PG105: Senate Health Bill, Special Election, Russia Sanctions

This week, Mike and Jay start things off by talking about health care bill unveiled by Senate Republicans. Mike sees it as a nearly trillion dollar tax cut financed by draconian cuts to Medicaid, whereas Jay believes it may help by giving states more authority and halting what he sees as unsustainable Medicaid cost growth. Then it's a look at the Georgia special election, where Democrat Jon Ossoff narrowly lost to Republican Karen Handel. Mike says Democrats shouldn't overreact because Democrats have over performed in all four of the special elections held to elect replacements for Trump administration officials formerly serving in the House. Jay points out that a loss is a loss, and Democrats are 0-4. After that, they discuss Russia sanctions, both new sanctions unveiled by the Trump administration and a Senate bill - passed by a vote of 98-2 - calling for tougher sanctions and making it harder for the president to reverse sanctions. What Jay's Reading The Last Battle for Democracy in Venezuela (WSJ - paywall) http://on.wsj.com/2s5kK0g What Mike's Reading The Brookings Cafeteria (podcast) http://brook.gs/2s5XVtl We hope you'll check out this week's sponsors: Seat Geek, where you can find the best seats at the best prices - fully guaranteed, and it only takes a few taps on the app or a few clicks if you access it through their website - https://seatgeek.com/. Use our promo code POLITICSGUY for $20 off your first purchase. ZipRecruiter, which lets you post your job to 100 plus job sites with just one click. Unlike other job sites, ZipRecruiter doesn’t depend on candidates finding you; it finds them. In fact, over 80% of jobs posted on ZipRecruiter get a qualified candidate in just 24 hours! Politics Guys listeners can post jobs on ZipRecruiter for FREE. Just go to https://www.ziprecruiter.com/politicsguySupport this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/the-politics-guys/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesThe Politics Guys on Facebook | XListener support helps make The Politics Guys possible. You can support us or change your level of support at patreon.com/politicsguys or politicsguys.com/support. On Venmo, we’re @PoliticsGuys.The Politics Guys is part of The Democracy Group, a network of podcasts that examines what's broken in our democracy and how we can work together to fix it.