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If Ted Cruz’s Plan Is Implausible, What’s the GOP Establishment’s Plausible Strategy Against...?
PJ Media ^ | September 25th, 2013 | Andrew C. McCarthy

Posted on 09/25/2013 7:52:53 PM PDT by neverdem

If Ted Cruz’s Plan Is Implausible, What’s the GOP Establishment’s Plausible Strategy Against Obamacare?

In mounting their case against Senators Ted Cruz, House conservatives, and the grass-roots campaign to defund Obamacare, the Republican establishment and its like-minded scribes pound an oft-repeated talking point into conventional wisdom: Cruz cannot win.

In this telling, the senator has recklessly embarked on a populist campaign that taps into public anger over Obamacare but has no winning endgame. The Beltway clerisy elaborates that Cruz and his defunding partner, Senator Mike Lee, have failed to account for the Democratic majority and procedural rules that control the Senate. These purportedly immovable obstacles guarantee that the defunding measure they spurred the House to pass cannot be enacted into law. Therefore, conventional wisdom now holds, the only outcomes Cruz & Co. can hope for are (a) an ignominious, demoralizing defeat that will strengthen President Obama’s hand or (b) a stalemate between the House, on the one hand, and the Senate and Obama, on the other — a stalemate that will result in a government shutdown that, in turn, will grievously harm Republican electoral prospects.

There is a good deal wrong with this analysis. I’ve already described some of it in a recent post, and there will be more to say on it. But I want to explore a different topic that the establishment potshots at Cruz, Lee and House conservatives have obscured:

What is the GOP establishment’s strategy for undoing Obamacare?

No conservative supporter of defunding suggests that the defunding strategy is a sure thing. It involves orchestrating a high-stakes confrontation that spotlights Obamacare’s calamitous consequences and corrupt insider deals. The resulting political pressure — coupled with the fact that even Obamacare supporters concede the program is not ready for implementation — must be intense enough to convince congressional Democrats and the president that fighting to fund the program at this time is not in their interests.

No doubt, this is an uphill fight. Yet, conservative defunding proponents are not mounting it idly. They have an urgent reason for acting now, despite the challenges. Obamacare subsidies start to pour out next week. Once government “entitlements” begin, the likelihood of their ever being withdrawn is nil. Thus, if Obamacare is not stopped right now, it will not be stopped — we will be burdened for years, probably permanently, with its catastrophic effects on both our already reeling economy and the quality of American health care.

If conservatives are right about this, we are in desperate times and defunding, even if it prompts a risky government shutdown, is the only desperate measure available — the only chance of success, however uncertain the chance may be.

The Republican establishment disagrees, insisting that the defunding plan pushed by Cruz, Lee and House conservatives is implausible. Fine … but then, what is the establishment’s plausible plan?

Here’s what they say: Elections.

You think Cruz is implausible? Here’s what passes for plausible in Beltway GOP thinking:

The defunding strategy depends on a government shutdown, or at least the threat of one. A government shutdown is certain to be extremely damaging to Republicans. Public anger over it will result in poor GOP performances in the 2014 midterms, and probably beyond — including the all-important 2016 presidential election. But if we refrain from the unrealistic defunding quest and avoid a shutdown, electoral success is assured. After all, in the next two or three cycles, Republican campaigns will be fueled by the implementation of Obamacare, which will be increasingly unpopular. Once Republicans build commanding congressional majorities and win the presidency, they will repeal Obamacare.

Note that, in outlining the GOP establishment game-plan, I am not arbitrating the competing claims about whether prior government shutdowns, especially in the mid-nineties, have badly hurt Republicans. For argument’s sake, I am fully accepting the GOP establishment’s argument that a shutdown would be disastrous for Republicans. I am also indulging the establishment assumption that — although it ran utterly ineffective campaigns in 2006, 2008 and 2012, and although it has embittered the Tea Party that singularly drove its successful 2010 campaign — Republicans are now an electoral juggernaut: they’ll hold the House and win the Senate in 2014, win the White House in 2016, and even solidify those gains in 2018.

Unlikely as it may be, let’s give them every bounce of the ball and assume all these things will happen. We’re not done yet. Beyond buying all of the above, here is what you have to believe to accept the GOP establishment position: In 2016 or 2018 — by which time Obamacare subsidies will have been doled out for three to five years (i.e., they will now be deemed entitlements); and businesses and insurance companies (the ones that have not been killed off) will already have made their long-term arrangements around Obamacare; and a huge government bureaucracy employing thousands of federal workers will have grown up around Obamacare; and a massive statutory and regulatory monster whose tentacles stretch deep into other sectors of the economy will have cemented Obamacare — intrepid Republicans are going to pull the plug on the whole thing.

Really?

Mind you, we are talking about a Republican establishment that enacted a new prescription drug entitlement in 2003 that, by some calculations, has burdened the nation with over $16 trillion in unfunded liabilities. We are talking about a Republican establishment that has historically collaborated with Democrats in the explosive growth of entitlements — that, in fact, ran in 2012 as the champion of Medicare. We are talking about a Republican establishment that has always qualified that it wants not to “repeal” but “repeal and replace” Obamacare. It does that because it wants to maintain popular elements (e.g., mandatory coverage despite pre-existing conditions) regardless of the fact that these elements entail government regulations that distort the market — even though it is precisely such distortions that, they otherwise claim, make Obamacare unacceptable.

That is to say, we are talking about a Republican establishment that is progressive in orientation, albeit not as radically so as the Democrats. Unlike conservatives, the GOP establishment accepts the progressive premise that health care (including health insurance) is not a commodity in a free market. It is, instead, corporate property the consumption of which must be regulated by government — including redistributions of wealth to require productive members of society to subsidize “the uninsured,” an amorphous category that outstrips, by leaps and bounds, the fringe of society that cannot fend for itself. Further distancing themselves from conservatives, the Republican establishment accepts the Left’s premise that health care regulation is a central government responsibility — adopting an extravagant reading of the Constitution’s General Welfare Clause that not only permits a federal role but vanquishes the role of the states.

Those Republicans — the guys who enthusiastically expand government; sneer at conservative demands to cut spending and pare the bureaucracy; insist that enticing “moderates” is the way to win elections; and quake at media suggestions that they are the Party of the Rich, out of touch with the struggles of ordinary people — will boldly dismantle Obamacare after it has been up and running for several years. Oh, and the Democrats — the guys who rammed intensely unpopular Obamacare through in a down-and-dirty, party-line slugfest, and who are so notoriously moderate, reasonable and bipartisan — will just meekly roll over and let it happen.

That’s the plan.

And they say Ted Cruz is dreaming!


TOPICS: Constitution/Conservatism; Crime/Corruption; Editorial; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: 0carenightmare; andymccarthy; cruz; cruzfilibuster; gope; obamacare

1 posted on 09/25/2013 7:52:53 PM PDT by neverdem
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To: neverdem
Exactly. OK so the GOPe does not like Ted Cruz's plan. So what is there plan? Clue: They have none except to capitulate to the dimoKKKRATS.
2 posted on 09/25/2013 7:57:33 PM PDT by Parley Baer
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To: neverdem

Ron Johnson has folded. Utter disgrace.


3 posted on 09/25/2013 7:58:06 PM PDT by Viennacon
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To: neverdem

This is an outstanding piece, and I notice it is NOT linked from National Review (where they now stand athwart history yelling “Hey, please, we’re all Ivy League here, not quite so much government, please?!”).


4 posted on 09/25/2013 8:01:04 PM PDT by cdcdawg (Be seeing you...)
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To: neverdem

Daaang, that was good! Spike that ball.


5 posted on 09/25/2013 8:13:57 PM PDT by Irenic (The pencil sharpener and Elmer's glue is put away-- we've lost the red wheel barrow)
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To: neverdem

The GOP leadership has no strategy, only a desire to be re-elected so they can kiss more Democrat ass.


6 posted on 09/25/2013 8:18:14 PM PDT by Venturer ( cowardice posturing as tolerance =political correctness)
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To: neverdem; Chasaway; pattty; pollywog; RonDog; JDoutrider; Varmint Al; BlatherNaut; KateUTWS; ...

Ted Cruz Ping!

If you want on/off this ping list, please let me know!

Please beware, it is a high-volume ping list!


7 posted on 09/25/2013 8:22:46 PM PDT by SoConPubbie (Mitt and Obama: They're the same poison, just a different potency)
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To: neverdem

wow I couldn’t have written that any better myself... copy and send to every republican/conservative you know :)


8 posted on 09/25/2013 8:36:38 PM PDT by beanshirts
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To: Venturer

They were happy to be the tax collectors for the welfare state after the New Deal. Now, the GOPe is happy to be the Ambassadors to the Rubes on behalf of the Marxist dictatorship.


9 posted on 09/25/2013 8:53:50 PM PDT by Defiant (A rainbow curtain has descended upon the west, from Munich to San Francisco.)
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To: neverdem

Come 2016-17 there won’t be enough pieces left of our private healthcare system to salvage. Fixing Obamacare will be like fixing public housing, impossible. Repairing the economy and small business will be equally impossible. I’ve been asking exactly the same thing McCarthy is asking here. What is the establishment plan for dealing with the coming train wreck? Everyone knows it is going to happen, even the fanatical leftists who have pushed this radical garbage onto us. Does anyone have a plan to fix it?

We’ve been fighting the war on poverty, urban blight, the war on drugs, the war on high school drop outs and illiteracy, all without success, because it has all been about growing government. How are these armchair generals of social engineering going to clean up the carnage of Obamacare? They won’t.


10 posted on 09/25/2013 9:08:58 PM PDT by pallis
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To: Parley Baer

It’s astounding that republicans in the house are condemning Cruz but not their “freinds” in the house.


11 posted on 09/25/2013 9:42:14 PM PDT by VerySadAmerican (".....Barrack, and the horse Mohammed rode in on.")
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To: VerySadAmerican

Cruz should represent the litmus test for 2014 even if it means losing the House.


12 posted on 09/25/2013 9:44:22 PM PDT by Gene Eric (Don't be a statist!)
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To: neverdem

CITIZENS OF THE REPUBLIC IT IS TIME TO DO A RECALL

Those born 20 years ago have never seen this film clip.Of the four passenger helicopter already overloaded with eight just barely lifting off its roof top heli-pad. Attached to its steel tube runner type landing gear below the fuselage were about a dozen more desperate people clinging to the gear . As the craft struggles to get airborne. it lurches skyward as one of those clinging to the steel tubes used as landing gear lets go. Falling to a death some 35 feet down to the refugee crowded lamding pad atop the Saigon American Embassy roof..

They were fleeing South Viet Nam through its closed US embassy because American support was withdrawn and denied .Leaving its army running out of ammo and conviction. Sold out by an American congress controled ironically by Democrats that.decided to shed its support for a democratic form of government to what became a US ward for a socialist/communist replacement . It was a harbinger of what that political party will bring to the US 50 years later.

Because of Obamacare most recalling of defunding\ governemnt shutdowns simply goes back to Gingrich’s time when he was Speaker. This earlier defunding/ government shutdown had profound implications where hundreds of thousands died because of it. Like the constitutional constrains on central government. That abandonment of Viet Nam is hardly if ever mentioned or discussed in classrooms despite American humiliation could be demonstrated in that film clip described in this articles lead paragraph.. Because it was created by the Democrat party responding to the socialist/communist radicals that had taken over the “liberal arts eduicational industry” and were slowly taking that party over as well..

Not only did we lose a war because of it. But those same university socialist educators which encouraged this defunding , and dis-honoring the of the 58,000 deaths of our military. Also encouraged their charges to use humiliation such as calling retuning servicemen “baby killers” (only later to kill their own) and spitting in their faces. Their educational products are now on their own, borrowing a military term, R&R . Running and Ruining destroying this country . For this time the same group are now in control of that political party.

Changing it so much that in their 2012 convention booed any reference to “The Creator” ,God.. Demonstrating that any connection to the political party of JFK is gone. They are Democrat in name only and really Demo-Coms.. A term their present political opposition would choke on repeating . For the Republicans are.unable even to use the milder epithet “socialist”. The DCs are now demanding funding for a cherished socialist concept replete with 2000 pages of controls for the health collective. Controls which includes newly created bureaucracies for enforcement some under the direct control of the President .

Controls that:; Put thousands out of a 40 work week and reduced them to part time employees, Shut down physician hospitals, confiscated union health plans. prohibited private contracts with individual doctors, replaced medical specialists with socialist bureaucrats (death panels) Shut down medical insurance companies, or doubled the cost of health plans for starters...Yet not a word of this will be mentioned.by the complicit media apararatzicks running major visual media outlets.

For there is another example of the damage the aparatzicks do and will continue to do until challanged. Expect a continuing of the racism charge. OK ! Let’s see who started that ? It really began with the President of The United States implying an attacker was a “victim”. of a security guard doing his job when shot and killed by the guard defending himself..There seems to be a number of socialist agendas cited as Obama’s reasoning for doing this. One of which is living in collectives. However on Obama’s cue the propaganda arm swung into action with drastic results..

The guard a big Obama supporter was an “hispanic” who is part black with a.last name which is “jewish”. .Who’s doing surveilance in a posted private mixed race area of modest means experiencing robberies and burgalries by young blacks. Being such it’s legal to question anyone of blue, red, green,white, or black complexion as to their purpose being there. In this security guard situation he discontinued a surveilance after being suggested to do so by the police.The guard could have legally questioned the person under surveilance but instead allowed him to continue on his way uncontested. Only to have that person under surveilance as the guard was returning to his vehicle. knock the guard to the ground start beating his head against the sidewalk and wind up getting killed over a struggle the guards gun

Now consider all those congressional investigations going on. If somebody even suggests impeachment. Get to your black base voters, whom you’ve done nothing for, all worked up.

Pick on some security guard who’s doing his job and make him expendable. Time to employ propaganda devices. Emphasize that white jews last name! . Call that surveilance “stalking”!, The area he’s patrolling “public access” area not gated “owned by rich whitieys”,never mention the guard is part african and dark skinned.. Depict that person he’s watching a 10 year old black kid (show picture) a “victim” and a saint. Not a six foot 160 pound 16 year old, “who was killed in cold blood” and not who was killed fighting over a gun..The episode was given the full hyperbolic treatment which lasted for months and the results are clear..

Since this barrage of propaganda black youths have been using these devices as their excuse even citing the “victims” first name Innocent whites, hispanics and asiains being murdered because of the inflamatory rhetoric composed of lies and missconceptions being driven by the regime and its supporters in the media begun by the President of the United States.. Obama never disassociated himself from it, nor discouraged it.and the reasoning behind it ?

Well, he can’t. He was using lies and fabrications painting a target on that security guards back when he geared up his black base .Ain’t that neat ? What better way to discourage any investigation into malfeasance and corruption by organizing the base for riots in the streets ? Think it’s too far fetched ? Think it’s not working ? Look again http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3051558/posts

To date the political opposition known as Republican has yet to mention or comment on these examples of how this regime operates. Time to demand that they behave like political opposition or leave the rostrum !
Now is the time not to ask.but demand...

The Republican leadership was given the opportunity as they have in the past,while running the 2012 campaigns for Senate, House, and President an opportunity to spell out what was in Obamacare but didn’t http://www.theusmat.com/ or even mention Democrats had refused any reference to God in the Democratic at their 2012 convention .

Or comment on the the “Gated Community” episode which was used to furthur hyphenate; black from “hispanic,” from “white” Americans, which included Jews. Thus discarding the American Melting Pot history in favor of the socialist agenda. ....The demo-coms ruthelssly created a unconsionable use of the security guard incident to furthur their socialist agenda. That has resulted in martyrs because of its inflamatory assertions..And the political opposition ignores these glaring episodes while claiming to search for “demographics” in other directions ?.While the Republican legislative leadership plays rules games with Godless people who don’t believe in any rules or the constitution but theirs .


13 posted on 09/25/2013 9:57:55 PM PDT by mosesdapoet (Serious contribution pause.Please continue onto meaningless venting no one reads.)
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