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Senate GOP Gamesmanship On Obamacare Defunding Is Not Honorable

By Andrew C. McCarthy

On Sunday evening, we discussed the debate on defunding Obamacare – specifically, whether Senate Republicans were being disingenuous in their claim to support defunding. While arguing that Republicans were engaged in sleight-of-hand, I conceded that the GOP’s calculation that avoiding a government shutdown outweighs defunding Obamacare is not “frivolous.” Ramesh proceeded to inflate this concession, paraphrasing me as having described this calculation as “perfectly honorable.”

That is not what I said. Non-frivolous and honorable are not synonyms, and there is nothing honorable about the ongoing political game of posing as an ardent defunding supporter while voting in a manner that guarantees Obamacare will get funded.

A quick perusal of my “non-frivolous” acknowledgment shows that Ramesh’s “perfectly honorable” interpretation is a contortion. Here’s what I said (italics added):

While I disagree with Republicans who oppose the defunding strategy, I don’t think the calculation that there may be more to lose than to gain is frivolous. I just think the people who’ve made that calculation should have been honest about it from the start. Instead, they voted to defund Obamacare until . . . it mattered.

So, acknowledging that a political calculation shrouded in dishonest posturing is non-frivolous somehow makes it “perfectly honorable”? That does not make sense to me, but it does reflect how Republican leaders rationalize their dizzying approach to Obamacare.

There is nothing honorable in the legerdemain we discussed on Sunday: The GOP’s unanimous and ostentatious support only six months ago for a defunding amendment when the vote was just a pose, followed today by the belittling of defunding legislation as “the dumbest idea I’ve ever heard” – to borrow the words of Sen. Burr, who co-sponsored the March defunding amendment – because this time the legislation is accompanied a plan to achieve the stated objective.

On that score, GOP establishment sympathizers contend that there is nothing inconsistent in supporting defunding as a goal but disfavoring the tactics by which the goal is sought. That is conveniently Solomonic. I’ll put aside some constitutional problems with the ongoing drama (to be addressed in a separate post). To get defunding enacted into law necessarily requires orchestrating a situation in which intense political pressure can be brought to bear that induces some Democrats to vote for it and President Obama to perceive it as in his interests to sign it. This is far from impossible; indeed, it’s been done before (see, e.g., extension of the Bush tax cuts). But short of the specter of a government shutdown, where was that kind of pressure possibly going to come from? If you are against the only conceivable means of achieving a goal, your vote for the goal is a pose; it is not real support.

If the GOP establishment’s position is that government shutdowns damage the potential for Republican success in the next few election cycles, and that electoral success is the only way to stop Obamacare, then the honorable move would be to vote in favor of funding Obamacare so voters know where Republicans really stand.

In light of the GOP establishment position that the defunding strategy is implausible, though, a question arises. House conservatives and the Cruz-Lee Senate contingent are pushing the “defund now” strategy because, they very convincingly argue, once Obamacare subsidies start to kick a week from now, there will be no realistic possibility of repealing Obamacare – it will be, like Medicare, permanent. The Republican establishment may not like the “defund now” strategy, but are they seriously telling us that Republicans will be in a position to repeal Obamacare four or six years from now? Really? Ted Cruz’s strategy is no sure thing, but it sounds a lot more plausible to me than the notion that Republicans, the guys who ran in 2012 as saviors of Medicare, are going to have the nerve to scrap Obamacare subsidies that are, by then, years old. I’d sooner believe they’d want credit for preserving Obamacare goodies.

Finally, there is nothing honorable about Senate GOP leaders’ current pose of vigorous support for defunding Obamacare while simultaneously announcing their intention to vote in favor of a procedural rule – “cloture,” the ending of debate – that Republicans well know will guarantee that Obamacare is fully funded.

Republican leaders are banking on the public’s understandable disinterest in the Senate’s abstruse procedural rules in order to pull off this fraud. Cloture requires 60 votes – meaning the senate’s 46 Republicans can deny Democrats the margin necessary to end debate. But Republicans say they will vote with the Democrats on this “merely procedural” step. Here’s the key: Under Senate rules, (a) the end of debate does not mean the end of amendments, and (b) those amendments only require a simple majority to pass. Thus, once debate has ended, as Republicans well know, Majority Leader Harry Reid will propose an amendment to restore the Obamacare funding that the House has stripped. Democrats will then pass that amendment.

A vote for cloture is not a merely procedural formality. In essence, a vote for cloture is a vote to fund Obamacare.

And here’s the kicker: Republicans who vote for cloture get a double dip. First, they will say (as Senator McConnell did today) that they are voting to end debate because they are anxious to vote in support of the House measure that defunded Obamacare – even though they well know their cloture vote will inexorably lead to Reid’s amendment to undo the House defunding measure. Second, when Reid proposes his certain-to-pass amendment to restore Obamacare funding, they will vote against it, a nay vote they will wear on their sleeves to show the folks back home that they opposed defunding – even though they well know their collusion with Democrats on cloture is what allowed Reid to restore Obamacare funding.

That may be someone’s idea of honorable. It is not mine.

The Path to Victory

Via-RCP

By Sen. Ted Cruz


Just a few weeks ago the Washington establishment said the Republican-led House of Representatives could never pass a funding bill that would keep the government open while defunding Obamacare. They were wrong.

All across the country Americans spoke up, asking Congress to stop this terrible law. Over 1.5 million signed the dontfundit.com petition, and thousands more sign every day. Tens of thousands of calls poured into the offices of senators and congressmen. They changed the dynamic.

As a result, on Friday, House Republicans passed a bill that fully funds government without funding Obamacare, even picking up a couple of Democrat votes.

Now, it’s the Senate’s turn.

If Senate Republicans stay strong and hold true to their previous commitments to defund Obamacare, we will force Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to make a choice: keep the government open, or shut it down in the name of funding a glitch-riddled health care takeover that is killing jobs, wages, and health care benefits all across the nation.

The next step is critical. Senate Republicans should demand a 60-vote threshold for any effort that would add Obamacare funding back into the House bill. This is the battle line: Senate Republicans must stop Reid from rejecting the House bill and adding Obamacare funding with merely 51 votes.

The House bill must be protected.

If implemented, Obamacare will change our entire health care system, impacting the lives of every single American. Securing 60 votes is not too much to ask. Our nation is bitterly divided because there is far too little consensus on major political matters. We need more unity to help heal our country. Sixty votes would help move toward that.

The Democrats may have jammed Obamacare through Congress on a strict, bare-knuckled party-line vote, but it shouldn’t be funded that way.

We know the Democratic leadership wants to fund Obamacare, and it’s certain Leader Reid will use every gimmick, obscure parliamentary trick, and sweetheart deal to do it. After all, that’s how he passed Obamacare in the first place.

Until Reid guarantees a 60-vote threshold on all amendments, a vote for cloture is a vote for Obamacare. It would amount to giving the Democrats a green light to fund Obamacare with 51 votes.

We owe it to our constituents to keep our promise to stop Obamacare. Many in Washington like to talk about “elections having consequences” but seem more intent on focusing on who has power.

It’s time to quit worrying about power and blame and simply do what’s right.

The evidence is pouring in that Obamacare isn’t working. Obamacare is hurting almost every sector of the economy. Universities, restaurants, retailers, museums, and more are all being forced to make brutal adjustments to comply with it.

Even labor unions that once championed this law are decrying how it could destroy the 40-hour workweek for millions of middle-class Americans.

More Americans are losing their insurance each day -- despite the president’s promise that if we liked it, we could keep it. Last month, UPS and the University of Virginia said they would drop health insurance for many spouses of their employees because of Obamacare, leaving thousands of husbands and wives scrambling.

Just last week the Cleveland Clinic announced massive layoffs and a $330 million budget cut because of Obamacare. Sea World is slashing hours for part-time workers. Investor’s Business Daily has tallied more than 300 companies that are cutting jobs and benefits because of the law.

Not one more American should lose their job, wages, or health care plans because of this disastrous, train wreck of a law.

If President Obama, his big corporate friends, and members of Congress and their staffs don’t have to live under Obamacare, then no other Americans should, either.

Some argue the law should be delayed. Defunding delays it for everyone, not just the ruling class in DC. In essence, defund exempts everyone from the law. Defund gives a waiver to everyone.

Whether or not Senate Republicans defeat cloture, the question will be whether Harry Reid will demand a government shutdown to force Obamacare on every American. We should not shut down the government, and I hope Reid and President Obama do not do so.

Regardless, the House should stand its ground, and if Reid kills this Continuing Resolution then the House should pass smaller CRs one at a time, starting with the military. Dare Reid to keep voting to shut down the government.

Once Senate Republicans unite, red-state Senate Democrats will be next. And that is how we win -- by continuing to mobilize the American people to hold every elected official accountable.

Americans are speaking loud and clear. They don’t want to lose their health plans and be forced into Obamacare exchanges, keep their businesses small to avoid the law’s penalties, and let bureaucrats and politicians in Washington make their health care decisions. Let’s listen.

They deserve a win. I intend to use every tool available to me to defund Obamacare, and am encouraged by the thousands of phone calls, tweets, and emails that come to my office each day.

Republicans have the momentum. Conservatives defeated the president’s gun control measures to deprive Second Amendment rights from law-abiding Americans. We pushed back on his reckless drone policy. We convinced him to seek congressional approval on military action in Syria.

Now, we’re poised to win our biggest victory for the American people yet: defunding Obamacare. All we have to do is have the will to fight.

Smearing Ted Cruz

Via-Front Page Magazine

By Matthew Vadum

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) is not disappointing his conservative supporters.

In his first few weeks in the world’s most sclerotic deliberative body, Cruz has already come under intense fire from the Left, and surprisingly, from a few corners in the GOP.



Leftist Obama sycophant Greg Sargent, the Washington Post‘s in-house ideological purity enforcer, confers a kind of credibility on Cruz and those like him by calling them crazy.

Cruz “keeps untold numbers of base voters in a state of perpetual delusion,” Sargent writes. He does this with “the hints about creeping socialism, the suggestions that Dems are anti-American, the notion that Obama’s modest executive actions reveal him as an enemy of the Constitution, etc.”

This tedious hazing of conservatives has become an ingrained ritual in the Senate in recent years. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.), Rand Paul (R-Ky.), Mike Lee (R-Utah), and Ron Johnson (R-Wisc.) have all been targets of smear campaigns as they took their seats.

But the fact that the denunciations of Cruz from both inside and outside the Senate have been so sweeping, so bitter, and so quick to arrive, suggests that the freshman senator is off to an excellent start.

Cruz himself welcomes the Left’s enmity.

Read entire article

What the GOP should stand for: Opportunity

Via-WAPO

By Ted Cruz,

Ted Cruz, a Republican, represents Texas in the Senate.

Since Election Day, much energy has been spent analyzing why Republicans did so poorly. Many have urged that Republicans must “moderate their views,” by which they mean we should adopt more policies of Democrats.

That advice misdiagnoses the problem. The 2012 election did not reflect popular approval of the Obama policies of out-of-control spending, taxes, deficits and debt. To the contrary, 51 percent of voters on Election Day agreed that “government is doing too many things better left to businesses and individuals.”

Nor did the election reflect satisfaction with the paltry economic growth that President Obama’s abusive regulatory approach has produced. Voters are rightly unhappy with the anemic growth in gross domestic product the past four years; the average, just 1.5 percent, is less than half of our historic average since World War II, but 53 percent of voters believed the economy was George W. Bush’s fault.

Why did voters believe that? Obama repeated it relentlessly, and Republicans never responded.

First you win the argument, then you win the vote, Margaret Thatcher famously admonished. Republicans did neither.

Nothing better illustrates that failure than “47 percent.” Not the comment itself nor the good and decent person who uttered it, but, rather, the overall narrative of Republicans. Voters were convinced that the GOP is the party of “the rich” and that Democrats are the party of everybody else.

That characterization is false, but as long as a majority of Americans believe that Republican policies do not benefit them, Republicans will continue to lose.

And far too many Republicans believe it as well.

So let me suggest an alternative course: opportunity conservatism. Republicans should conceptualize and articulate every domestic policy with a single-minded focus on easing the ascent up the economic ladder.

We should assess policy with a Rawlsian lens, asking how it affects those least well-off among us. We should champion the 47 percent.

That does not mean adopting the wealth-redistribution policies of the left. Among other problems, collectivist approaches to our economy simply do not work. They fail to produce economic prosperity or to improve the material conditions of the populace. And they lead to bankruptcy and economic collapse, as Europe demonstrates daily.

Why do millions of people from all over the world come to the United States? Because no other nation has offered such opportunity. Nowhere else can so many come with nothing and achieve anything.

And yet, as Democrats work to move the United States further toward the failed economic policies of European social democracies, our economic mobility has diminished. Without fail, when government controls the economy, opportunity dries up.

Whenever entrepreneurs and small businesses suffer, those struggling to improve their economic conditions are hurt the worst. Under the Obama administration, the unemployment rate climbed above 10 percent among Hispanics last year and to 14 percent among African Americans. Yet Republicans never talked about this.

Free-market policies expand opportunity, produce prosperity and improve lives, especially for those working to climb the economic ladder.

I know this is not a theory. My dad fled torture and oppression in Cuba to come, penniless, to Texas. He washed dishes for 50 cents an hour to pay his way through college and then started a small business.

Roughly one in every 10 Hispanic households, or 2.3 million Hispanics, own small businesses.

For centuries, entre­pre­neur­ship has been the path to the American dream.

On the flip side, widespread economic redistribution places enormous burdens on small businesses, kills jobs and rarely helps the recipients of government largess.

Dependency is corrosive. Ask any abuela if she wants her grandchildren dependent on government. Dependency saps spirit and diminishes self-respect.

Americans want to stand on their own feet, and Republicans need to champion policies that enable us to do so: ownership, choice and individual responsibility.

Opportunity conservatism is a powerful frame to explain conservative policies that work. It covers the gamut of issues. Republicans shouldn’t just assail excessive financial and environmental regulations; we should explain how those regulations kill jobs and restrict Americans’ ability to buy their first home.

Don’t just say no to new taxes — fundamentally reform the tax code so that every American can file his taxes on a postcard. Eliminate the corporate welfare and complexity that enrich only accountants and lawyers.

Don’t just criticize union bosses; explain how closed shops confiscate wages and make it harder for low-skilled workers to get jobs.

Don’t talk generically about education; advocate school choice to empower parents and expand opportunity for children struggling to get ahead.

Don’t just dwell on the long-term solvency of Social Security; promote personal accounts to allow low-income Americans to accumulate wealth and pass it on to future generations.

Republicans ought to view, and explain, every policy through the lens of economic mobility. Conservative policies help those struggling to climb the economic ladder, and liberal policies hurt them. If Republicans want to win, we need to champion opportunity.