Defunding ObamaCare

House Republicans Have a Challenge with the Upcoming Continuing Resolution

Prior to ObamaCare passing in the House of Representatives last year, everyone remembers Nancy Pelosi’s famous statement “If you want to find out what’s in the bill, you have to pass the bill”. Since that statement much has been found out about the contents of ObamaCare, and most of it is bad. Among the items we discovered are the self enacting appropriations (automatic funding) of most of the key functions of ObamaCare.

Unless Congress passes a specific law to stop the automatic funding of ObamaCare, it will result in the government spending an additional $105.4 Billion on ObamaCare in the coming year. The House Republican leadership has made it clear that it would prefer to handle this automatic funding as a separate bill.

Representative Steve King (R-IA) has come up with a plan to insert an ObamaCare defunding amendment into the government’s new continuing resolution (CR) funding, which must pass the Congress and be signed by the president by March 4, 2011. This is a complicated process because it requires a special amendment to change existing law, rather than just being about funding the government for a specific period of time.

The best part about Rep. King’s amendment is that if it becomes part of the new government funding package, it gives the Republicans tremendous leverage with the Democrat Senate and the president. On the flip side, if the Senate refuses or if Obama vetoes the funding bill because of King’s amendment, the House Republicans could be blamed for shutting down the government.

Rep. King’s amendment will certainly be challenged on the House floor with a point of order, and the amendment might not be permitted to go forward for addition to the funding bill. It’s really up to the Republican House leadership if they want to support this amendment or not.

The problem with the House Republican leadership’s plan to support a separate bill to eliminate the self-enacting appropriations of ObamaCare is that bill will almost surely be defeated in the Senate or vetoed by Obama. The Republicans would have no real influence or clout to get their separate defunding bill enacted. However, using Rep. King’s amendment process, which is similar to what Democrats have used in the past to stop war spending, will give the Republicans tremendous leverage at this time.

Obama and the Democrats do not want to shut down the government in early March. By the same token, Obama does not want to give up on his hard fought, singular legislative victory in 2010, ObamaCare. The Republican leadership seems to be afraid to engage in this classic battle so soon after achieving control of the House.

I would hope that conservative Republicans and Tea Party supporters across the nation will register their support for this King amendment. This is the best chance we may get to kill off ObamaCare before the roots of this law gets so entrenched into the entrails of the federal government, that it will be impossible to ever eliminate this terrible law.

Please call your congressman and urge him to support Representative Steve King’s amendment regarding the elimination of ObamaCare’s self-enacting appropriations to the upcoming funding legislation for the remainder of the fiscal year!