It's an election year, and something good happened to the incumbent president. You know what that means: The opposition party is about to do a lot of yelling.
We're dealing, of course, with the U.S. Supreme Court's refusal to knock down Obamacare's individual mandate -- you know, the one that we're all very mad at Obama for, even though it was totally passed by Congress once upon a time.
Republicans instantly changed their tune from "It's unconstitutional!" to "We just hate it!" and one Florida Republican -- Rep. Connie Mack -- said yesterday that he's filed a bill to repeal the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. Can you tell he's running for Senate this year?
The two bills he introduced are called, quite cleverly, the "NObamacare Act" and "NObamacare Funds Act."
Don't worry, though -- he "absolutely" wants to keep the popular parts of the bill -- it's that damned mandate, that damned thing "paying for it," that's got him all bothered. He's made a federal case out of reducing deficits -- that Obamacare is projected to reduce deficits by $124 billion and repeal projected to raise deficits by $119 billion doesn't seem to be of much concern.
In any case, the House, despite having so very many other things to yell about, then throw in the garbage, has managed to schedule a vote for a repeal bill for next month. The court announced that the individual mandate was constitutional around 10 a.m. By 4 p.m., House Republicans are rip-roarin' to shoot it down anyway.
These people should be mocked. Not because of some ideological differences or their willingness to put "freedom" and "liberty" over the health care of millions but because they are wasting so much time and energy on something so transparently pointless.
The House could very well pass a repeal of Obamacare, but the House passes lots of stuff -- stuff that never, ever becomes law. Three years' worth of GOP-authored budgets come to mind. These things don't become law because the Senate, that fabled "cooling saucer," won't pass any of it. The Democratically "controlled" higher house could theoretically do the same thing, except the Republican minority just filibusters anything it doesn't like.
This "repeal Obamacare!!!" nonsense is a show. Whether you support the health-care bill or not, this is an insult to our intelligence. The Senate won't even let a repeal bill out of committee, and the House knows that -- but all the representatives trying to get reelected in November will get to say "we voted to repeal that horrible Marxist job-killing progressive thing!" and that might be enough to raise them some money and keep them employed for another two years.
But don't think that Mack, or his Republican colleagues, are actually doing anything for our country with this one. You want to see health-care protest done right? Check out Rick Scott's response yesterday -- he couldn't even tell reporters which parts of the law Florida was going to listen to.
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