Tag Archives: Obamacare

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Rand Paul making sense? Wow!

Someone pinch me. Throw some cold water on my face. Give me a slap. Pass the smelling salts.

I think I just read something regarding Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., that actually made sense. Paul, the tea party golden boy and possible 2016 GOP presidential candidate, said a government shutdown to defund the Affordable Care Act is a bad idea.

http://thehill.com/blogs/healthwatch/health-reform-implementation/317531-rand-paul-i-dont-think-shutting-down-the-government-is-a-good-idea

He told his pals at Fox News Sunday as much this morning.

I think I’ve just entered a parallel universe.

Paul, of course, is right about the shutdown. His views on “Obamacare” need work. He’s swallowed the argument that the Affordable Care Act is some sort of evil deed perpetrated by the federal government, even though data are showing that its initial impact on the nation actually is proving to be a net positive.

The shutdown notion being pushed by his tea party brethren, though, is what deserves attention. The idea of shutting down the government — and punishing tens of millions of Americans who depend on government to help them get through the day — is an outrageous overreach by zealous partisans who have no clue about what it all means.

I’m glad to see Sen. Paul understand the consequences of what these goofballs are proposing. At least on this issue he is joining the shrinking ranks of sensible Republicans who don’t see the government as their mortal enemy.

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Airline merger equals campaign issue

If I understand Tom Pauken correctly, the fact that the state’s attorney general actually supports the federal government’s decision to fight a proposed airline merger makes the AG’s position a non-starter.

Why? Because the AG has been fighting the feds for years and the state simply cannot possibly be on the same side as the enemy — no matter the merits of the case.

Ah … Texas politics. Nothing like it.

Pauken is running for the Republican nomination for Texas governor against AG Greg Abbott, who says he fears a proposed merger between American Airlines and US Airways would result in fare increases and reduced service to rural areas.

http://www.texastribune.org/2013/08/15/pauken-attacks-abbott-opposing-airline-merger/

The feds say the same thing about the proposed merger. Thus, Abbott and the U.S. Justice Department are on the same page on this very specific issue. Abbott and/or his staff of lawyers presumably have analyzed the specifics of the case and determined that, by golly, maybe the feds have a point.

Isn’t that what lawyers do? Pauken, himself a lawyer as well as a former Texas Republican Party chairman, ought to understand that principle.

Instead, he seems to be suggesting that Abbott — who is fighting on behalf those who want to repeal the Affordable Care Act — simply must remain opposed to President Obama, Eric Holder and the federal government because they’re just so darn unpopular in Texas.

This is where every single policy statement becomes a campaign issue.

Ain’t Texas politics grand?

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Newt hates being negative?

Now I’ve heard just about everything there is to hear in contemporary American politics.

Newt Gingrich, the former speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, the one-time bomb-thrower in chief of the Republican, the one-man wrecking crew against all things Democratic, now says his party has gone too “negative” in its effort to roll back the Affordable Care Act.

http://firstread.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/08/14/20026954-gingrich-hope-key-to-progress-for-gop?lite&ocid=msnhp&pos=4

I need to have my hearing checked?

Gingrich is now trying to be the paragon of positive thinking in his party. Imagine that.

My favorite Gingrich tactic came to light in the early 1990s when, while building what would become the House Republican majority, once counseled his congressional colleagues to adopt a glossary of terms to demonize his Democratic opponents. Among them was this notion that Republicans had to label Democrats, get ready for this one, as the “enemy of normal Americans.”

Remember how he tore after then-House Speaker Jim Wright of Texas for his ethical lapses? Turned out that Wright was dirty and he resigned from the House, but he did so after being bloodied badly by Gingrich’s relentless attack.

Gingrich’s scorched-Earth strategy succeeded in 1994, as the GOP captured both houses of Congress in one of the party’s more stunning mid-term successes. He then sought to give first-term President Clinton the dickens masterminding the infamous government shutdown. That didn’t work out too well for Gingrich, as his party got clobbered in the 1996 and 1998 elections. He eventually quit the House a broken political leader.

Gingrich has become the poster boy for those who know to acquire the power to govern, but who don’t know how to actually govern.

So here he is today, giving advice to his Republican progeny on how to woo disaffected voters.

Good luck with that, Mr. Speaker.

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Watch out, Stockman enters fray

Republican Steve Stockman, who in my mind is vying for the title of Texas’s looniest member of Congress, says he has a plan to defund Obamacare without shutting down the government.

http://blog.mysanantonio.com/texas-on-the-potomac/2013/08/have-no-fear-rep-steve-stockman-is-here-to-save-the-government-from-shutting-down/

Stockman hails from the Houston suburb of Friendswood. He was elected to the House of Representatives in 2012 after a 16-year hiatus from Congress; he had served a single term from 1995 to 1997 before being drummed out because he was, um, a bit on the flaky side.

His flakiness hasn’t really subsided in the interim. He’s back with a vengeance, threatening for instance to seek to impeach President Obama for enacting executive orders to get some things done in Washington — given that the GOP-led House isn’t doing anything constructive.

Stockman now says has a plan to stop the Affordable Care Act.

Stockman’s resolution would suspend any federal funds that would support any provision of Obamacare. The bill attacks the health care program, stating that a majority of lawmakers believe it violates the Constitution, according to the Houston Chronicle. I believe the gentleman from the Gulf Coast misstates the level of belief in the law’s constitutionality. It might be that most Republicans — who comprise a majority of the House — believe the law to be illegal. It’s a stretch, though, to suggest that most of the entire House — which still has a significant number of Democrats — has lined up in that camp.

And if memory serves, the Supreme Court ruled that the law is constitutional. Aren’t the justices — most of whom were appointed by conservative Republican presidents — supposed to settle these things?

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Chambliss makes sense on shutdown

Saxby Chambliss isn’t my kind of U.S. senator, but he’s trying to talk some sense into the rogue wing of his Republican Party.

His message today on Meet the Press: Shutting the government down to defund Obamacare would hurt the Republican Party and would hurt the American people.

http://thehill.com/video/sunday-shows/315421-chambliss-government-shutdown-would-play-into-obamas-hands

It’s not that care what happens to the GOP. I don’t. My only concern about Chambliss’s remarks is that he didn’t hold the harm to the public up as the far greater concern. His remarks, as I heard them, seemed to place those consequences on equal footing.

He mentioned Texas’s very own bomb-throwing senator, Republican Ted Cruz, one of the leaders of the shutdown movement. Chambliss said he admires Cruz’s “passion” for tea party causes and shares his desire to defund the Affordable Care Act. Shutting the government down, though, is the wrong course to take, Chambliss said.

I guess the skulls of Cruz and other tea party lawmakers are so thick they just cannot be told how much damage this proposed shutdown would cause them — and the country — if it comes to pass. Republicans tried that once before, in the late 1990s, and it cost them dearly.

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Cruz taunts fellow GOP senators

The junior Republican senator from Texas is proving a point I made the other day about the intraparty battle brewing over whether the shut the government down by cutting off money for the Affordable Care Act.

Ted Cruz asks, “What’s the alternative”?” to shutting ‘er down.

http://blog.mysanantonio.com/texas-on-the-potomac/2013/07/trash-talk-politico-describes-team-cruz-attacks-on-fellow-republicans-as-taunting/

The Lone Star State firebrand – who’s been on the job less than eight months – wasn’t around to witness what happened when the Republicans got their heads handed to them over this very thing. The alternative, Sen. Cruz, is to work with Democrats and “establishment Republicans” to keep the government functioning.

Cruz also wasn’t in the Senate when that body – along with the House of Representatives – approved Obamacare. The Supreme Court then handed the Obama administration a clear victory when it ruled – albeit narrowly – that the law is in fact constitutional.

Thus, we have a standing law.

Congressional Republicans, though, keep trying to overturn what’s been done legally.

And this fight between the two wings of the GOP – the tea party wing and the establishment wing – is proving to be worth the price of entertainment all by itself.

Keep “taunting” those older, more experienced hands, Sen. Cruz.

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Tea Party vs. Establishment GOP

It’s going to be fun watching the tea party wing of the Republican Party take on the old dogs of the GOP.

It’ll be over Obamacare and whether it’s prudent to shut down the government to deprive the Affordable Care Act of the funds it will need to become operational.

http://thehill.com/blogs/healthwatch/health-reform-implementation/313819-obamacare-funding-battle-pits-tea-party-vs-establishment-gop

Here’s what I see happening.

The establishment wing of the party knows the dangers of shutting the government down to prove some kind of political point. The Republicans tried that in the late 1990s. You remember that, yes? House Speaker Newt Gingrich and his band of GOP insurgents shut ‘er down over a budget fight with the Clinton administration; turned out Newtie really was mad because President Clinton didn’t give him a choice seat aboard Air Force One – but I digress.

The government shutdown didn’t work well for Gingrich and his Republican foot soldiers. They ended up getting their heads handed to them in the 1998 mid-term elections, Gingrich ended up quitting the House and President Clinton – despite being impeached by the House – ended his presidency on a high note.

The establishment guys remember all that. Their memories are painful. The tea party guys are new to this game of D.C. hardball politics. They’re righteous in their cause and, by golly, they’re going to have it their way or else.

I feel compelled to remind them that Newt Gingrich once was a righteous revolutionary who knew how to obtain power, but didn’t have a clue about what to do when it came time to actually use it.

A part of me is beginning to believe that history is going to repeat itself.

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Dr. Coburn is right about shutdown effect

U.S. Sen. Tom Coburn is an Oklahoma Republican who joins his GOP colleagues in hating the Affordable Care Act.

But the man also understands the consequences of shutting down the federal government to make a political point about ending what’s known as Obamacare.

Don’t do it, Sen. Coburn warns.

http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/313845-coburn-government-shutdown-would-destroy-the-gop

A government shutdown would destroy the Republican Party, he told the Washington Examiner.

Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, has this idea to quit operating the federal government if it results in getting rid of Obamacare. He’s been joined by some of the party firebrands, such as Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas. Such a shutdown could occur later this year as the White House and congressional Republicans lock horns in their ongoing battle over federal spending.

Someone ought to remind Lee, Cruz and some of the other political pistols on the right that Congress enacted the ACA, which then withstood a challenge in the Supreme Court of the United States, which ruled in June 2012 that the law is constitutional and it should stand.

Yet the foes persist time and again trying to get rid of a law they contend constitutes a federal overreach.

And now they’re threatening to shut the government down to make their point?

Quick. Put out a call to former Republican House Speaker Newt Gingrich, who also led a government shutdown in the 1990s. The shutdown helped doom Gingrich’s speakership.

What’s that saying about the consequences of ignoring the lessons of history?

 

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