Michael A. Needham writing in NRO:
* * *
Now that Republicans control both houses of Congress, the
House of Representatives has an important role to play in advancing
conservative policies.
* HA! HA! HA! HA! HA! HA! HA!
(*WIPING THE TEARS OF MIRTH FROM MY CHEEKS*)
House membership is more conservative than the Senate;
its rules often make it easier to pass conservative legislation; and the
individual members of the House minority get less national attention than
Senate Democrats in pushing back on the majority’s initiatives, meaning that
the House has, in theory, unique advantages when it comes to framing the
national debate.
* HMM... "IN THEORY..."
Its job should be to set the high-water mark in the
legislative ping-pong before bills reach the president’s desk.
Often that’s been the case...
* Er... NOT REALLY. IT WAS THE CASE WHEN DEMOCRATS
CONTROLLED THE SENATE AND SO HOUSE LEADERSHIP COULD HIDE BEHIND THAT. (AND EVEN
THEN, BOEHNER BETRAYED CONSERVATIVES FAR MORE OFTEN THAN HE SUPPORTED THEM.)
...as when House Republicans included the premium-support
reforms they’ve long supported in their own budget earlier this year — even
though the Senate refused to endorse them.
* AGAIN... FOLKS... THE RESULT IS ALL THAT MATTERS.
OTHERWISE... IT'S MAINLY PLAY-ACTING. KEEP YOU EYE ON WHAT ACTUALLY GETS
D*O*N*E - NOT ON WHAT THESE DECEITFUL CLOWNS "TELL" YOU THEY'RE FOR
OR AGAINST.
But when both chambers finally came together on a budget,
there was one important promise they made together: They would use the
budget-reconciliation process to repeal ObamaCare.
* OH, PLEEEASE...!!!
Oddly enough, it’s the House, not the Senate, that was
first to cave in delivering on repeal (a top commitment that members in both
chambers made during the 2014 campaign).
From The Hill:Senate Republican leaders plan to go further with their ObamaCare repeal bill after finding that the House-passed version cannot win a simple majority on the floor.“The House guys are going to be surprised when they learn they were outflanked by the Senate, which will pass a more conservative ObamaCare repeal,” said a Senate GOP aide.“We hear they want to significantly expand on the House bill.”That’s right: Mitch McConnell’s much-maligned Senate could end up passing stronger legislation on ObamaCare than the House.
* GIVE... ME... A... BREAK...
* FOLKS... JUST READ T*O*D*A*Y*S NEWSBITES AND
STAND-ALONES! THE GOP IS FAR MORE "ALLIED" WITH OBAMA, PELOSI, AND
REID THAN THEY ARE WITH FOLKS LIKE ME.
Last month, House Republicans passed a reconciliation
bill they claimed repealed ObamaCare as promised. It didn’t.
* I AM SHOCKED... SHOCKED, I TELL YOU!
(*SMIRK*)
ObamaCare's main pillars — its mandates, exchange
subsidies, and Medicaid expansion — remained in place.
* YEP...
Instead the bill focused on big-business priorities like
elimination of the employer mandate and the medical-device tax.
(*JUST SHAKING MY HEAD*)
As Jason Yaworske wrote at National Review several months
ago, the notion that full repeal is unachievable through reconciliation is a
myth. But the House didn’t just fall short of full repeal; it didn’t even go
for all of the pieces of ObamaCare that even full-repeal skeptics acknowledge
are reconcilable.
That the Senate, which has long been inclined to view
full repeal as a bridge too far, is considering amending the bill to make it
stronger is revealing of the issues that led to John Boehner’s ouster:
Leadership has consistently avoided delivering on the Republicans’ core
campaign promises.
The worst part of this was the leadership’s strategy:
tying the reconciliation debate to Planned Parenthood in order to avoid a real
fight to defund the organization through a government-funding bill.
(*NOD*)
That decision was designed to pit the pro-life movement
against the ObamaCare-repeal coalition.
(*NOD*)
This isn’t how conservatives should operate.
* DIE, REPUBLICAN LEADERSHIP, DIE...!!!
Some Republicans in the House might have thought this
strategy was clever: by pre-empting an anticipated effort by Senate moderates
to water down the bill (by doing that on their own in advance), perhaps they
were trying to make it easier to get the bill across the finish line. But this
turn of events shows why that sort of thinking isn’t the right approach for the
House to take. If the Senate really wants to water down good legislation, let
it be the one to do it. Moreover, if the House had set the high-water mark at a
simple repeal bill, the debate wouldn’t hinge today on which specific elements
of a reconciliation package on ObamaCare are most politically challenging for
moderate senators.
That’s something that’s long been true of the ObamaCare
debate: Republicans are always in better shape making the case against this
extremely unpopular law in its entirety than looking like they’re in the
pockets of big business by advocating minor tweaks to the law or looking like
they’re out to get the poorest beneficiaries of ObamaCare by focusing on issues
like the Medicaid expansion in isolation.
No doubt the Senate would take up the House’s weak
package if the numbers were there. But they don’t look to be. Good for Senators
Lee, Cruz, and Rubio for leveraging their votes to force the Senate to craft a
better package. And shame on the House for putting them in this position in the
first place.
* Er... NO... NOT "GOOD FOR LEE, CRUZ, AND RUBIO;
THEY - ALONG WITH RAND PAUL - SHOULD HAVE BEEN FILIBUSTERING ALL THESE BILLS!
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