Deep-Pocket GOP Donors Closing Their Wallets Until Republicans Accomplish Something

Deep-pocket donors to the Republican Party have a stern warning for the GOP in Washington: Start winning, or else.

It was at a ritzy gathering in a Rocky Mountain resort over the weekend that major GOP donors aligned with the Koch brothers made their concerns known.

Texas GOP donor Doug Deason said he and ten other big Dallas donors are withholding any contributions to the Republican Party until they can actually get something accomplished.

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Until then, his “Dallas piggy bank” is closed for business, LifeZette reports. Specifically, Deason wants to see movement on replacing Obamacare and significant health care reform.

“Get Obamacare repealed and replaced, get tax reform passed,” Deason said, according to the Associated Press. “You control the Senate. You control the House. You have the presidency. There’s no reason you can’t get this done. Get it done and we’ll open it back up.”

Deason said he has already said no to two prominent House members – both aligned with the so-called “Freedom Caucus.” Reps. Mark Meadows, from North Carolina and Ohio’s Jim Jordan asked him to hold a fundraiser and he turned them down.

“I said, ‘No, I’m not going to because we’re closing the checkbook until you get some things done,'” Deason said, adding that he even pressured two dozen other Texas-based donors to refuse to partner with them on the fundraiser.

Deason even turned down Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell when he was invited. He said first, held like to see the Senator “grow a pair” and pass some bills.

“Mr. Deason is dead right to close his piggy bank to Congress,” Eddie Zipperer, an assistant professor of political science at Georgia Military College, told LifeZette. “If I were a donor, I wouldn’t give a dime to those in Congress who made their names by obstructing President Obama, and are now furthering their obstructionist brand against President Trump at the expense of working-class Americans who are the ones shouldering the Obamacare burden.”

Other Republican donors share the concern – for almost a decade, they have promised to repeal Obamacare and now that they have the House, Senate and the executive branch, they can’t corral enough of their own members to affect change.

“Ideologically entrenched senators like Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Rand Paul (R-Ky.) — I call them the moth caucus because they love fluttering around any spotlight they can find — are simply grandstanding in their opposition to the Senate health care bill,” Zipperer said. “They want Obamacare totally repealed. That’s great! Me, too! So do most conservatives.”

“The Senate’s partial repeal is well-calibrated to get rid of the most damaging aspects of Obamacare without losing moderate Senators. The legislative branch is about compromising,” Zipperer added. “Cruz and Paul should respect the mandate of the American voters who put President Trump in the White House.”