The Republican Shell Game On Obamacare
PHOTOS.COM
Give us a break! That’s what Congress finally did on
Saturday, when after a marathon session in the Senate, Congressmen all
agreed to head out of town for their two-week spring break. So we’re
safe from their meddlesome efforts until April 8.
But what a show they put on before they left. After arguing most of
the night, the Senate finally managed to pass its first budget in four
years at 4:56 in the morning. The final vote was 50-49, with every
Republican opposing it. They were joined by four Democrats: Mark Pryor
of Arkansas, Kay Hagan of North Carolina, Mark Begich of Alaska and Max
Baucus of Montana. Not so coincidentally, all four are up for
re-election next year.
I’ll have more to say about the battle of the budgets in a moment.
But first I need to comment on two recent Senate votes on Obamacare and
the incredible hypocrisy they demonstrated. First, Congressional
Republicans declared their unwavering opposition to the badly misnamed
Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. Then they voted to fund it
for the rest of the year.
What the heck’s going on here?
Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Mike Lee (R-Utah), two tough young
conservatives who defeated more establishment-type Republicans to win
election, lived up to their campaign promises to try to end Obamacare.
They forced a vote in the Senate on an amendment to defund the program.
As expected, the measure lost on a straight party-line vote, with 55
Democrats voting against it and all 45 Republicans in the Senate voting
in favor.
On
March 20, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell made a wonderful speech on the floor of the Senate:
In my view, Obamacare is a colossal mistake for our
country. There’s just no way to fix it. It needs to be pulled out by its
roots and we need to start over.
This bill needs to be repealed and replaced — not with another
unreadable law or another 20,000 pages of regulations – but with
common-sense reforms that actually lower health care costs.
And anyone who thinks we’ve given up that fight is dead wrong.
On
March 15,
McConnell gave a speech denouncing Obamacare at the Conservative
Political Action Conference. He stood next to a stack of papers that
were taller than he was, which he said were the 20,000 pages of new
regulations that have been issued so far to implement this healthcare
monstrosity.
Some 828 pages of new regulations were issued in just one
day, he said; and he warned that there are many more to come.
On
March 11, in remarks on the Senate floor, McConnell said:
This law is a disaster waiting to happen.
Imagine the burden we’re placing on the single mom who wants to open
her own store. Or the young entrepreneur who wants to sell some new
idea. Or the business owners we all know from back home — the folks who
employ so many of our constituents.
Instead of encouraging them to create jobs and grow the economy, we’re hitting them with a brick of regulations.
That all sounds pretty good, doesn’t it? But McConnell and 19 other Republican
Senators voted to fund Obamacare for the rest fiscal 2013.
What you’ve got here is a perfect example of how many Republicans can
vote for “business as usual” in Washington, while at the same time
making sure they can posture as staunch conservatives for the folks back
home.
Here are the 20 Republican Senators who voted in favor of the Cruz
amendment, knowing it would fail, but then voted in favor of a measure
to make sure the healthcare monstrosity gets all of the taxpayer funds
it needs to continue operations for the rest of this fiscal year:
Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, John Barrasso of Wyoming, Roy Blunt of
Missouri, John Boozman of Arkansas, Saxby Chambliss of Georgia, Dan
Coats of Indiana, Thad Cochran of Mississippi, Susan Collins of Maine,
Bob Corker of Tennessee, John Cornyn of Texas, Orrin Hatch of Utah, John
Hoeven of North Dakota, Johnny Isakson of Georgia, Mike Johanns of
Nevada, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Jeff
Sessions of Alabama, Richard Shelby of Alabama, John Thune of South
Dakota and Roger Wicker of Mississippi.
By the way, you may be wondering why the vote to fund Obamacare was
included in an omnibus piece of legislation called a “continuing
resolution.” The reason is that our august leaders know that they can
get a lot more votes for their massive spending programs if they lump
enough things together in one humongous package. So rather than
individual votes on various parts of the Federal budget, we get one
all-inclusive continuing resolution.
It’s so much safer that way. Witness what just happened with efforts to defund Obamacare.
In the predawn hours of March 23, the Democratic majority in the
Senate also did something that it has vigorously avoided for the past
four years: It passed a budget.
As the kids would say, big whoop. The Democrats’ plan calls for
almost $1 trillion in new revenue over the next 10 years. But thanks to
62 percent more spending over the decade, even if they get all that new
revenue, the budget still won’t balance.
The Republicans, meanwhile, didn’t do much better. The Paul Ryan
budget, which the House passed and the Senate rejected, also called for
more spending, just not quite as much. The Republican budget would have
increased Federal spending by 40 percent over the next 10 years. But
thanks to increased revenue from our slowly growing economy, the budget
was supposed to have balanced by year 10.
Mind you, neither the Democrats nor the Republicans are actually
calling for a reduction in government spending. The best we can hope
for, they say, is a slight reduction in the proposed growth of
government.
Until we more people in the U.S. Senate who will stick to their campaign promises on
every
vote and who don’t engage in the sort of shell game we just saw with
funding for Obamacare, I’m afraid they are probably correct.
Of the 21 Senate seats currently held by Democrats that will be
contested next year, Republicans have to win only six of them in
addition to retaining the seats they hold in order to regain control of
the Senate.
But it sure wouldn’t hurt if, at the same time, some of the
soft-as-marshmallows Republicans in the list above could also be
replaced by some people with a little more backbone.
Until next time, keep some powder dry.