This Dem Slow-Walked Getting Trump's Taxes--Now He's Getting Primaried

[UpInArms]

Source: Daily Beast

The latest 2020 primary challenger has emerged in Massachusetts.

Alex Morse, the 30-year-old mayor of Holyoke, announced Monday that he is challenging Rep. Richard Neal (D-MA), a 30-year-incumbent representing Massachusetts’ 1st Congressional District, citing a lack of urgency from the established member and his acceptance of corporate PAC money.

... snip ...

Neal, 70, who first assumed office in 1989, has long seemed ripe for a primary challenge. Progressives have pointed to his reticence to call for impeachment hearings, his prior support for the Hyde Amendment, and his relationship with lobbyists and special interests as reasons for his potential vulnerability. Neal also reportedly discouraged the use of the phrase “Medicare for All” for a recent hearing on Medicare for All legislation.

... snip ...

Neal is just the latest established, center-leaning Democrat to face a challenge from a younger, more progressive candidate. Already in 2020, Justice Democrats, the insurgent group that backed Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-MA), and Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN), has fielded two challengers: one in Texas and another in New York.

Read more: https://www.thedailybeast.com/richard-neal-slow-walked-getting-trumps-taxesnow-hes-getting-primaried

[watoos]

1. Neal rejected Trump's state taxes.

[mr_lebowski]

2. Probably because it'd be looked at poorly as an end-around by the Federal Courts

currently hearing the case for the House to be entitled, legally, to getting the taxes directly from the IRS, which is an important battle to win. It's also more likely to make it look like acquisition of the taxes is a 'partisan political' action, which is potentially bad.

I also don't like the use of the phrase 'Medicare for All' and think a much wiser choice would be to talk of a 'Public Option' or 'Medicare BUY-IN'.

That said, I don't care if he's primaried all that much. That's what Democracy is about.

[empedocles]

3. 'What democracy is about', or what 2020 is critically about?

[aggiesal]

4. Medicare Part E ...

E as in after Part D
But E as in Everyone, i.e. everyone has the option of buying in.

[watoos]

11. I don't buy the end around argument,

getting Trump's state taxes doesn't change the meaning of the word "shall."

I agree that Dems should not have changed the nomenclature to Medicare for all, they should have stuck with, Single payer health care.

[mr_lebowski]

12. 'Reasonable people could disagree on the point' is all I'm really saying ;) (nt)

[CaptainTruth]

5. For very good reasons.

Neal is trying to force the IRS to obey the law & hand over federal taxes as the law requires.

He doesn't want to give Trump the argument that "you have state taxes so you don't need federal taxes."

If that argument prevailed it would damage an important oversight authority of Congress, so Neal is defending the authority of Congress by refusing to settle for "second best" (state taxes) & insisting the IRS obey the law & give him what he's legally entitled to, federal taxes.

[mr_lebowski]

13. +1 ... it doesn't 'please me' but I more or less understand the reasoning ...

Also I don't believe the original law says Congress is entitled to receive the tax docs from State tax boards, only Federal. Therefore anything they GOT from NY state could end up useless in Court, sort of a 'fruit of a poison tree' sort of deal.

It's too important of a battle to 'win properly' vs. mucking around with getting the taxes indirect, from State of NY ... or at least that strikes me as a reasonable argument.

[Demit]

6. "center-leaning"? LOL! Where is he standing that he only leans toward the center?

What a ridiculous designation. Is the Daily Beast afraid to call someone a centrist now?

[iluvtennis]

7. I think it's a goid think. Neal has been in office 30 years, a change

is long overdue.

[cloudythescribbler]

8. Rep Neal was primaried last election, but this year shd be a lot more competitive

Rep Neal was primaried in '18, but all the limelight was on Ayanna Pressley's successful challenge to Cong Capuano. Tho it sure has been refreshing for a change (a BIG change) to hear loudly from 'the squad', as the progressive wing of the Dem Party was so awfully quiet in Congress for far too long == especially during the 2009-10 period when they really could have successfully pushed a number of measures, including helping out already depressed Puerto Rico -- it is also true that Capuano was arguably (and in my arrogant opinion) the BEST of the House delegation from MA before Ayanna got in. (It was also an all-white delegation, which is also fortunately history)

But Neal is nothing of the sort. In his televised debate with his primary challenger in '18 (Tahirah Amatul-Wadud, who he beat 70-30) he scored her for daring to suggest that the military budget needed a haircut, insisting that we need the full current (and ballooning) military budget especially for jobs in the district. THAT's the kind of Democrat Neal is, never mind all the Trump hearings, which I doubt will go much of anywhere if the Dems can't get their act together to win the 2020 elections. (It seems to me that one would ordinarily have reason to expect that a GOP that fails to rise to the occasion of a president of their party telling for sitting members of Congress to go back to the countries they came from OUGHT by right to now go the way of the Whigs and the Federalists. The GOP is simply an archaic party at this point. The few holdouts (including some in the House -- FOUR whole members out of hundreds???) and some ex-officeholders like Kasich are simply not enough to redeem a political party in the US that is so far gone.

But back to my Congressional district. I still have Tahirah's sign (flat not displayed) laid out under my recycling bin on my front yard, but there were a number of factors working against her. First, the media was all focused on the 7th CD even tho Neal is SO much more in need of replacing. Second, I think political attention is much less in off years than presidential election years -- turnout in OUR primary (as opposed to Ayanna's) was not spectacular. This time I suppose the presidential election should boost a larger swath of voters to show up. Third, the fact that the current challenger is a sitting local mayor of one of the local district's largest cities means that the campaign will be much more in the news. There was virtually nothing, including about the statewide challenge to Gov Baker in the general, in the media that i caught; hopefully that will be at least significantly corrected this time around

It still is an uphill fight -- what with Neal in the news now chairing a committee investigating Trump. Hopefully More will make things like the military budget and environmental issues much more prominent in the campaign, issues that mean more to most voters than the arcana of the Trump hearings, again in my arrogant opinion

[brooklynite]

10. "THAT's the kind of Democrat Neal is..."

...and apparently, that's the kind of Democrat his district wants.

Voted against repeal of ACA
Voted in support of Sanctuary Cities
Voted against weakening Dodd-Frank
Voted against Trump tax cuts

Justice Democrats has a terrible success rate when it comes to Primarying Incumbents, and with the loss of Crowley, no Incumbent is going to be sleeping through the 2020 election.

[zentrum]

9. All for this.

[LiberalLovinLug]

14. "center-leaning"?

Leaning from where? Is he a leftie that is leaning to the center? Or is he even more right wing than he lets on and is leaning towards the center reluctantly? He is certainly not the former. And if he's making an effort to be even less conservative than he really is, then that is also disturbing based on his support or non support for progressive goals. At least frame it correctly. If the "center" is the starting point, then he is to the right of center, he is leaning right, not leaning center.

It seems like an insidious ongoing narrative from the MSM to try and redefine what is the 'center' or 'moderate'. They have been shifting right in their definitions alongside both parties.

Not to mention most all of the "far left" gang of four and Sanders and Warren's ideas are very very moderate proposals that have been already implemented in every other western democracy.

[Blue_Tires]

15. I'd rather see Dems go all-out attack red districts

but that's just me...

[Norbert]

20. You're not alone.

[George II]

16. Let me guess, Justice Democrats are putting him up to it?

[Vegas Roller]

17. Who else?

Let them burn their money and lose every seat they champion ... even the ones they won in 2018.

We need people who have respect for protocol and decorum of institutions -- otherwise we'll have everyone behaving like Trump.

[denbot]

19. Again attacking other Democratic Party members.

It is your only constant.

[Bradical79]

18. Good luck!

[murielm99]

21. It is so interesting that the JD's can't find any

republicans to primary. In some areas, they could find a Democrat to run as a republican.

I am tired of this infighting. And the JD's are NOT Democrats!

[Me.]

22. I Assume The Mayor Won't Be Taking JD PAC Money

And no, apparently they can't and won't be bothered. And, as of now, the traitor is suing NYS not to give over his tax info. Maybe the critics don't really understand how this all works and thought he could just skate in there and pick those reports up.