The Continuing Resolution, the debt ceiling, and defunding Obamacare
No, I’m not going to write the definitive analysis of these things. I’m going to turn into a linker and refer you to the analyses of others, because I don’t have much to add to what they say:
The short version of the leadership’s plans: the House will pass a CR that defunds Obamacare and send it to the Senate to see if Senate GOP can make it stick. The House, anticipating that Senate Dems will strip out Obamacare defunding, will also pass a 1-year debt ceiling increase in exchange for an Obamacare delay until 2015, some tax and budget reforms, and the Keystone pipeline.
That’s divided government for ya.
Here’s the usual White House spin.
John Podhoretz criticizes Republican strategy or lack thereof.
I can’t figure out why the Republicans want to delay Obamacare until after the election. If it’s bad as many people think, wouldn’t it be better to let people experience and then vote those responsible out of office? What am I missing?
@mw
Conservatives (like Cruz) are concerned that if the subsidies are allowed to take effect, it will form a permanent voting bloc. That would make repeal impossible at any future date. That’s why they want it stopped now.
Republican leadership (Boehner, et. al.) are worried that they personally will get blamed for something if they try to stop Obamacare. They just want to keep kicking the can down the road so they never have to vote on it.
I would normally agree with your position, but I worry that Obama will manage to delay the bad parts long enough for him to build up that voting bloc. Not hard to imagine, considering the extra-constitutional powers he’s usurped for himself and how he’s never held accountable.
This is a complex one. My first approach is to plead ignorance on a very important issue: Can the Congress not fund Obamacare? I’ve read that the spending is “mandatory” and not “discretionary” and so shutting down the gov’t would not unfund Obamacare.
I believe the above is true. But I would still support shutting downt he government. First, just on a Calvin Coolidge attitude and principle. Second, because if only discretionary spending is withheld, the basic gov’t functions of defense and commerse, etc, goes on. Third, as a means of strategy, and here lies the rub, so much attention would focus on Obamacare and its defects, that there would be an overall benefit from the media attempt to blame Republicans.
And why not try it? Is playing it safe gaining anything?
I am of the opinion that the law will be changed radically, if not repealed, when enough people wake up to the reality of what’s coming. In Washington State the exchanges are ready to go. (Of course, it’s a deep blue state.) Our daughter who, as a small business woman, has always bought her own insurance in the private market has just gotten a preview of what’s available for her on the exchange. For comparable coverage she will pay $300 more per month. It won’t break her, but how is that making things more “affordable?” Multiply our daughter’s experience by millions and you will hear an outcry, no a demand, that something be done. Most middle class earners are still not aware of the increased cost that’s coming. IMO, when the truth is realized, Congress is going to hear those screams loud and clear.
I just read an excellent comment on another blog. The Republicans should be using this line or a variant of it:
“Would you go out to become a doctor and heal people for free? Or will you become a teacher and teach for free? No? Then stop asking for free healthcare or education. There is always a cost whether you pay for it directly or other’s people money is stolen to pay for it. The difference is, when money is stolen to pay for it, the price will skyrocket. Just look what’s happening to healthcare costs.”
Of our three children — all gainfully employed, thank heavens — two have already been negatively affected by Obamacare. One is losing his health coverage since the professional association to which he belongs will no longer be allowed to offer insurance to its members under the new regs. He’ll be able to find other coverage but it is going to cost more. Another has been told by her employer that her health insurance premiums will “skyrocket” next year (her word) and that Obamacare is the reason. The third — in the military — is okay, so far. But if this two-out-of-three negative impact is proportional for other members of their generation, there is going to be screaming when it all sinks in.
Most of my lefty-left friends are laboring under the assumption that Obamacare will be free or cheap (at least to non-rich people, such as themselves). That’s how it was sold to them, and since they tend to believe that stated intent=reality, many of them still harbor this fantasy. I suspect that a time of reckoning will be on them soon.
Most of said friends go out their way to work for teeny-tiny companies because big, for-profit companies are evil. They then complain incessantly about the inevitable downside of working for teeny-tiny companies, such as nonexistent benefits. This is one of the reasons that they were so jump-up-and-down-excited about Obama and Obamacare – the idea that they could continue to work for tiny companies and get cheap or free health care.
I work for a big company and have already seen the effect of Obamacare – higher costs for lower levels of coverage and service. Any rational observation of the cobbled-together mess that is Obamacare explains why this is inevitable. But my lefty-left friends, who are still working for tiny companies with no benefits, are still jumping up and down in excitement waiting for the free/cheap health care coverage they think they’ll be getting.
Unfortunately, when reality lets them down, instead of grudgingly accepting the root causes, they will simply blame Republicans, conservatives, the evil GOP and horrible for-profit insurance companies. It’s just how they are. I am truly beginning to wonder if any amount of obvious leftist-progressive stupidity leading to obvious consequences will be enough to slap them in the face with reality.
will they remain your friends
when the illusion ends
when power meet fashion
will it funnel emotion
Obama gets a big fat smile on his face whenever he can make Americans suffer or die.
Whether people believe it or not is immaterial to the reality of the Left’s utopia.
Kyndyll, exactly, I have some friends behaving the same way, you understand their reasoning, if we may call it that.
The Republicans in Congress are incompetent and totally lacking in strategic sense. All they are doing is playing into the hands of the administration and its allies. They cannot govern with their present majority in the House while being in the minority in the Senate and not holding the Executive branch.
Time is on their side, but only if they are patient. They have made their point with repeated passage of bills the Senate will never consider. Now they need to require the Affordable Care Act to be enacted as the statute was passed, and do what they can to prevent President Obama from delaying or granting exceptions. Make them implement it now, to the original timeline. Let the voters feel the pain before the 2014 election, then contest the election as follows:
“Our party provided no votes for the passage of Obamacare, and voted repeatedly to repeal it, but veto threats and Senate non-cooperation prevented repeal. You now see how this badly flawed law hurts your families and will never give the promised benefits. Give us a new House majority, and a new Senate, and punish the Democrats who inflicted this harm on our nation and its people.”
Quit playing cutesy games that only turn people off, and let the system work the way it’s supposed to. If the voters accept their proposition, the new Congress can repeal the law and enact other changes to widen coverage and undo the damage, at least in part, let Obama take the heat for a veto if he dares. If the voters despite it all decide to keep the Democrats in a position to decide matters, then the public will have the outcome it wants, and unfortunately would then deserve.
@Dan D
That sounds like a great strategy, but who’s going to give that “Braveheart” speech? Boehner? McConnell?
Remember, this is not the first opportunity they’ve had to bash Obama over some folly or other. But as I keep saying, it’s a funny thing to have a Speaker of the House that can’t speak.
After 2012, it dawned on me that the real problem was that we needed to clean house and get rid of the deadwood in the Republican party first, before we could try to fix anything else.
Matt, I have the sinking feeling that the underlying problem is the He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Opposed syndrome that has overtaken US politics. To oppose Obama is to demonstrate oneself as “racist.” It’s a joke, a cliché, a meme … but it’s the truth. If Obama rammed through legislation that all people who make more than $500K, politicians excepted, should jump off a cliff, the Republicans would shuffle around nervously and look at their shoes rather than take a stand.
All politicians are primarily worried about the next election, and they are in quivering fear of the PR nightmare of being branded “racist.” We see what Democrats do. We see what low-information voters inexplicably believe. We know it will happen – and so do GOP politicians who don’t plan to go home after the next election.
There is no other rational reason why a seasoned politician should pull punches on a topic, such as the Syrian conflict or Obamacare, in which there is demonstrable public support against the president’s position. Obama is able to take ever-more-absurd positions on things, because no one dares to oppose him.
Obama and the Democrats have spent decades compiling a list of things to black mail the GOP over.
They haven’t run out, fyi.
Even if the GOP had the spine and the will to fight, they would not be able to do so. Such is the strategic vise the Leftist alliance has engineered.
People underestimated them, called them clowns, talked about Ayers and Soros like they were regular fools or people spending money and never making any real change.
Well, here’s some real change for you.
@Kyndyll
I’m not getting that vibe anymore. One good thing about the Obama presidency is the way the race card has been overplayed.
I can’t remember the comedian (Carlin?), but someone said that taboo subjects only have power because they’re forbidden. The more you use them, the less they mean.
O’s presidency has been like that, so that a Republican could go on MSNBC and mock, “I’m insulted…aren’t you going to call me a racist?”
Also, Obama’s stock is way down after the Syria thing. Nobody likes a loser, and it’s much safer to dogpile on him now than it ever was before.
I’d rather dogpile on Obama’s supporters. Obama, as a person, is far less significant than people want to believe.
Maureen Dowd has been supporting Leftist atrocities for… how many years now?
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