Thomas Sowell:
Obamacare defund attempt helps president
http://www.wnd.com/2013/09/obamacare-defund-attempt-helps-president/
What could possibly rescue Barack Obama from all these political problems and create a distraction that takes all his scandals off the front page? Only one thing: the Republicans.
By making a futile and foredoomed attempt to defund Obamacare, congressional Republicans have created the distraction that Obama so much needs. Already media attention has shifted to the possibility of a government shutdown.
Politically, it doesn’t matter that the Republicans are not really trying to shut down the government. What matters is that this distraction solves Barack Obama’s political problems that he could not possibly have solved by himself.
Should Obamacare be defunded? Absolutely. It is an economic disaster and will be a medical disaster, as well as destroying the Constitution’s protections of American citizens from the unbridled power of the federal government.
For that matter, President Obama deserves to be impeached for arbitrarily waiving laws he doesn’t like, in defiance of his oath of office and the Constitution’s separation of powers.
But, for the same reason that it makes no sense to impeach either President Obama or Chief Justice Roberts, it makes no sense to attempt to defund Obamacare. That reason is that it cannot be done. The world is full of things that ought to be done but cannot in fact be done.
The time, effort and credibility Republicans are investing in trying to defund Obamacare is a high-risk, low-yield investment.
Even if, by some miracle, the Republicans managed to get the Senate to go along with defunding Obamacare, President Obama can simply veto the bill.
There is a United States of America today only because George Washington understood that his army was not able to fight the British troops everywhere, but had to choose carefully when and where to fight. Futile symbolic confrontations were a luxury that could not be afforded then and cannot be afforded now.
I normally agree 100% with everything Thomas Sowell says, but I believe he's mistaken here.
The House of Representatives holds the power of the purse, per the U.S. Constitution. The choice to fund, or not fund, any government expense, is entirely in THEIR hands.
If that body refuses to give Obamacare any funding, there's simply no legal mechanism to do otherwise.
If Hairy Reid and Barry Obama want to shut down the government in a fit of anger, should the House hold the line, then it's on them. The House is signalling that they're willing to fund every other aspect of the federal government for the next fiscal year.