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Senator Tom Coburn - Obamacare Defunding Effort Dishonest
Political Realities ^ | 07/28/13 | LD Jackson

Posted on 07/28/2013 6:36:44 AM PDT by LD Jackson

If there is anyone here who really believes the Affordable Care Act, better known as Obamacare, is a good idea, please feel free to raise your hand in the comments. This monstrous piece of legislation is despised by conservatives, and rightfully so. It was forced down our throats and we have been told we need to learn to like the new normal it is producing. That hasn't sat well with many members of the GOP, thus the many efforts to repeal Obamacare.

Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK) recognizes that the efforts to disable or repeal Obamacare are useless. In fact, he has went so far as to call them dishonest. This comes from PJ Tatler, via BadBlue.

The Washington Examiner - In a phone interview from his home state of Oklahoma, Coburn slammed a dozen fellow Republican senators who have signed a pledge not to vote for any continuing resolution or appropriations bill that funds Obamacare, which is set to go fully into effect on January 1, 2014. “I’d love to defund it,” said Coburn, a physician who has opposed the president’s national health care scheme from the beginning. “I’d be leading the charge if I thought this would work. But it will not work.” (For details on the problems with the defunding plan, see here.)

Coburn’s case against the proposal is simple: Republicans, having failed to win control of the White House and Senate in 2012, do not have the votes to cut off Obamacare funding. Given that, he sees the defunding proposal as not just wrongheaded but also an effort to mislead conservatives across the country who long to see Republicans stop Obamacare. “The worst thing is being dishonest with your base about what you can accomplish, ginning everybody up and then creating disappointment,” Coburn said. “It’s a terribly dangerous and not successful strategy.”

“You’re going to set an expectation among the conservatives in our party that we can achieve something that we’re not able to achieve,” Coburn continued. “It’s not an achievable strategy. It’s creating the false impression that you can do something when you can’t. And it’s dishonest.”

Even though Republicans don’t have the votes to defund Obamacare, they do have the power, if they choose, to bring the government to a halt. Coburn sees that as a disastrous possible result of the plan. “You’re not going to stop the funding, but what you will do is shut down the government,” he said. “Among that group of senators that has been considering this, I was the only one who was here for that,” a reference to the government shutdowns of 1995 and 1996, when Coburn was a member of the House. “The president is never going to sign a bill defunding Obamacare. Do you think he’s going to cave?”

“The strategy that has been laid out is a good way for Republicans to lose the House.”

I am relatively sure there will be many people who will think Tom Coburn is caving on his conservative principles and shying away from the fight. To those people, I would say you obviously do not know the good Doctor from Oklahoma very well. He has never been one to not speak his mind. He has worked tirelessly to stop the waste, fraud, and abuse that is so rampant in Washington. He also has personal experience with government shut downs, as he alluded to in his remarks. He was in the House of Representatives in 1995 and 1996 when the government was shut down. He remembers how the GOP was castigated in the media then. Do you think, with the advent of a much more liberal media caste, that it will not be worse in this era, if the GOP manages to shut down the government, in order to defund Obamacare?

The House of Representatives has held numerous votes to repeal the bill. Of course, those votes have all been in the affirmative because the Republicans control the House. The Senate is controlled by the Democrats and it is unlikely such a vote will get close to a floor vote while Harry Reid has the leadership in that esteemed body. That isn't even taking into consideration that Barack Obama still resides in the White House and there isn't a chance he would sign a bill to repeal his signature legislation. In other words, we are stuck with Obamacare, at least for the time being, whether we like it or not. That doesn't mean we should just sit down and shut up, but there are limits to what we can do.

As such, I think we should all give Tom Coburn's advice serious consideration. This applies especially to the Republican leadership in the House of Representatives and the Senate. Before we can possibly go ahead with efforts to stop the train wreck that is Obamacare, we need to have control of both houses of the legislature. Even defunding isn't going to work because we do not have the votes to pass such an amendment, attached to another bill or standing on its own, much less override a presidential veto. That leaves a bad taste in my mouth just thinking about it, but it is a fact, nonetheless. Perhaps Tom Coburn is right. Maybe we should reserve our efforts for a battle we can actually win, without bloodying ourselves to the point of death.


TOPICS: Politics
KEYWORDS: 0carenightmare; abortion; deathpanels; defundobamacare; obamacare; oklahoma; romnecare4ever; romneyagenda; romneycare; romneycare4all; tomcoburn; zerocare
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1 posted on 07/28/2013 6:36:44 AM PDT by LD Jackson
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To: LD Jackson

With us or against all Americans. Simple thing here.


2 posted on 07/28/2013 6:37:58 AM PDT by Caipirabob (Communists... Socialists... Democrats...Traitors... Who can tell the difference?)
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To: LD Jackson
In fact, he has went so far as to call them dishonest.
He's probably gone that far too.
3 posted on 07/28/2013 6:41:53 AM PDT by oh8eleven (RVN '67-'68)
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To: LD Jackson
“You’re not going to stop the funding, but what you will do is shut down the government,” he said.

Here's the thing:

Only Obama can "shut down the government," by refusing to sign appropriation bills.

And only the House can appropriate.

So who's being dishonest?

Or stupid...

4 posted on 07/28/2013 6:42:36 AM PDT by EternalVigilance (Obamanomics: Coming soon to a breadline near you!)
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To: LD Jackson

Time for him to go too. He’s become one of them, convinced of all the arguements that not a single dime out of any department can ever be reduced.


5 posted on 07/28/2013 6:42:56 AM PDT by cotton1706
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To: AdmSmith; AnonymousConservative; Berosus; bigheadfred; Bockscar; cardinal4; ColdOne; ...

Thanks LD Jackson.
Coburn's case against the proposal is simple: Republicans, having failed to win control of the White House and Senate in 2012, do not have the votes to cut off Obamacare funding.

6 posted on 07/28/2013 6:43:45 AM PDT by SunkenCiv (It's no coincidence that some "conservatives" echo the hard left.)
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To: EternalVigilance

Or gutless?


7 posted on 07/28/2013 6:47:11 AM PDT by Common Sense 101 (Hey libs... If your theories fly in the face of reality, it's not reality that's wrong.)
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To: LD Jackson
Perhaps Tom Coburn is right. Maybe we should reserve our efforts for a battle we can actually win, without bloodying ourselves to the point of death.

This sounds like good advise.

I'm sure such sensible advise was expressed by such a man before the American revolution.

8 posted on 07/28/2013 6:53:32 AM PDT by oldbrowser (We have a rogue government in Washington)
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To: LD Jackson
"One of the traditional methods of imposing statism
or socialism on people has been by way of medicine..."

President Ronald Reagan



9 posted on 07/28/2013 6:54:05 AM PDT by Diogenesis
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To: cotton1706

You obviously have no clue what Senator Coburn has been doing for years. Your statement tells me that. He does not agree with the argument that no department can withstand reduced funding. He has fought, for years, to do exactly that.


10 posted on 07/28/2013 6:58:45 AM PDT by LD Jackson
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To: LD Jackson

So we close down the Government and lose the House. What good is a House run by Nancy Pelosi who works the strings on the Boehner puppet.

No way will they defund Obamacare, not with Boehner in the drivers seat.

Obamacare and Amnesty will bankrupt the country and the Republicans will be blamed no matter what happens.


11 posted on 07/28/2013 6:58:56 AM PDT by Venturer
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To: LD Jackson
I must live in an alternate universe because I remember Democrats often forcing votes on issues they knew they couldn't win so that they could use those votes as clubs against vulnerable Republicans in upcoming elections.

But you must be right that what has worked for Democrats in the past won't work for Republicans because well . . . . they're Republicans.

12 posted on 07/28/2013 7:07:37 AM PDT by vbmoneyspender
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To: LD Jackson

One thing Coburn did was refuse to vet Obama while both were on the Senate Judiciary Committee in 2008 which put McCain through the wringer. If Coburn had been honest, we might not have Obama as President.


13 posted on 07/28/2013 7:09:20 AM PDT by charlie72
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To: LD Jackson

So then - according to Coburn - the House will be lost if they do not do one single thing to defund a program that virtually EVERYBODY hates (including the Democrat unions who stupidly helped foist this nightmare upon the nation) but thinks the House will be “saved” for Republicans who choose to do nothing, let Obama have his way of more deeply entrenching the program making it more difficult to remove later (which they won’t)??


14 posted on 07/28/2013 7:09:25 AM PDT by antonico
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To: LD Jackson

Coburn has been in Washington too long. Even good people go bad if they dwell in the Capitol too long.


15 posted on 07/28/2013 7:12:59 AM PDT by 3Fingas (Sons and Daughters of Freedom, Committee of Correspondence)
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To: LD Jackson
You obviously have no clue what Senator Coburn has been doing for years.

I have every idea what Tom Coburn has been doing for years. He has been going along to get along (or, in your illiterate locution, he has been 'wenting' along) and to get reelected.

In the year and a half before the passage of Obamacare I listened to this old hack offer every rationalization to oppose opposing Obamacare ("Obama won the election, Obama is a good man, it's going to be the law of the land, it is the law of the land, blah blah"), and he continues to do it now.

Go ahead, stand with the great Coburn. Get a new hairstyle, a new beard, a new pair of glasses every two weeks, and then land a booking on MSNBC, which is what he seems to view as very meaningful action for a careerist politician to do.

Come out AGAINST your once-fellow conservatives, for being impractical, obstructionist, unreasonable, dishonest.

You stand with Coburn. Coburn stands with that "good man" Obama and his (Coburn's) "very good friend" Nancy Pelosi.

I stand against you.

16 posted on 07/28/2013 7:13:53 AM PDT by Fightin Whitey
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To: EternalVigilance
Only Obama can "shut down the government," by refusing to sign appropriation bills.

That's not how the Liberal press is going to spin it - it's a bad idea POLITICALLY to try and shutdown. It will not succeed.

Conservatives have much better ground to fight on (ie Sequestration), use that, not Obamacare - Besides, the House just took a vote to delay implementation, use that.

17 posted on 07/28/2013 7:14:45 AM PDT by 11th_VA
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To: 11th_VA
The Republicans have funded Obamacare via the last two continuing resolutions. They're not going to stop being the funders for the imposition of socialism now.

"G.O.P." "Going Over the Precipice."

18 posted on 07/28/2013 7:19:51 AM PDT by EternalVigilance (Obamanomics: Coming soon to a breadline near you!)
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To: LD Jackson

Friends,

DC has become an imperial city in every sense of the word. The seven richest counties in the country are those that adjoin DC.

We are treated as colonies from which to extract wealth.

The Senate, the armed or monied Praetorians who select them and slavish silk bedecked courtiers who rely on the continued fleecing of the provinces for their wealth.....will corrupt or compromise any man long in that Sodom on the on Potomac.

Colburn by his statements has been compromised as has everyone else who whines that “we can’t do that”.

If a man were not compromised by the culture....or tolerant of it.....over a 20 year period, he would be on all our lips as a William Wallace, a Moses. Colburn is not such a man.

He is a conservative and votes right on most things.....but he is compromised. Trying to trim a plant that still gets bigger every year no matter which party is in control?

The DC weed needs dug out by the roots and the ground sown with salt.

Demand they shut it down. Shut it all down. Fund enough to cover SS, retirements, DoD, and other Constitutional services......and let the states cover the rest.

We have 50 states that duplicate services (or could very quickly)in every regard what we need save for defense and retirement.

To argue otherwise at this time in our history is cowardice and corruption speaking.

These same men send our son’s to die on foreign soil and call it duty. Yet they won’t risk their power and paycheck to save the very Republic they demand others die for?

Demand they shut it down!


19 posted on 07/28/2013 7:30:28 AM PDT by Lowell1775
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To: Lowell1775
Lowell, Let Obamacare take root, and then you'll have the Unions, and all your neighbors helping to pull it out by the roots. Some have to experience it, before everyone sees how awful it is.

I'm totally confident it will be ended, but don't give Obama a platform to stand on.

20 posted on 07/28/2013 7:38:35 AM PDT by 11th_VA
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