Tornado Alley (PROG)

[blackhawks]

I'm calling conclusion jumping. Clearly the Dems can both represent the most prosperous among us AND represent the poorest and the middle class.

Once again you are bereft of any programs from the GOP that support any class BUT the wealthy. Still waiting for specifics.

Remember the passing of Medicare-D under a GOP president?

....a provision that prohibited Medicare from negotiating prices with drug companies.....was a bullshit GOP provision that hurt the middle and lower class elderly.

Dems fixed it.....GOP never even proposed addressing it. The Infrastructure Bill very definitely is targeted toward the middle class that commutes by rail and by car along roads and across bridges. Chips and Science Bill is a force multiplier for American manufacturing, creating more of it. You also continue to overlook the role that obstruction by the GOP plays in thwarting even more programs to help the middle and lower classes.

In 2022, the Inflation Reduction Act removed this ban and allowed Medicare to begin negotiating drug prices starting in 2026.[22]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medicare_Prescription_Drug,_Improvement,_and_Modernization_Act

Legislative history
According to the New York Times December 17, 2004 editorial W.J."Billy" Tauzin, the Louisiana Republican who chaired the Energy and Commerce Committee from 2001 until February 4, 2004, was one of the chief architects of the new Medicare law.[9][10]

In 2004 Tauzin was appointed as chief lobbyist for the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA), the trade association and lobby group for the drug industry with a "rumored salary of $2 million a year,"[9] drawing criticism from Public Citizen, the consumer advocacy group. They claimed that Tauzin "may have been negotiating for the lobbying job while writing the Medicare legislation."[10][11] Tauzin was responsible for including a provision that prohibited Medicare from negotiating prices with drug companies.[12]

It's a sad commentary on politics in Washington that a member of Congress who pushed through a major piece of legislation benefiting the drug industry, gets the job leading that industry.

—?Public Citizen President Joan Claybrook 2004
House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi said,[10]

I think if seniors want to know why the pharmaceutical companies made out so well at their expense, all they have to do is look at this. This is an abuse of power. This is a conflict of interest.

—?House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi 2004