balderson asserted. ‘Not the president, not Elon Musk.’”

In deep-red Georgia: Last night in Roswell, Georgia, an overflow crowd packed into a town hall forum for GOP Rep. Rich McCormick, barraging him with pointed questions and accusatory comments about DOGE’s cuts. His staff “seemed caught off guard by the massive crowd of hundreds that gathered,” reports the Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s Greg Bluestein. (This is a district Trump carried by 22 points just three months ago.)

How it went: “Attendees set the tone early, with one accusing McCormick of ‘doing us a disservice’ for supporting the budget-slashing initiatives by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency that have torn through all corners of federal government,” Bluestein reports. “‘You don’t think I’m going to stand up for you?’ asked McCormick, as the crowd responded with loud boos.” Video from the scene

Beware the town hall: As Playbook’s resident geriatric millennial, your author’s mind immediately flashed back to the raucous town hall forums that preceded the 2010 midterm wave election, when an angry and energized electorate propelled Republicans to victory and smashed through Democratic control of Congress — only this time, the parties would be reversed. (It is, of course, way too soon to be making any serious predictions about what might happen in 2026.)

But consider the broader context: The scene comes as a growing number of congressional Republicans desperately try to back-channel with White House officials about DOGE’s cuts, POLITICO’s Meredith Lee Hill reported in a must-read story last night.

Threats Against Members of Congress

Many posts have discussed political violence..

 Gabriel Sherman at Vanity Fair:

According to one source with direct knowledge of the events, North Carolina senator Thom Tillis told people that the FBI warned him about “credible death threats” when he was considering voting against Pete Hegseth’s nomination for defense secretary. Tillis ultimately provided the crucial 50th vote to confirm the former Fox & Friends host to lead the Pentagon. According to the source, Tillis has said that if people want to understand Trump, they should read the 2006 book Snakes in Suits: When Psychopaths Go to Work. (When asked for comment for this story, a spokesperson for Tillis said it was false that the senator had recommended the book in that capacity. The FBI said it had no comment.)

US Capitol Police:

The number of United States Capitol Police (USCP) threat assessment cases has climbed for the second year in a row. In 2024, the USCP’s Threat Assessment Section (TAS) investigated 9,474 concerning statements and direct threats against the Members of Congress, including their families and staff. The number of concerning statements and direct threats usually increases during election years.pol 

Here are the TAS case numbers for the last five years:

• 8,008 in 2023
• 7,501 in 2022
• 9,625 in 2021
• 8,613 in 2020
• 6,955 in 2019
• 5,206 in 2018
• 3,939 in 2017

 

Fake Quotations, Feb 2025

Wonderful sentiment, and I couldn't agree with it more -- and I value Congressman Bacon, very much -- but ... a piece from the first weeks of the Standard: https://t.co/bMV0yliY9a cc: @jpitney @BillKristol pic.twitter.com/NIRvnjX7Lt

— Jay Nordlinger (@jaynordlinger) February 16, 2025

Scott Powell at Townhall:

After his reelection for a second term, shortly before his assassination, Lincoln observed that “…corporations have been enthroned and an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until all wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed.”

While he could not have foreseen the transformations in the U.S. economy, Lincoln was remarkably prescient. It is now obvious that the aggregation and concentration of wealth in the information technology, the military/defense, and the pharmaceutical industries today are major factors in undermining our Constitutional First Amendment rights. Free speech, which roots out falsehood and helps reveal the truth, is an absolute cornerstone of the republic.

Populists concocted this one in the late 19th century, and Lincoln's private aide called it a "bald, unblushing forgery." Not only did Lincoln never say these words, they were at odds with his thinking, as Andrew Ferguson explained years ago: "A corporate lawyer whose long and cunning labor on behalf of the railroads earned him a comfortable income, Lincoln was a vigorous champion of market capitalism, even when it drifted (as it tends to do) toward large concentrations of wealth."

More on Government Data

Many posts have explained how to get government data.

Philip Bump at WP:

This is a depiction of money coming into (blue) and going out of (pink) the federal government’s coffers, created by the data-sharing site USAFacts. ... USAFacts is the brainchild of former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer. As he turned his attention to philanthropy, he wanted good data on where his money might best be spent. As his team began exploring what data the government had to offer a decade ago, they found it to be unsatisfying.


Given that we were speaking in February 2025, I felt it was important to ask the USAFacts team how a site predicated on sharing data released by the government was impacted by this particular government’s approach to data-sharing.

“Most of the data we use right now hasn’t really gone away — yet,” Coffin explained. “We’re in a little bit of a wait-and-see.” But, he added, “our mission remains the same: to provide data from the government in a way that is usable to the public.”

Uh, as long as there is data from the government to use.

Federalism and EVs

Three years after President Biden signed the bipartisan infrastructure law, it has resulted in only 58 ERV charging stations. Marc J. Dunkelman at WP:

[By] the time of the chaotic 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago, progressives had soured on the establishment’s excesses. Men such as Lyndon B. Johnson and Robert McNamara had steered the nation into an unwinnable war in Vietnam. Local power brokers such as Richard J. Daley and Robert Moses decimated whole neighborhoods in the name of urban renewal.

And so, to protect ordinary people, reformers erected mechanisms to dilute public authority. Slowly, over the course of the next half-century, bureaucracies they deemed too powerful became, in effect, impotent.

By the point the Biden administration turned its attention to expanding the nation’s EV charging infrastructure, the approach that FDR might have taken during the 1930s — just hiring people to do it — was entirely off the table. Such a plan would immediately be labeled a “socialist” enterprise that posed a threat to private companies.
...

Instead, the Biden administration was left to rely in large part on the system that governs 90 percent of federal transportation spending: distributing the money to the states. This pattern, established during the Eisenhower administration, works by sending federal dollars to the state highway departments that maintain the nation’s infrastructure. Each state figures out how to implement the law, which in this case called for high-speed chargers at least every 50 miles on major highways.

The states, of course, had no experience with EV technology. And so it was up to the federal government to help them navigate their new responsibilities. The Transportation and Energy departments quickly established a “joint office” to guide the work. Within weeks of the infrastructure law’s signing — lightning speed, by modern standards — the administration had published a draft rule establishing the requirements:

• The chargers would have to work on all electric vehicles (as opposed to just Teslas).
• They would have to be reliable 97 percent of the time (so drivers wouldn’t encounter broken stalls).
• They would have to be located in remote areas where there would otherwise be gaps (as opposed to the busy corridors where private companies might choose to place them without subsidy).

Over the course of 2022, the government incorporated public feedback into the rule, as mandated by the 1946 Administrative Procedure Act. In the nearly 80 years since its passage, the APA has become the Magna Carta of bureaucratic governance, ensuring that agencies are fair and transparent. The attendant checks and balances, designed explicitly to prevent the bureaucracy from steamrolling opponents, almost inevitably slow things down.

A Strong Letter

Many posts have discussed prosecutors.

 From WP:Hagan Scotten, the lead prosecutor in Mayor Eric Adams’s federal corruption case, has quit over the Justice Department’s demand that the case be dismissed, calling any lawyer who would move in court to toss the matter a “fool” or “coward,” according to a copy of a letter obtained Friday.

BY EMAIL 

Re: United States v. Eric Adams, 24 Cr. 556 (DEH) 

Mr. Bove,

 I have received correspondence indicating that I refused your order to move to dismiss the indictment against Eric Adams without prejudice, subject to certain conditions, including the express possibility of reinstatement of the indictment. That is not exactly correct. The U.S. Attorney, Danielle R. Sassoon, never asked me to file such a motion, and I therefore never had an opportunity to refuse. But I am entirely in agreement with her decision not to do so, for the reasons stated in her February 12, 2025 letter to the Attorney General. 

In short, the first justification for the motion—that Damian Williams's role in the case somehow tainted a valid indictment supported by ample evidence and pursued under four different U.S. attorneys is so weak as to be transparently pretextual. The second justification is worse. No system of ordered liberty can allow the Government to use the carrot of dismissing charges, or the stick of threatening to bring them again, to induce an elected official to support its policy objectives. 

There is a tradition in public service of resigning in a last-ditch effort to head off a serious mistake . Some will view the mistake you are committing here in the light of their generally negative view of the new Administration. I do not share those views. I can even understand how a Chief Executive whose background is in business and politics might see the contemplated dismissal-with-leverage as a good, if distasteful, deal. But any assistant U.S. attorney would know that our laws and traditions do not allow using the prosecutorial power to influence other citizens, much less elected officials, in this way. If no lawyer within earshot of the President is willing to give him that advice, then I expect you will eventually find someone who is enough of a fool, or enough of a coward, to file your motion. But it was never going to be me. Please consider this my resignation. It has been an honor to serve as a prosecutor in the Southern District of New York. 

Yours truly, Hagan Scotten Assistant United States Attorney Southern District of New York

The Impact of COVID

Many posts have discussed COVID.

Alec Tyson, Michael Lipka and Claudia Deane at Pew:

The most significant pandemic of our lifetime arrived as the United States was experiencing three major societal trends: a growing divide between partisans of the left and right, decreasing trust in many institutions, and a massive splintering of the information environment.

COVID-19 did not cause any of this, but these forces fueled the country’s divided response. Looking back, nearly three-quarters of U.S. adults (72%) say the pandemic did more to drive the country apart than to bring it together.

Fundamental differences arose between Americans over what we expect from our government, how much tolerance we have for health risks, and which groups and sectors to prioritize in a pandemic. Many of these divides continue to play out in the nation’s politics today.

The pandemic left few aspects of daily life in America untouched. Looking back on it nearly five years later, three-quarters of Americans say the COVID-19 pandemic took some sort of toll on their own lives. This includes 27% who say it had a major toll on them and 47% who say it took a minor toll.

The virus itself also had a staggering impact. A large majority of U.S. adults have had COVID-19 at some point, and more than 1 million Americans died from it. Millions continue to struggle with long COVID. And most say they know someone who was hospitalized or died from the virus.