Trump and the Republicans cannot govern. Is that a feature or a bug?

House Republicans were supposed to release the details of their tax cut plan on Wednesday, but as of Tuesday night, it appears that they will push the release to Thursday, as they struggle to find ways to offset the cost of their plan. This sort of process — introducing major tweaks at the last minute, writing the bill in secret while touting its alleged benefits, throwing out new “payfors” at the last minute in hopes that lobbyists won’t have time to fight against them — is unprecedented.

In a way, so what if they’re a day late? History will not record this hiccup. But that glazes over the larger point. Except for health-care reform — the last big issue President Trump and the Republicans tried to legislate — I’ve never seen such lurching on such a portentous issue. The federal government collects about 17 percent of GDP in taxes, over $3 trillion per year; health-care spending is of a similar magnitude, split equally between the public and private sectors. And their health-care debacle came after seven years of endlessly inveighing against the Affordable Care Act, hundreds of wasted hours of debate and dozens of phony, showboating repeal votes that the Republicans knew would not pass.

This is terrible governance, brought to us at the hands of a majority political party that has mastered the art of getting elected, while remaining clueless as to what to do once in power.

But hold up a second. Why should I complain about this? If team Trump/Ryan/McConnell can’t move legislation that guts health care, adds tens of millions to the ranks of the uninsured, transfers trillions in tax revenue to the wealthiest households and multinational corporations at the expense of the middle class and the poor, that’s a feature of their legislative fecklessness, not a bug, right?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/posteverything/wp/2017/11/01/trump-and-the-republicans-cannot-govern-is-that-a-feature-or-a-bug