It took Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell nine months to finally start working on other legislation besides repealing Obamacare, which appears to have consumed much of that time. The latest defeat of Senate Republican's efforts to repeal the current health care law was viewed by many as rather damaging to McConnell's reputation, who has become a frequent target of both the White House and President Trump's followers. According to those who are familiar or close to McConnell, he is apparently trying to move onto other legislative issues quickly, leaving the failed repeal effort behind him.
McConnell set himself up for legislative failures
For the most part, it would appear that other republicans and the White House are with him on that. At least until January when the conservative party will have another chance to repeal Obamacare again, which they have already vowed to do. According to one report by the Washington Post titled: "Mitch McConnell had a tough week. More struggles — tax cuts, midterms — are coming", McConnell "is fully immersing himself" into legislation for the President's tax reform plan and in trying to shape the government through upcoming judicial confirmations.
So far, the two major events that dealt a devastating blow to McConnell on the Tuesday of the last week of September were with the already mentioned failure of the Graham-Cassidy health care bill followed by the loss of the Senate leader's candidate for Alabama's primary, Luther Strange.
In regards to the Graham-Cassidy bill, since Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) revealed his block grant bill in early September, McConnell established that he was not going to bring the bill to the floor for a vote unless Graham was able to generate more support for it in order to avoid another humiliating defeat.
McConnell's failed future
Nonetheless, Republicans stomped out efforts by two senators to bring a bipartisan bill to a vote two weeks before, hoping they would have voted for their repeal bill instead. The extreme Right's support for GOP Senate nominee Roy Moore was another swipe at the Senate leader, as Moore is said to be a "fierce critic" of McConnell.
But, McConnell also faces some more hardship ahead as there's even less of an indication that tax reform is going to be possible.
This is because the President's tax plan was revealed last week is still being as vague as it was when it was first revealed, leaving Congress to do most of the work of writing the bill. Despite this, legislation on tax reform is said to be even more difficult to accomplish than health care, which again, Republicans have failed even to accomplish that!
