A commenter has an interesting idea for the Republicans next year:
Assuming we get a republican congress in November, the way to repeal ObamaCare is to attached a clause repealing ObamaCare in every single appropriations bill next year. As long as Obama continues to veto them, the federal agencies will not get any money at all. Of course, this requires that the congressional republicans have more balls than Gingrich did at the end of 1995 when he “chickened out” first in this game with Clinton. It is up to the tea party movement to support the election of fiscally conservative candidates who will have the balls to step up to the plate to make sure that ObamaCare gets repealed.
That would require Republican control of both houses, which is possible, but not likely (it will be tough to take over the Senate). But if it happens, the nice thing about it is that the “government shutdown” could be spun this time as being the Democrats’ fault. It won’t even have to be vetoed by the president, because they’d likely filibuster the appropriations bill in the Senate to protect an unpopular measure.
I’m in.
could be spun this time as being the Democrats’ fault.
As always you choose your words carefully. Doesn’t the spin always seem to go to the left?
The spin usually goes to the left. The democrats, backed by the legacy media, will make an issue about how those “evil” republicans are being obstructionist and preventing, say, the FAA from getting its allocation to assure airline safety, for example. This will be played by the legacy media over and over again in order to get the republicans to capitulate. The republicans will have to pick their targeted appropriations bill carefully AND must have the balls to stand up to the relentless pressure from the legacy media. Gingrich proved not to have such balls. The fact that the internet has placed such relentless pressure on the legacy media itself is one advantage we have today that we did not have in 1995.
That’s an excellent point, Ken. Again this morning the lamestream media treated us to another round of whining about how “an evil Republican Senator” is trying to hold up various jobless benefits, etc., when in fact all he’s doing is trying to make sure that spending is accountable to the so-called pay-as-you-go provisions that candidate Obama talked about so much in the debates and on the campaign trail.
Weird coincidence… two Kurts commenting at about the same time…
It will be much much easier to turn it into a dead letter than it would be to repeal.
“Mr. President, congress has voted to give every American baby $1000 (in a brand new, tax free Medical Debit Card), why do you hate the children so much?”
Or $100 for every citizen which is $36 billion. But it sets up the necessary framework.
Keep in mind that this approach didn’t work for the Republicans in 1995. My view is that unless it’s veto-proof or there someone friendly in the Whitehouse, there’s no chance for reversing the health care change. But maybe it’s not such a bad idea to help Obama get reelected in 2012, amirite?
Moving on, I think a better short term strategy is exposure and mitigation. First, expose the effects of the health care change. And second, focus on legislation that mitigates the worst, addressable aspects of the reform and of current health care.
Just de-fund the bits of fedgov that are empowered to implement this thing.
The healthcare fiasco was an authorization bill, not a funding bill.
If the Republicans take the house, strave the beast. hey will control the pursestrings. Keep the government on a continuing resoultion until 2013 for all I care.