Photo Credit: AP Hard-line conservatives aren’t just sticking it to the national GOP by shutting down the government and bringing the nation to the brink of default – they’re also refusing to pony up to help their party defend the House in 2014.
With a little more than a year until the midterm election, many leaders of the shutdown strategy have yet to donate to the National Republican Congressional Committee, records show. At least eight of the debate’s 20 or so most outspoken figures have not given any money to the NRCC, and others have forked over token amounts.
Their refusal to contribute to the House GOP’s political arm, coming as Republicans are getting thumped by Democrats in the money race, is causing heartburn and frustration among Republican strategists charged with laying the groundwork for next year’s races. They say it is reinforcing a perception of the conservative gang that they’re only out for themselves and don’t much care about advancing the party’s larger cause.
Take Michigan Rep. Justin Amash, the libertarian acolyte of Ron Paul and one of the most outspoken lawmakers for a hard line on the budget and debt negotiations. Amash, who voted against the final deal to reopen the government, hasn’t contributed to the NRCC this year, according to Federal Election Commission reports. Nor has he given to the committee at any point during his two terms in Congress.
The U.S. House of Representatives late on Wednesday passed legislation to avoid a damaging default on government debt and to reopen federal agencies shuttered when funding ran out on October 1.
Photo Credit: Doug Mills/The New York TimesCongress Passes Debt Deal
By JONATHAN WEISMAN and ASHLEY PARKER.
Congressional Republicans conceded defeat on Wednesday in their bitter budget fight with President Obama over the new health care law, agreeing to end a disruptive 16-day government shutdown and extend federal borrowing power to avert a financial default with potentially worldwide economic repercussions.
With the Treasury Department warning that it could run out of money to pay national obligations within a day, the Senate voted overwhelmingly Wednesday evening, 81 to 18, to approve a proposal hammered out by the chamber’s Republican and Democratic leaders after the House on Tuesday was unable to move forward with any resolution. The House followed suit a few hours later, voting 285 to 144, to approve the Senate plan, which would finance the government through Jan. 15 and raise the debt limit through Feb. 7.
Shortly after the Senate vote, President Obama said he would sign the measure as he soon as he received it. While he praised Congress, he said he hoped the damaging standoff would not be repeated.
“We’ve got to get out of the habit of governing by crisis,” said Mr. Obama, who urged Congress to move forward, not only with new budget negotiations, but immigration changes and a farm bill as well. “We could get all these things done even this year, if everybody comes together in a spirit of, how are we going to move this country forward and put the last three weeks behind us.”
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2013-10-17 02:00:282016-04-11 11:16:13U.S. House Passes Bill to Reopen Government, Increase Debt Limit
Photo Credit: DonkeyHoteyThe 2010 midterm election that swept Republicans into power in the U.S. House of Representatives was a mandate to put the brakes on President Obama and his agenda.
Aside from voters also hoping that Republicans would do something – anything – to boost the economy, restraining Obama was pretty much the issue of that election.
It was the second wave election in four years (Republicans were dumped from the majority in 2006). And it had less to do with voters finding Republicans appealing once again and more to do with putting a halt to the Democrats’ overreach.
At the center of that overreach was the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare – which is why many of those elected to office in that cycle and reelected last year have been adamant about repealing it, even at the cost of a government shutdown.
Or even at the cost of losing their seats, which has led to talk of a Democrat wave election cycle. It is a possibility pushed by paid pundits as reality, but the facts do not support it.
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2013-10-14 02:44:342016-04-11 11:16:26No Evidence Dems Can Take Back House
House Democrats believe the shutdown will help them put the lower chamber in play this cycle.
Democratic candidates running against vulnerable Republicans have wasted no time in hammering the incumbents as key actors in what they’re characterizing as a Tea Party-led shutdown that’s hurting Americans.
Many of those Republicans, in a signal they’re concerned about the possible political ramifications, are calling for an end to the stalemate — like Reps. Scott Rigell (R-Va.), Pat Meehan (R-Pa.) and Jon Runyan (R-N.J.), all of whom are facing reelection in difficult districts and all of whom called this week for the passage of a clean CR to end the shutdown.
Multiple polls, too, have shown Americans are placing the blame for the shutdown on Republicans.
Democrats need to pick up 17 seats to win back the House, a tall order under any circumstances, and even taller in an off-year when the party holding the White House typically loses seats.
In the words of a veteran investor, watching the U.S. bond market today is like sitting in a packed theater and smelling smoke. You look around for signs of other nervous sniffers. But everyone else seems oblivious.
Yes, the federal government shut down this week. Yes, we are just two weeks away from the point when the Treasury secretary says he will run out of cash if the debt ceiling isn’t raised. Yes, bond king Bill Gross has been on TV warning that a default by the government would be “catastrophic.” Yet the yield on a 10-year Treasury note has fallen slightly over the past month (though short-term T-bill rates ticked up this week).
Part of the reason people aren’t rushing for the exits is that the comedy they are watching is so horribly fascinating. In his vain attempt to stop the Senate striking out the defunding of ObamaCare from the last version of the continuing resolution, freshman Sen. Ted Cruz managed to quote Doctor Seuss while re-enacting a scene from the classic movie “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.”
Meanwhile, President Obama has become the Hamlet of the West Wing: One minute he’s for bombing Syria, the next he’s not; one minute Larry Summers will succeed Ben Bernanke as chairman of the Federal Reserve, the next he won’t; one minute the president is jetting off to Asia, the next he’s not. To be in charge, or not to be in charge: that is indeed the question.
According to conventional wisdom, the key to what is going on is a Republican Party increasingly at the mercy of the tea party. I agree that it was politically inept to seek to block ObamaCare by these means. This is not the way to win back the White House and Senate. But responsibility also lies with the president, who has consistently failed to understand that a key function of the head of the executive branch is to twist the arms of legislators on both sides. It was not the tea party that shot down Mr. Summers’s nomination as Fed chairman; it was Democrats like Sen. Elizabeth Warren, the new face of the American left.
The House of Representatives approved a controversial Republican measure early Sunday that avoids a looming US government shutdown but delays President Barack Obama’s health care law for one year.
The bill assures a stalemate with the Senate, whose Majority Leader Harry Reid said he would not pass legislation that defunded or delayed so-called “Obamacare,” and brings the federal government dramatically closer to its first shutdown in 17 years.
The White House also insisted the president would veto the bill if it reaches his desk.
A divided House held hours of raucous debate during a rare Saturday session, when lawmakers often pointed blame at one another for a likely shutdown.
The measure, which now heads back to the Senate, is comprised of two amendments: a one-year delay of Obamacare’s implementation, notably the “individual mandate” requiring US residents to have health insurance by January 1 or pay a fine; and repeal of a medical device tax.
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2013-09-29 00:50:112013-09-29 00:50:11House Votes to Fund Govt, Delay Obamacare for Year – Reid Defiant
Photo Credit: majunznkBy Elise Viebeck. The Tea Party is ready to take a stand on defunding the divisive healthcare law and willing to risk a government shutdown in the process.
Establishment Republicans worry the strategy will repeat the Clinton-era government shutdown showdown, which hurt Republicans in the 1996 elections.
Tensions will reach a boiling point after the August recess, when lawmakers start negotiations over how to keep the government open.
In the meantime, old-guard Republicans are sending a clear message to conservatives: The shutdown isn’t worth the risk.
On Friday, Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) said that a plan to shut down the government to block funds for ObamaCare would cost the GOP control of the House and could destroy the party. Read more from this story HERE.
Sen. Cruz: Defund Obamacare before Americans become ‘addicted’ to subsidies
By Valerie Richardson. Sen. Ted Cruz urged conservatives Saturday to join a petition drive to defund Obamacare, calling it their last chance to stop the national health-care plan before its implementation in January.
“On Jan. 1, the exchanges kick in and the subsidies kick in,” said the Texas Republican in a speech Saturday at the Western Conservative Summit. “Once those kick in, it’s going to prove almost impossible to undo Obamacare. The administration’s plan is very simple: Get everyone addicted to the sugar so that Obamacare remains a permanent feature of our society.”
He asked foes of the Affordable Care Act to sign a national petition launched Saturday that calls for Congress to approve the Sept. 30 continuing budget resolution only if it eliminates funding for Obamacare.
The online petition, called Don’t Fund It, is located at www.dontfundobamacare.com
Opposing Mr. Cruz’s defunding plan was Republican strategist Dick Morris, who urged Republicans to “let the consequences of Obama’s policies happen.” Read more from this story HERE.
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2013-07-28 03:34:462016-04-11 11:18:14Tea Party House Members Take on Establishment Senators in Fight to Defund Obamacare
Photo Credit: Fox NewsThe House on Thursday narrowly passed a massive farm bill, after Republicans took the risky step of carving out the food stamp program — a move Democrats effectively boycotted.
The bill passed on a 216-208 vote. Zero Democrats voted for it.
House Democrats spent most of the afternoon lambasting their Republican colleagues for dropping the food stamp component, making clear that House Speaker John Boehner would need to rely on Republicans only to pass the bill. After some marathon nose-counting, GOP leaders were able to minimize the number of Republican defectors — just 12 Republicans voted against it on Thursday.
The farm bill historically has been a vehicle for both billions in farm subsidies and billions in food stamps. Twinning the two massive programs has in the past helped win support from rural-state lawmakers and those representing big cities. But after the bill failed in the House last month amid opposition from rank-and-file Republicans, House leaders removed the food stamp portion in a bid to attract conservative support.
The fate of the measure is unclear, though, as the matter now kicks back to the Senate or to a so-called conference committee to resolve differences between the two chambers’ bills. The Democratic-led Senate overwhelmingly passed a farm bill with smaller cuts to food stamps, but would be reluctant to go along with a bill that carves out food stamps.
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2013-07-12 00:00:532016-04-11 11:19:30House Narrowly Passes Farm Bill After Republicans Carve Out Food Stamps
Photo Credit: Daily Caller A top official at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau could not tell the House Committee on Financial Services how many Americans are being monitored through the agency’s secretive data collection program Tuesday.
This response led some Republican lawmakers to question how seriously the bureau takes privacy concerns.
“It’s inconceivable to me, unless you’re the most dysfunctional agency in the entire world, that you’d come before the committee today unable to answer the very simple questions you’ve been asked,” Florida Republican Rep. Bill Posey told Steven Antonakes, the acting deputy director of the CFPB, at a contentious hearing.
…[W]hen Wisconsin Republican Rep. Sean Duffy asked Antonakes how many Americans were included in the new database, he had no answer.
“I couldn’t give you an accurate range,” Antonakes replied, prompting an incredulous response from the congressman. Previous reports have put the number of individual consumers monitored by the CFPB at least 10 million.
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2013-07-10 03:35:412016-04-11 11:19:38Head of Fed’s CFPB Has No Idea How Many Americans the Agency Has Under Surveillance
Photo Credit: Fox NewsHouse Republicans want the IRS to pay for targeting political groups and are pushing legislation that would cut the tax collecting agency’s budget by $3 billion — nearly a quarter of what it received last fiscal year.
The House Appropriations Committee is scheduled to start “marking up” the spending bill Wednesday.
While it’s unlikely that such a severe cut will pass both congressional chambers, it does give lawmakers another opportunity to verbally punish the agency for unfairly scrutinizing conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status.
The bill would place additional restrictions on spending at the IRS and prohibit employees from implementing the individual mandate in the Affordable Care Act – commonly referred to as ObamaCare. It also bans conferences, the production of videos and curbs what lawmakers see as a number of abuses at the IRS.
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2013-07-10 03:25:052016-04-11 11:19:39Citing Abuses, House GOP Wants to Gut IRS’s Budget by One-Quarter (+video)
Photo Credit: Fox NewsRepublicans launch probe into ObamaCare mandate delay
By Fox News. House Republicans are investigating the Obama administration’s move to delay a key part of the health care overhaul, claiming the announcement was “completely at odds” with prior claims that ObamaCare was running on schedule and questioning what provisions might be delayed next.
“It’s clear we have no idea the full scope of delays and disarray that may be coming. The American public deserves answers,” Rep. Fred Upton, R-Mich., chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, said in a statement.
Republicans on Upton’s committee fired off a pair of letters on Wednesday to both the Treasury Department and Department of Health and Human Services. They demanded records detailing deliberations regarding the recently announced delay and ongoing talks about other “elements” of the law that some groups want “changed, delayed or repealed.” Read more from this story HERE.
Republicans “Stunned” Over Delay, Trying to Figure Out What to Do
By Byron York. The move stunned Republicans in Congress, who immediately asked: Whose feedback? What businesses were meeting with the White House? What deals did they make?
“These communications and the decision-making process related to the delay… have not been disclosed publicly,” wrote House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Rep. Fred Upton in a letter to the Treasury Department and the Department of Health and Human Services. Along with 13 other Republican committee members, Upton demanded the administration reveal which businesses and which government officials were involved in the decision.
But the bigger question for Republicans is how to handle the administration’s surprise retreat. Should they focus on secretiveness, as Upton & Co. are doing? Should they push the White House to explain how Obamacare can still work when large employers don’t have to pay fines for not covering workers and, perhaps more importantly, don’t have to report their employees’ health care information to the giant new Obamacare bureaucracy, so the bureaucracy can determine whether those employees are eligible to buy coverage on the exchanges? Or should Republicans just keep pressing for repeal of the whole thing?
“I think we’ll almost certainly be sticking to a full repeal message all the way,” says one GOP Senate aide. “The question here is for the administration – not us – and it’s basically this: At what point will they realize that this law is unworkable?”
Probably never. When key Obama adviser Valerie Jarrett wrote, after the delay announcement, that, “We are full steam ahead for the marketplaces opening on Oct. 1,” she was reflecting the administration’s determination to get the health care exchanges up and running no matter what. Delay the employer mandate? OK. Waive this or that rule? Fine. Just make sure the exchanges get going. Read more from this story HERE.
Photo Credit: M.Scott MahaskeyWhite House greases squeaky wheels on Obamacare
By David Nather. The delay of Obamacare’s employer coverage rules is giving the critics plenty of new ammunition — but that doesn’t mean the sudden movement is out of character for the administration at all.
It’s just the latest example of a pattern with the implementation of Obamacare: The Obama administration almost always listens to the squeaky wheel.
First more than 1,200 employers and health plans got waivers from early coverage rules. Next, many states that couldn’t decide whether to build a health insurance exchange or let the feds do it for them were given repeated extensions. And then, when Republican governors were holding out on expanding Medicaid, they were finally told there’s no deadline at all.
So when the Obama administration announced Tuesday that it would delay the Affordable Care Act’s insurance mandate for employers for a year, it was just one more piece of evidence that the administration is perfectly willing to bend the rules for some powerful interests — a a welcome invitation for other players to raise their hands in the coming months as the law heads into overdrive.
Already, other groups are grumbling at the decision. Read more from this story HERE.
Photo Credit: Washington Examiner Liberals blame GOP, Fox, Drudge in Obamacare fiasco
By Paul Bedard. The pro-Obama media watchdog Media Matters Wednesday, defending the administration’s surprise move to cancel implementation of major elements of Obamacare, said that Republicans were to blame and accused conservative media leaders like Fox News and the Drudge Report for ignoring the GOP’s role.
In a release, the liberal group said that Fox and Drudge instead charged that the one-year delay was political with the goal of pushing off the expected initial implementation disaster until after the 2014 elections.
“Fox News and the Drudge Report are ignoring years of Republicans obstructing the implementation of health care reform to accuse the Obama administration of delaying the law for political gain, in the process dismissing the fact that businesses are praising the administration’s move,” said Media Matters. Read more from this story HERE.
Realities Force President to Scale Back Vision for Obamacare
By Todd Beamon. Six years ago, presidential candidate Barack Obama stood before Iowa voters and introduced a plan designed to extend healthcare to all Americans.
“We can do this,” he said with confidence. “The time has come for universal, affordable healthcare in America.”
Three years ago, President Obama signed into law a plan designed to extend coverage to more than 30 million uninsured people.
“This is what change looks like,” he exulted.
But it has become clear that Obama’s vision for universal health care is dramatically different than it was that day in Iowa. The president been forced to cut, reshape and compromise on his signature Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act because of economic — and political — realities. Read more from this story HERE.
Photo Credit: APWall Street Journal Apologizes for Not Fighting Hard Enough Against Obamacare
By Wall Street Journal. These columns fought the Affordable Care Act from start to passage, and we’d now like to apologize to our readers. It turns out we weren’t nearly critical enough. The law’s implementation is turning into a fiasco for the ages, and this week’s version is the lawless White House decision to delay the law’s insurance mandate for businesses, though not for individuals.
The employer mandate is central to ObamaCare’s claim of providing universal coverage. Companies with 50 or more “employee equivalents” must pay a $2,000 penalty per full-time employee if they don’t provide government-approved health insurance. The provision was supposed to start in January, and delaying it is like Ford saying its electric car is ready to go, except the electric battery doesn’t work.
But all of a sudden on Tuesday evening Mark Mazur—you know him as the deputy assistant Treasury secretary for tax policy—published a blog post canceling the insurance reporting rules and tax enforcement until 2015 as Washington began to evacuate for the long Independence Day weekend. Enjoy the holiday, mate.
White House fixer Valerie Jarrett tried to contain the fallout with a separate blog post promising that ObamaCare is otherwise “staying the course.” That’s true only if she’s referring to the carelessness and improvisation that have defined the law so far. Read more from this story HERE.
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2013-07-05 02:53:162016-04-11 11:19:55“Stunned” GOP Launches Probe into Obamacare Delay While Obama Continues to Grease the Skids (+video)
