The GOP Isn't Going To Be Able To Force A Defunding Of ObamaCare

It's budget/Continuing Resolution season in DC and that means the last chance to defund ObamaCare before it goes into effect next year.

Mike Lee is trying to rally Senate Republicans to sign a letter pledging not to vote for any budget item that doesn't defund ObamaCare and boost his potential 2016 candidacy but mostly boost his potential 2016 candidacy.

He has 11 other GOP Senators on board. 11. That's how many will stand against ObamaCare: Rubio, Cruz, Risch, Paul, Inhofe, Vitter, Thune, Chiesa, Enzi, Fischer, Grassley.

Think that's pathetic?

At one point he had 17 but Ayotte, Boozman, Cornyn, Kirk, & Wicker withdrew.

Yeah.

Anyway, some in the House (but probably not Boehner and the rest of the leadership) are willing to go the shutdown route because let's be honest, this calls for fruitless gesture on someone's part. But the reality in the Senate says it's not happening.

Democrats, with 54 votes, have enough to pass anything that requires a simple majority, and won't have much trouble getting to a filibuster-proof 60 votes, either. "I could count six or seven Republicans who would vote for full funding of the continuing resolution without breaking a sweat," says one Senate aide who supports defunding. "So they're going to get to 60."

But that's just the discretionary part of Obamacare. The far bigger portions of the program, including the billions and billions of dollars in subsidies that will start going to Americans on Jan. 1, are mandatory spending, an entitlement funded by an automatic appropriation which is written into law and runs without further congressional action. To change that, Congress would have to change Obamacare.

In the Senate, that would take 67 votes -- the amount needed to overcome a guaranteed presidential veto. If the 46 Senate Republicans voted unanimously to end the Obamacare entitlement, they would have to persuade 21 Democrats to go along.

ObamaCare in all its freedom and economy destroying glory is a done deal. The reality is that was the case back in November when Mitt "ELECTABILITY" Romney got his ass kicked by a President sitting on one of the worst economies in history.

There's simply nothing the GOP can do about it now. And if you think they are going to win in 2016 by promising to repeal one of the largest entitlement programs in history, you're crazy. And if you think they'd actually do it if they win, you're even crazier.

Nope, from now on the GOP mantra, led by the Chris Christies (who I predict with be the GOP nominee in 2016) of the world will be "fix" ObamaCare. You know like how we've spent decades "fixing" Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. The GOP isn't the party of smaller government and more freedom it's the party of big government just run a little differently.

The only people who will still be talking about repeal will be scammers who want money to sign "An urgent petition to tell Washington blah, blah, blah".

Should the House threaten to or actually shutdown the government? Sure, why not? It'll last a couple of weeks, maybe a month and then the GOP will cave.

Do it, don't do it, it really doesn't matter. Personally I'm for that because it will help to destroy the GOP and that's a good thing in my book. They lost the fight of our lifetime, why exactly do they deserve to exist? It's time to start again and maybe in 40 or 50 years things will get better. Don't kid yourself, that's the time frame and an optimistic one at that.

But hey...they are perfectly happy to give you amnesty as a consolation prize.

posted by DrewM. at 09:55 AM

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