House to give Ted Cruz, et al a shot at defunding #Obamacare.

Bob Costa over at NRO reports:

Leadership sources tell me the House GOP will soon vote on a continuing resolution that simultaneously funds the federal government and defunds Obamacare. Speaker John Boehner and Majority Leader Eric Cantor are expected to announce the decision at Wednesday’s closed-door conference meeting.

This means the conservatives who have been urging Boehner to back a defunding effort as part of the CR have won a victory, at least in terms of getting the leadership to go along with their strategy. But getting such a CR through the Democratic Senate and signed into law will be very difficult — and many House Republican insiders say a “Plan B” may be needed.

That would, in fact, be the problem. I support defunding, but let me be blunt: I’ve been covering politics for over a decade, and I’ve never seen “And then a miracle happens” work as part of a legislative strategy. Absent use of Orbital Mind Control Lasers, this scenario almost certainly ends with the Republican leadership having to decide whether to play chicken with the US economy. In their place, I’d be damned hesitant to pull the trigger, too.

Moe Lane

PS: No, I am not saying Trust the GOP leadership.  I am saying I am really, really happy not to be the guy making that call.

14 thoughts on “House to give Ted Cruz, et al a shot at defunding #Obamacare.”

  1. Why not fund it and then get out of the way? Isn’t ObamaCare a “trainwreck”? If that’s the case, no more delays. The sooner the voting public experiences ObamaCare, the better it will be for the party that didn’t cast a single vote for it.

    1. I would rather have Congresscritters fight to the last man to get it defunded first. If it should still pass, we get to throw this in the faces of the people who complain about their new health care plan.

      1. But not a single Republican voted for this monstrosity – that should be enough to throw it in their faces. And it won’t clear the Senate, so why waste oxygen on it? Couldn’t Cruz be gutting the IRS and EPA instead of grandstanding on this issue? Finally, I’m not sure that Boehner and Cantor like Cruz. They may look like they are playing chicken with the economy, but what if Plan B (or Plan A for that matter) is to throw Cruz under the bus while smiling for the cameras? You know Beltway Republicans – more than anything they want to be liked by the MSM, and funding ObamaCare while destroying Ted Cruz would definitely earn MSNBC praises.

  2. Normally, Mr. Lane, you are correct. But, on the other hand, this is a special case. Ten years. If we stall for Ten years, and are in power at that time, the whole thing goes away……

    1. The scene, in 10 years, Robert, would be the same as if, today, you proposed to “defund Medicaid”.
      .
      Simply *politically* impossible.
      .
      Mew

      1. Well, no, because the Democrats keep “pushing back” the program. Not only did they past it by means of Reconciliation, which has a built in Ten year limit, they were so cowardly, they have yet to put their hostages in the system, and keep flinching on doing so, unlike Medicaid, which is filled to the rim with hostages…..

        1. And you think they’ll wait ten years?
          .
          B’sides, those are the obvious hostages. The less obvious ones, the 25-year-old can’t-find-a-job kids who are staying on the parents’ plans, or the chronic-condition-couldn’t-get-insurance folks will be opposed to a repeal *today* without assurances that those features are baked into the replacement.
          .
          Don’t see it working nearly as smoothly as you think, mostly because the GOP sucks at messaging.
          .
          Mew

      2. The GOP will likely control both chambers of Congress and the White House, If we have an actual conservative in the WH, he’d have the cajones to stop reauthorization.

  3. RE: having to decide whether to play chicken with the US economy.

    Playing chicken might be a little strong given that we have enough revenue to support a federal budget as it was in 2007 or 2008, years in which Bush was rightly accused of spending like a drunken sailor.

    If Obama does decide to partially shut down the government, we should insist that those workers furloughed do not receive back pay. Let them have some skin in the game.

  4. Yeah, after Boehner has all ready has as much as said he doesn’t have the guts to fight it out, he’ll let someone else stick their neck in a noose while he stands ready on the trap door…

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