Dammit, don't squander this!CR: In other news, Congress has said it plans to debate repealing Obamacare, maybe sometime end of February, and “hopes” to have a bill end of March. Maybe not … the GOP could just keep stalling.
How many times have Republicans voted to repeal Obamacare in the last six years? Twenty, 30, 40 times? MSNBC claims it’s around 62. In 2015, Congress actually put a repeal bill on President Obama’s desk.
And now that Republicans control every lever of power in the legislative process, suddenly the task to repeal has become monumental. Not so when the GOP was in the minority.
It is not easy to name a member of Congress — or any GOP elected official — who has not run on repealing Obamacare. Certainly every House Republican worth his or her salt is already on record voting for a full repeal — that is, back when there was no danger of those bills seeing daylight. As one member recently phrased it: “We’re playing with live rounds this time.”
The prospect of making a difference has resulted in schoolboy stage fright. The chance to win has made our guys terrified of facing the other team’s fans in the parking lot.
Campaign pledges to do away with the Affordable Care Act were not always, nor even often, married to specific replacement plans. It was widely acknowledged from the start that repealing the law would leave room for debate over the best market-based solutions. Well, Republicans got their chance. Voters believed them. And within five weeks, the repeal movement has smashed up against barriers erected by the very members who ran and won on the promise of ACTION.
A repeal bill would not pit the country against the party — that is only what the opposition wants us to believe. What is certain to damage the party, perhaps irreparably, is a stalled Congress, an impotent executive, and a surviving health care law that continues to wreak havoc on a country that has stridently rejected it. Leave the law where it is, and the GOP flushes its mandate. There are too many other things to accomplish — and such little time to see them through — for this party to squander its credibility on the one issue it can wipe out with a two-page bill.
In the age of Trevor Noah, Lena Dunham, and John Oliver, elected Republicans have my sympathies. Liberal elites control the levers of culture, and as such, it is hard not to believe that after the non-stop bombardment from liberal media, even when in power, that one is governing in direct opposition to the wishes of a hostile electorate. But it is an illusion. Trump won because he saw the illusion for what it was. He ignored the ache of bad press, shaking off the weight on his shoulders intensified by a media-biased bubble. He proved that if you simply press on and do what you told the voters you would do, the voters will keep up their end. They will show their appreciation by showing up for you.
Republicans must learn this lesson, if no other.
Related link: Yes, we can repeal EVERY WORD of Obamacare
ADDENDUM: Please prove this ASS-CLOWN wrong!
ADDENDUM II: Firing a shot across the bow of the GOP-controlled Congress at CPAC on Thursday, VP Pence said it's time to 'WAKE UP' from the Obamacare nightmare!TheResurgent: What an asshat.
Ousted Speaker John Boehner, aka the administrator of acquiescence, the satrap of surrender, the Duke of dedition, weighed in on the GOP-controlled Congress repeal and replace of Obamacare.
POLITICO captured the moment.
“[Congressional Republicans are] going to fix Obamacare – I shouldn’t call it repeal-and-replace, because it’s not going to happen,” he said.He called all the talk about fast action on a new health package wildly optimistic. “I started laughing,” Boehner, who never saw a Democratic plan he wouldn’t cave to, said. “Most of the framework of the Affordable Care Act … that’s going to be there,”
In a nutshell, Boehner, if he’s not just trolling Congress, believes that the signature issue that carried the GOP to dominance since 2010 and into the White House will be laid in the grave, along with Republican chances in 2018.
Listen, Republican Members of Congress and Senators, whatever this man says, do the opposite. He says you can’t agree on health care. So agree to get 100 percent rid of Obamacare and put something in its place that isn’t a train-wreck doomed to fail. If you don’t, when you lose at the ballot box, don’t say we didn’t warn you.
Related link: Republican Murkowski hated Obamacare in 2015, loves it nowTheResurgent: Vice President Mike Pence didn’t mince any words when he addressed CPAC on Thursday, making it clear that when it comes to repealing and replacing the Unaffordable Care Act, the Trump administration would not settle for any half-baked measures:
"Let me assure you, America’s Obamacare nightmare is about to end, despite the best efforts of liberal activists at town halls around the country. The American people know better. Obamacare has failed, and Obamacare must go."And:
"We’ll have an orderly transition to a better health-care system that finally puts the American people first."If this all sounds familiar, it’s only because the GOP has been campaigning on repeal since this monstrosity was signed into law seven years ago. It’s also a big reason why the GOP took back the House in 2010, followed by the Senate in 2014.
So why the urgency to bring it all up again at CPAC? Well, with all the leftist astroturfing taking place at Republican town hall meetings across the country, some rallying of the troops is in order. But it’s also pretty obvious that Pence fired a warning shot at the GOP-controlled Congress, which has been sending mixed signals about its own determination to repeal Obamacare. That kind of wish-washyness was perfectly encapsulated by former House speaker and all-around surrender monkey John Boehner when he told Politico that no way, no how would Republicans repeal the law.
Thankfully, as Ted Cruz said, “The last I checked, Boehner doesn’t have a vote anymore.” But Boehner is still representative of that wing of the GOP that can’t quite get its head around the fact that they are in control. Maybe it’s just because they can’t shake the loser mentality after eight years of Barack Obama–but I think it’s more likely that they’re just plain scared. It was one thing sending the White House repeal after repeal, knowing that the president would veto every time. It’s quite another to send a repeal to Donald Trump, knowing that he’ll sign it. Repeal means taking responsibility. Certain factions in the GOP, whose default position is to cringe, are now balking at that.
Democrats, meanwhile, know full well that Republicans are toast if they don’t deliver on repeal. That’s why they’ve been pouring so much effort into these town halls. They figure if they can scare individual members enough, Congress will drag things out and water things down so much that voters will abandon them in disgust. In this, the Democrats are correct. That’s what makes immediate repeal and replace not only good for the country, but essential for the GOP as well.
Mike Pence knows that. Let’s hope that Congress gets the message too.
