Republicans Pass Horrid Tax Bill Thanks to Democrats Dying in Office
House Republicans managed to pass their draconian budget bill, which promises to make massive cuts to Medicaid, Medicare, and food assistance, early Thursday morning by a narrow one-vote margin that was only possible due the deaths of three Democrats in this current Congress.
The latest Democrat to pass away was 75-year-old Representative Gerry Connolly of Virginia, who died on Wednesday after battling esophageal cancer. In March, Representative Raul Grijalva of Arizona passed away at the age of 77 due to complications from cancer treatments. Representative Sylvester Turner of Texas, 70, a House freshman, died six days earlier. (Turner replaced Sheila Lee Jackson, who also died in office in July.)
Had any of these three Democrats, who all are from safe Democratic districts, taken their health into consideration and decided not to run in 2024, such an egregious bill would have failed to pass. Do Democrats have an age problem? The party has been reluctant to give younger rising stars more prominent leadership positions, mostly notably when Connolly, whose condition was publicly known, was chosen to be the leading Democrat on the House Oversight Committee over the much younger Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
In 2024, Democrats failed to connect with younger people and lost many of their votes, and this year, Americans of all ages have been urging the party to put up a vigorous fight against the Trump administration's attacks on the country's institutions. Are older politicians in their seventies and eighties up for that battle?
The last eight members of Congress to have died in office were Democrats, with seven of them being over the age of 70 with significant health concerns. Six Democrats died in the last year alone. Democrats in Congress should decide whether they are physically and mentally up to the task of stopping the Republican effort to tear down America's institutions—or make way for those who are.
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