Barack Hussein Obama is the first president in our history who would not only allow the United States to actually default on interest payments to bond holders of the national debt, but would actually welcome it.
That is the dirty little secret that no one seems willing to utter in public, but that
is the only logical explanation for why so few elected Republicans in Washington, D.C. are, and, since the 2010 tea partier-fueled GOP landslide election, have been willing to condition funding of the government on the repeal and/or de-funding of an Obamacare law continuously loathed by the electorate since its passage.
Do most of the ruling class GOP elite accept as gospel that President Bill Clinton cleaned Speaker Newt Gingrich’s clock in their much publicized 1995-6 government-shutdown showdowns which damaged the Republican Party in subsequent elections? Yes, despite any actual evidence of any negative electoral fallout in either 1996 or the 1998 mid-terms from the Democrat media-assisted PR victory Clinton achieved by feeling the pain of temporarily laid-off national park rangers.
Do many Republicans justifiably lack confidence in the ability of their Senate and House leadership to conduct an effective media campaign to hang even the obvious disaster that is Obamacare on the lives of an increasing number of Americans facing life without the health insurance they were promised would not be at risk, on President Obama and the Democrat Senate in a shutdown showdown? Yes. But do many Beltway Republicans also secretly welcome the Obamacare law because it provides them with an appropriation tool with which to buy votes and/or a perennial election issue with which to win votes? Sadly, too many. Finally, are there some members of the GOP who deem any attempt to de-fund any government program (passed into law by a previous Congress) absent sufficient (veto-proof if necessary) majorities of both houses of Congress, to be irresponsible? Yes. The latter would include the Boehner-inspired “you can’t govern with only one-half of one-third of the government” crowd that, sadly, Charles Krauthammer echoed recently in rejecting the de-fund strategy Utah Sen. Mike Lee tea partier-Republicans:
Conservatives on Capitol Hill are drawing a line in the sand: they will not vote to stop the government from shutting down if Obamacare is not defunded. Led by Utah Republican Sen. Mike Lee, a dozen senators sent a letter Thursday saying they will not support any resolution to continue funding the federal government if President Obama’s health-care law remains funded. Under current law, the government is funded until Sept. 30, meaning a continuing resolution needs to be passed to keep the government from shutting down.
“The Obama Administration’s recent decision to delay Obamacare’s employer mandate and eligibility verification for the individual exchanges is further proof the law is a failure that will inevitably hurt businesses, American families, and the economy,” Lee said. “In light of this admission, I and several of my colleagues will be informing Sen. Reid that we will not vote for a continuing resolution that funds Obamacare,” he added.
Among those who signed onto the letter: Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz and Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul. Over in the House, a large contingent of House Republicans are pushing a similar strategy, led by Rep. Mark Meadows of North Carolina.
Given the hue and cry from such a large number of their own GOP colleagues, one would think that Obamacare is popular and that no Republican president or Congress had ever successfully played government shutdown games of chicken with their Democratic Party counterparts. In fact, the Orwellian-titled Affordable Care Act has never been more unpopular and President Ronald Reagan not only survived, but thrived, his way through six; and Republican Congresses increased their numbers in elections subsequent or maintained majorities through annual shutdowns under President Jimmy Carter and those under Clinton.
So, despite the “Boehner Rule” (which no Democrat fears is serious) that ostensibly purports refuse to pass increases in the debt ceiling (and thus eventual default and at least a partial government shutdown), it appears that there is something “special” about President Obama that engenders such fear in his political opponents. Something so special that no one inside the beltway dare speak its name.
Obama’s special quality, that causes leaders and followers of the Loyal Opposition to so outnumber those within their ranks willing to pass a budget resolution funding all of the federal government (including raising the debt ceiling) save for Obamacare and daring Senate Democrats and the President to shut down the government, is his perceived willingness to actually wait out any government shutdown until next Inauguration Day; debt defaults, national defense stand downs and post office boxes devoid of Social Security checks, i.e. guaranteed apocalyptic national disaster, be damned.
In other words, America has the equivalent of a Mad Monarch whom the adults in the room (a role that Republican elites are only too happy to play) must coddle and protect us from until he passes from the scene. Sadly, the size and scope of government has reached critical mass with the passage of Obamacare which, especially coupled with the lengthy and ongoing anemic economy, shrinking workforce and income and increasing poverty, makes not shutting down a government implementing Obamacare a national disaster equal to or greater than even a lengthy and thus disastrous government shutdown, with defaults calling the full faith and credit of the United States into question for the first time in our history.
There is a crazy and/or recklessly immature child wielding Chief Executive power in the United States that no one in D.C. will admit publicly, much less impeach or declare incompetent and remove from office, who happens to be half Black. There, I said it.
Our next installment will explain how there is no inconsistency between the Speaker Boehner’s avowed debt-ceiling Rule (requiring spending cuts equal to or greater than a new debt ceiling, or else?) and Senator Lee’s Obamacare de-funding strategy.
Mike DeVine‘s Right.com
“One man with courage makes a majority.” – Andrew Jackson
