In the past several years many have made a point -- a good point -- to gently remind people that Memorial Day is not the same thing as Veterans Day. To remind us that this day is not set aside to thank living military members or veterans for their service and it's certainly not a day for patriotic  platitudes or displays to eclipse our commemoration of those who died in service to our country.

But while the "it's Memorial Day, not Veterans Day" correctives are worth acknowledging, I think there is something similar to how we tend to approach both holidays that is equally worth acknowledging. 

Memorial Day is a holiday commemorating those who died in war. Indeed, it is rooted in literal visits to the graves of the fallen. Veterans Day, originally anyway, was a holiday intended to celebrate the ending of a war. While the former has informally morphed into something else and the latter was officially changed to encompass a different purpose, the fact remains that our nation, for whatever reason, has moved away from the notion that war is bad, that its byproducts are tragic and that its ending should be celebrated. It has, instead, filled those spaces with patriotism and, in some cases nationalism and militarism. 

It says a lot about where we are as a country right now that we have pushed the bad parts of war out of our national consciousness and have wholly disposed with celebrating the endings of wars. Maybe it's because, these days, our wars do not end. 

Whatever the case, I do not think that focusing and reflecting upon the tragedy of war and celebrating the ending of wars are bad things nor do they do a disservice to those who have fought and who have died. To the contrary, I can think of nothing that would honor and aid those men and women more.

Yesterday the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office released its report on the impact of the House Republican plan to repeal the Affordable Care Act and replace it with the AHCA. The bottom line: 23 million Americans will lose health care coverage, one million Ohioans among them. 

The impact will be felt primarily by the most vulnerable members of society. Senior citizens. The poor. The sick. The very people who we, as a country, should be doing the most to help would be the ones harmed the most by this callous, cruel and immoral law. 

What's more, the CBO report reminds us that it's not just those who are on Medicaid or who purchase insurance through ACA exchanges who will be harmed by this law. To the contrary, the CBO reports that insurance coverage for one-sixth of all Americans would “become unstable by 2020.”

This will occur because of the increased costs and pressure put on our health care system which will now be serving millions without being paid for it. This will occur because the AHCA gives states the right to drastically cut health care benefits to those with preexisting conditions and to drastically increase the number of conditions deemed "preexisting." This will occur because, under the AHCA, health insurance premiums will rise by 20 percent by 2018 and another five percent the following year. Again, all confirmed by the non-partisan CBO. 

All of this so that Republicans can give a massive tax cut to the rich. All of this to please the insurance companies and drug companies which have donated millions to Republican campaigns. None of this to help Americans who have found themselves victimized by callous and uncaring health insurers, drug companies and medical expenses which have spiraled out of control due to gouging and profit-seeking by the very people supporting the AHCA. 

Yesterday, my congressman, Pat Tiberi, called this "just the start." If this is how it starts, God help us all once he and his Republican colleagues in Congress really get going.

The AHCA will do violence to millions of Americans, preventing the sick from obtaining necessary medical treatment and forcing those who do manage to obtain treatment to risk bankruptcy and financial ruin.

Any lawmaker who supports it has abdicated their responsibility to their constituents and has shown themselves unfit for public service. They should be told this in no uncertain terms and they should be voted out of office at the earliest available opportunity. 

Today Donald Trump will unveil the first comprehensive budget proposal of his presidency. The details have been leaked to the media already, however, and they reveal the most aggressive cuts to programs benefiting needy Americans in living memory:

• Trump's budget cuts Medicaid by 47%. Half of all Medicaid recipients are children. 
• Trump's budget cuts The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), formerly known as the Food Stamp Program, by 25%.
• Trump's budget cuts Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), a program run by states, which provides limited cash assistance to extremely low-income parents and their children, by 13%
• Trump's budget cuts funds dedicated to the National Institutes of Health, which leads our nation's research into fighting disease, by nearly 20%

The budget demonstrates nothing short of unconscionable cruelty to the poor, slashing trillions from the social safety net while giving out the largest handouts to the rich and to big business in American history. 

What's more, the proposal is based on bald faced lies regarding how it will be paid for and the impact it will have on the national budget.

Trump recently proposed $5.5 trillion in tax cuts. The proposal excludes those entirely, hiding the fact that those cuts will take away a gigantic chunk of revenue. At the same time, the proposal assumes comically unrealistic economic growth created by those very same tax cuts. Given the idea that tax cuts to the wealthy will trickle down to benefit the rest of America in the form of economic growth has been thoroughly debunked, Trump's budget proposal is doubly dishonest.  

Thankfully, a president does not have the ability to unilaterally impose a budget and thankfully there will be people fighting hard against it. I have faith that those doing so will ultimately prevail because this budget does not reflect the values and principles of most Americans.

In the meantime, however, we must work to highlight how disastrous these proposals would be for the most vulnerable Americans. And how disastrous they will be to the country as a whole, over time, if they are implemented. We must demonstrate how cruel and heartless Trump's budget is. And how cruel and heartless those who support it are.

I've been a bit quiet here for the past couple of weeks. I was busy doing more important stuff. 

Tomorrow, my congressman, Pat Tiberi, will join Speaker Paul Ryan and fellow central Ohio representative Steve Stivers here in my very own town of New Albany, Ohio. They will be holding a roundtable discussion on tax reform. Then Tiberi will meet with one of his constituents. 

Unfortunately, you're not allowed to go to the roundtable. It's by invitation only, at a private business, owned by a couple who have made thousands upon thousands of dollars in donations to Tiberi over the years. The company owes the state of Ohio $3.5 million in taxes, by the way, so you know their questions challenging Tiberi's and Ryan's questionable views about tax reform will be hard hitting, balanced and incisive. 

The constituent Tiberi will be meeting with afterward is Les Wexner, the billionaire founder of L Brands. He's Ohio's richest man. The purpose is for a fundraiser for Republican congressional candidates. It'll be held at Wexner's 100 acre estate which is literally surrounded by fences on which there are signs notifying passers-by that the property is patrolled by dogs. I am not kidding about that. 

In other news, Pat Tiberi is still not planning on holding a town hall or otherwise answering to the thousands of constituents he just voted to deprive of health care. 

The American Health Care Act, the health care bill on which the House intends to vote today, is not just bad policy and cynical political calculation. It's immoral, plain and simple.

• The bill will cause millions to lose health insurance coverage;
• It will allow insurers to discriminate against people with preexisting conditions, causing millions to lose coverage for their most pressing health care needs or face unconscionable premium hikes that will be impossible for them to pay. 
• It will take Medicaid coverage away from millions, including hundreds of thousands of children. 
• It will lower benefits even for those who do not have Obamacare plans by taking away catastrophic coverage benefits even if you're covered through an employer plan.

​The reason Republicans are trying to pass this bill? It slashes taxes on the wealthiest two percent of earners. That's it. All of that damage done to give rich people a tax cut which they'll hardly even notice. The new bill does nothing to help ordinary working Americans in any way and will, in fact, harm millions of them. By voting in favor of it they are sending a loud and clear signal that they value the wealth of the richest Americans over the health of millions.

The specific impact of these items are not fully known because Republicans in Congress are ramming the bill through without hearings, without getting a CBO score and, in some cases, without them even having seen the text of the bill. In some cases, such as in the case of my congressman, Pat Tiberi, they are simply lying about its contents. They are doing so because they know full well how terrible this bill is and unpopular this bill will be once more people are aware of what it does.

It is a shameful bill, being passed in a shameful fashion. While I am optimistic that the bill will die in the Senate, the mere act of passing it in the House is immoral. It is greedy. It is cynical. It is harmful. It is irresponsible. It is wrong. 

Any member of Congress who votes for it today will have disqualified themselves from public service and shown themselves to care nothing for the men and women who voted for them to represent their interests. And they will pay heavily for doing so.