Watch out, you might get what you’re after . . .
There has got to be a way
Burning down the house
Christ. Here we go again. The federal government needs to pay its bills. That requires a stop-gap measure: raising the federal debt limit to keep much of the government from shutting down on October 1.
So on Friday, in what has become an annual ritual unbecoming of the nation, the House of Representatives will attempt to blackmail the Senate and White House by turning this vitally crucial issue, which affects all 300+ million of us, into a bargaining chip.
This time, the House bill to raise the debt ceiling will include a clause that calls for suspending all federal funding of the ACA, better known as Obamacare.
- Never mind that this bill has absolutely zero chance of getting through a conference with the Democratically controlled Senate.
- Never mind that even if it did (and it won’t), the bill would be vetoed by President Obama, and there is zero chance of that veto getting overridden by Congress. Shit, even the House itself couldn’t muster the super-majority needed to override a veto.
- Never mind that even many Senate Republicans think the House’s antics are desperate and irresponsible. For example, South Carolina’s Lindsay Graham called their attempts to bankrupt Obamacare “a bridge too far.”
Never mind that even the House’s own Republican leadership had to be coaxed into allowing this bill to come up for a vote. Earlier this year, none other than Speaker of the House John Boehner said: “Do you want to risk the full faith and credit of the U.S. government over Obamacare? That’s a very tough argument to make.” But the Republican leadership desperately hopes that allowing their party’s ultra-conservative wing to win what is essentially a symbolic vote will mollify them enough so that they can then be counted support a passable version of the bill that prevents an economic calamity.
Instead, let’s ask ourselves if Albert Einstein’s definition of insanity (Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results) might be relevant.
After all, this will be the 42nd time that House Republicans have passed a bill attempting to repeal or otherwise cripple Obamacare. And like the 41 before it, this one will suffer exactly the same result: It will pass the House and then be rejected by the Senate.
And instead, let’s also ask ourselves if it’s true that Obama’s watered down, compromised vision of healthcare reform is so abhorrent to ultra-conservative Republicans that they really are willing to scuttle the world’s greatest credit rating and potentially wreck the economy just to make a symbolic point.
Either way, it’s enough to make you think we should burn down the House before they burn down ours.
[Note to the NSA: That last sentence was a rhetorical metaphor.]
And don’t get me wrong here. As regular readers know, I’m not some Democratic Party apparatchik/apologist. Hell, I’m not even a registered Democrat, and in fact I’m only lukewarm on the ACA to begin with.
While I do recognize some of the good it will likely accomplish, I really do think it’s watered down and problematic. Most importantly, I believe it does far too little to fix what is arguably the greatest problem in healthcare: spiraling costs.
But I simply cannot come to any other conclusion than this. People who think Obamacare is the first step towards a totalitarian state are lunatics. People who think Obamacare 
is going to single-handedly wreck the economy have drunken the kool-aide. And anyone who believes it’s worth shutting down the federal government and damaging the U.S. economy to make a symbolic point about either of those fantasies cannot possibly have the nation’s best interest at heart, because they’re far too dogmatic to understand what those best interests might actually be.
Oh yeah. This bill also fast-tracks construction of the Keystone XL oil pipeline. Cause ya know, it’s all about taking a principled stand.
Assholes.
UPDATE September 19: Apparently House Republicans are now fairly irate at fellow Republican, Senator Ted Cruz of Texas. After running TV commercials and holding town hall meetings where he implored Republicans to do exactly what I’ve described above, Cruz has now issued a press statement less than 48 hours before the House vote. In it he says of course this is going nowhere in the Senate.
Hate to say I told you so, but . . .