Posted on 08/14/2013 4:03:59 AM PDT by IbJensen
Well, at least Mitch McConnell has finally come out of the shadows to take a stand on a contentious issue. That is a start. Roll Call reports that Mitch McConnell is publicly espousing the view that he has always held privately:
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell told a crowd at a health care forum in Kentucky on Tuesday that while he does not like the president’s health care law, shutting down the government over funding it “will not stop” it from existing.
“I’m for stopping Obamacare, but shutting down the government will not stop Obamacare,” McConnell told the audience at Baptist Health Corbin, according to a WYMT-TV reporter at the event.
In one sentence, Mitch McConnell has articulated why the dinosaur party of the past has failed us and why we will never score points while people like him are in charge.
First, McConnell is repeating the bromide about a government shutdown failing to stop Obamacare. The goal here is not a government shutdown as an ends to itself; it is to use our only leverage point to confront Democrats on an issue that is an albatross around their necks in the 2014 elections, which will be fought on red states. All spending bills must originate in the House – the body that is controlled by Republicans. They need to pass a bill funding the government sans Obamacare. It is up to the Senate whether they want to force a shutdown over an unpopular law. As James Madison noted in Federalist #58:
The House of Representatives cannot only refuse, but they alone can propose, the supplies requisite for the support of government. They, in a word, hold the purse — that powerful instrument by which we behold, in the history of the British Constitution, an infant and humble representation of the people gradually enlarging the sphere of its activity and importance, and finally reducing, as far as it seems to have wished, all the overgrown prerogatives of the other branches of the government. This power over the purse may, in fact, be regarded as the most complete and effectual weapon with which any constitution can arm the immediate representatives of the people, for obtaining a redress of every grievance, and for carrying into effect every just and salutary measure.
Moreover, this is exactly why we always lose. Instead of talking about getting rid of Obamacare and funding the government without Obamacare, GOP leaders are preemptively sabotaging the effort by talking about a government shutdown, so as to play into the messaging of Democrats. We need to talk about defunding Obamacare and have the House pass a standalone CR funding the government with a law prohibiting any funding for Obamacare. If Democrats want to shut down the government in order to throw people off their health insurance and chase doctors out of the field, that is their prerogative.
Yet, because of statements like the one from McConnell, Democrats always know with certitude that we will be the ones to blink, even on issues where the public aligns with us. It is this defeatist attitude that has saddled us with the $17 trillion in debt. In fact, the only success we’ve seen in recent years was when Republicans engaged in brinkmanship in the ’90s, and actually forced through a balanced budget and welfare reform. They also picked up two seats in the midterm elections. And no, Bob Dole did not lose the ’96 election because of the government shutdown.
There is also another point overlooked by allies of Boehner and McConnell. Instead of joining with conservatives to fight for something that is consequential and popular, they talk about “dollar for dollar cuts” or abstract entitlement reform. What they fail to explain is how they will accomplish their goals if they telegraph the message to Democrats that they will always blink first. On paper, their demands are just as offensive to Democrats as the conservative demands. So if they make it clear that we will always blink and engage in terrible messaging over the CR and debt ceiling, why would Democrats feel intimidated into acceding to any demands? That is a question they have never answered over the past three years of budget capitulations.
It is becoming clear that the only way we will ever stop Obamacare and the growth of government is by shutting down the establishment in primaries.
Pass the Budget without Obamacare in it.
Well if it was done, of course Obama would veto it, and would steal the money from something else to pay for it.
Obama seems to be running this country. The Congress is useless except as a rubber stamp.
The GOP LOVES Dictator-BaCKSTABBER Romney
for HIS SOLE TYRANNICAL imposition of
ObamaCARE/RomneyCARE and has no, zero, nada,
intention of removing it. EVER.
I see very few in Congress who have the backbone to stop Odumbocare by defunding it. Then again, there may be a plan someplace to save this country and I sure wish they would unlock that for display.
“Can’t the leadership see that we have very little reason to volunteer for campaigns or contribute to candidates if they’re unwilling to do the job the people sent them to do?”
The leadership for the most part occupies safe seats. Seats are typically safe when the incumbent has significant money to spend as well as the support of the local party organization. The leadership’s first priority is to do the bidding of those who fund their reelections, not the citizens.
The only power citizens who lack the big money to influence a representative have is the ballot. Each individual citizen first must choose whether or not to cast a vote, and then when casting a vote to reward the incumbent or a challenger. Individually the citizen without big money can do no more. There is power in voters organizing collectively but to exercise that power the group must be prepared to with hold votes. Today the leadership believe conservatives are in a trap where they will not vote Democrat and therefore must vote Republican. Since they have no fear of losing the conservative base, they have no reservations about openly defying conservative voters.
Until conservative Republicans either stop voting for Republican incumbents in the belief the Democrat alternative is worse, or stay at home in large numbers, the leadership will continue to take conservative voters for granted.
Those who argue on this forum that conservatives who stayed at home in 2008 should be blamed for Obama’s election are loved by the GOP establishment. The establishment counts on being able to manipulate conservatives into feeling a duty to vote for socialism.
Republican congressmen want to make noises like they CARE... but in fact, they don’t care one way or another.
They want to be SEEN as responsible and relevant and have NOT been for a very long time.
They can't think strategically. They can't communicate (and don't). And they are cowards. They are only concerned about their OWN little miserable careers and perqs. They don't represent us. They represent them.
Stupid and dumb are no way to go through life son.
It's even stupider to go through life re-electing these zeros. They aren't going to get us where we need to go, so what's the point in voting for the generic GOP. None. Stop being enablers of the power-addicted politicians.
Republicans are Ball-Less.
Hayek wrote about this phenomenon; when conservatives in congress (parliament in the case he wrote about) compromise with the collectivists and abdicate their role as lawmakers to the executive, congress becomes nothing more than a debating society and a place to air grievances to the deaf bureaucracies they created.
Rand Paul said something similar on Hannity recently,
but I dont understand why McConnell is bothering to point this out, even if EVERY GOP Senator voted 'NO' on a budget that still wouldnt stop it.
Budgets only require 51 Senators not the 60. So he could just vote NO safely
Shutting down the government would do many unpopular things but Obama-care funding IS exempt from a shutdown.
Don't give the GOP cover. They are not stupid or cowards. They know exactly what they are doing. They are diabolic.
When you are right, you are right.
All they care about is their office an it’s perks.
Will make my decade if he loses in Primary.
Of course I’m for getting more conservative Repubs elected but that has not a lot to do with the here and now, which will soon be the debt ceiling debate.
The “shutting down the government” tactic to stop 0bama/Robertscare will not work. What it will do is make it harder to get more conservative Repubs elected because a lot of voters we need to convince to vote R will believe the MSM screeching about “Republicans shutting down the government again.”
We need to just let 0bama/Robertscare fail on its own - as it will - and then make our gains at the ballot box.
jmo
I know... and who ever in their entire lives thought THAT simple statement would describe American political leaders.
It was always true of SOME... but, now there is not one of them who could be described in any other way.
America’s descent into this miasma of ravenously venal and mindless greed has been meteoric... it seems to have happended (or at least become glaringly apparent) in a flash!
As I say, it was always there to a limited extent... NOW it has become the default for all politicians ... it’s pervasive and I fear, irreversible.
After the lesson the Democrats learned in 2012, coupled with the information the IRS and NSA will release to the Democrat Party , don't expect another Conservative to be elected. If I am alive in 2016 and if Obama leaves the White House and allows, I will be the most surprised person in the universe. But that what the people said they wanted, so ....
Yes, 0bama/Robertscare was designed to fail. People were saying that from the start.
I think the real fight will be when the Dims say healthcare is broken, we need to move to single payer system or whatever fancy name they will give it. Controlling Congress and WH will help stop all this when the time comes.
When people get mad about these health changes, as they will, conservatives need to be ready to show and tell that it was 0bama and the Dims - and John Roberts - that did all this to them.
The repubs have no intention of stopping obumbler care.
If they did, they would never have gone to the trouble to negotiate their way out of obumbler care.
If you don't believe this, look around you. where and why do you think this push to legalize every narcotic drug known to man is coming from and what is its purpose. Each day more and more people are surrendering their birthright for a bowl of Government stew. Go back in history in the 1800s when the British got the Chinese addicted to opium in order to control them. Talk to some of the college and university graduates who, one day will be running the Country. Make careful note of their vocabulary after, fuck ,like, motherfuck, er, ah. question them about the history of the United States. Ask them why was America founded. Ask them how is a law enacted. Ask them who is their Congressman/woman. Question their knowledge of World History and geography. Ask them if they know the difference between a Democracy and a Republic. A Republic and a Representative Republic. Ask them if they know how a Representative Republic operates . Ask them if they know how a Constitutional Representative Republic functions. Ask them if they know how to Amend the Constitution of the United States of America.
The GOP cannot psychologically move past 1994. They are paralyzed with fear that they will be ruined if they shut the govt down for a few days to get what they and the American people want.
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