Texas Rep. Louie Gohmert told a townhall audience Tuesday that the GOP Leadership was afraid of picking a battle to defund ObamaCare. Several conservative lawmakers, led by UT Sen. Mike Lee, have threatened to strip funding to implement the unpopular law out of any continuing resolution to be passed next month to keep the government open.
“Our leadership is scared to death,” Gohmert told the crowd of about 200 activists. “They think if we have a shutdown, or a big showdown, we may lose the majority, and they will lose their leadership positions.”
The current continuing resolution funding government expires on September 30th. The Congress is expected to pass a short-term extension of the funding, while it debates an overall annual budget and likely increase in the nation's debt ceiling. ObamaCare also takes effect the next day, October 1st, when the federal and state health care exchanges are set to open. Conservatives view the funding debate as the last real chance to gut the health care law.
Many Republicans are worried that if they stripped ObamaCare funding from the continuing resolution, Obama would veto the spending bill and force a shutdown of government. Many Republicans, especially those in leadership positions, worry that the party will be blamed for the shutdown.
Conservative leaders, like former Sen. Jim Demint, have dismissed those fears.
“The risk of that is so much less than the risk to our country if we implement ObamaCare, and so I’m not as interested in the political futures of folks who think they might lose a showdown with the president,” DeMint said at an Arkansas town-hall meeting hosted by Heritage Action.
Late Wednesday, Sen. Lee said that KS Sen. Pat Roberts became the 14th Senator to sign a letter calling for the defunding of ObamaCare. Lee said that the support from Roberts was a sign of the growing momentum behind the push for defunding.
“What does it say about Republicans if we’re not willing to stand up for what we know is best for the country,” Gohmert said on Tuesday. His remarks drew widespread applause from activists.
These guys are useless. I mean seriously. It it one thing to have no guts, but to have no heart goes beyond that. Why do they think they gained a majority in 2010 ?
Heck, I may as well just vote Democratic. Its like a choice between the headless horseman and the guy in the scream mask. The horseman will finish things off quicker with less pain.
“They think if we have a shutdown, or a big showdown, we may lose the majority....”
Thre's no "may" about it, Louie.
Republicans are guaranteed to (a) lose a shutdown showdown, (b) get blamed for it and (c) lose the majority in the House and fall below 40 seats in the Senate.
Thank God no one in leadership is listening to this impulsive raving.
Most of the country doesn't want Obamacare Cedric. We will probably never know if it could be/have been defeated because nobody has ever seriously tried since 2010. Why not put all of the chips on the table for once. These guys would call Ronald Reagan dangerous and wreckless if he were still around.
Quote: se_ohio_conservative wrote in post #6Most of the country doesn't want Obamacare Cedric. We will probably never know if it could be/have been defeated because nobody has ever seriously tried since 2010. Why not put all of the chips on the table for once. These guys would call Ronald Reagan dangerous and wreckless if he were still around.
Not one House or Senate Republican voted for Obamacae and they have voted to repeal it over 70 times.
I understand the people don't want Obamacare, but they voted for the guys who passed it.
The only vehicle available to defund Obamacare makes it impossible for the GOP to win such a fight, under current circumstances.
The effort would be stopped dead in the Democrat controlled Senate in lesss than 10 minutes after arriving from the House.
Quote: Eglman wrote in post #8The Senate has no say in what is funded it is strictly a house decision--Johnny and the big gov republicans want it so they will fund it
Wrong.
In this case, the House would draft a funding resolution and omit funding for Obamacare, then send it to the Senate.
The Senate would promptly put back in the omotted Obamacare funding and send it back to the House saying, "Your move, dummies!"