Who didn’t see this one coming?
Nobody. That’s who.
President Barack Obama today vetoed a bill that would have repealed the Affordable Care Act and cut federal funds from Planned Parenthood.
This was the mother of political statements. And I’m not talking necessarily about the president’s veto.
I’m referring to Congress’s insistence that the ACA — also known as Obamacare — isn’t working, that it’s an albatross, that it represents a government overreach.
It’s also the president’s signature domestic policy achievement. He said all along — going back to other efforts by Republicans in Congress to repeal the law — that he’d veto any such bill if it got to his desk. It did . . . and he did.
I believe Congress needs at this time to cut its losses. It doesn’t have the votes to override the president’s veto, even with its GOP majority in both legislative chambers. Republicans need a two-thirds majority to override; they don’t have it in the Senate.
We’ve got an election coming up. We’ll have a new president a year from now. Depending on who the parties nominate, Congress might have a dramatically different look than it does today — particularly if the Republican presidential nominee happens to have the name Donald J. Trump.
The current Congress still must work with a Democratic president who — on this issue — has drawn a line deep into the dirt between the White House and Capitol Hill.
The Affordable Care Act is going to stay; moreover, the government will continue to provide public money to Planned Parenthood. Don’t mess with either of them.
Let’s get on to the many other complex issues facing the nation.
