David Drucker of the Washington Examiner reports on Republican Party donors’ reactions to recent chaos on Capitol Hill.
Republican donors have one message for the GOP after the party’s healthcare fiasco: Get your act together.
Wealthy contributors who have provided hundreds of millions in crucial funding to Republican campaigns expressed frustration this week after the failure to repeal Obamacare — a major campaign promise reaffirmed for seven years — revealed a party unprepared to govern.
Depending on loyalties, donors spread the blame around for the demise of the American Health Care Act, the Republican proposal to replace former President Barack Obama’s signature healthcare law.
Some fingered President Trump for blowing the negotiations, others House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., for writing an unpopular bill, and still others the conservatives who coalesce as the House Freedom Caucus and refused, in the view of some, to compromise sufficiently.
But the GOP donor community’s main concern, notwithstanding a looming healthcare crisis that voters expect the party to address, is what the collapse of the AHCA portends.
If Congressional Republicans and the White House can’t agree on healthcare after years of promises and supposed preparation, equally politically complicated initiatives like tax reform are in trouble, and an opportunity to move Washington to the right after eight years of Obama could be squandered.
