On 10/17/13 The Hill conducted an interview with Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell in which it repeatedly referenced a supposed recent Senate measure proposing to “repeal” ObamaCare and stated the measure had been tied to the government shutdown. The recent Senate ObamaCare measure wasn’t about “repealing,” rather “defunding” which is quite different. Surely The Hill knows there’s a big difference between repealing and defunding and how important it is to be factual about what many have attempted incorrectly to connect to an imagined global crisis. Why fan flames and not even be accurate about it? As it happens, neither “repeal” nor “defund” caused the shutdown. Only Presidents can “shutdown” the government. Central to the issue and not stated by The Hill are two facts: One, the GOP House has never allowed a standalone ObamaCare defunding bill to come to the floor. Two, the Supreme Court ruled ObamaCare wasn’t Constitutional as written but was Constitutional as a tax. That didn’t mean the House had to approve it as a tax, just that it was legal as a tax. All taxes must come from the House of Representatives. The GOP Speaker has never allowed a vote up or down on ObamaCare as a tax.
Following are The Hill references followed by citations on ObamaCare and the GOP House:
10/17/13, “GOP’s McConnell promises no more shutdowns over ObamaCare,” The Hill, by Alexander Bolton
“Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell says he will not allow another government shutdown as part of a strategy to repeal ObamaCare….
McConnell said that…they are not going to be able to repeal it unilaterally while Democrats control the White House and the Senate.”…
Much later in the article, The Hill mentions the term “defund” in passing but not in connection with its discussion with McConnell in which only the term “repeal” was used. Here “defund” described something favored by “some conservatives,” not stating whether these were “Senate conservatives” or other conservatives, elected or not:
“Some conservatives have criticized the deal harshly for failing to defund or make a major reform to ObamaCare.”…
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On 9/25/13, The Hill correctly used the term “defund” to describe the Senate measure unlike its 10/17/13 report above in which it changed its description of the Senate measure from “defund” to “repeal.” For whatever reason, The Hill chose not to correct or explain McConnell’s inaccurate use of the term in the 10/17/13 piece:
9/25/13, “Senate advances stopgap spending bill defunding ObamaCare,” The Hill, Alexander Bolton
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The House of Representatives has 100% discretion on funding and tax matters:
House Speaker John Boehner has never allowed a standalone ObamaCare defunding bill to come to the floor. This article makes clear the GOP House has carefully avoided its clear legal right to defund which cannot be overridden by the Senate or even the President. The House has 100% discretion in financial matters. An even larger issue is the Supreme Court disallowed ObamaCare as originally written, but said it was legal as a tax. Speaker Boehner has never allowed a standalone vote on a ObamaCare as a tax.
- The Court didn’t rule the House had to approve it as a tax, just that ObamaCare was not legal unless it was called a tax (in the Court’s view).
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10/2/13, “Obamacare can be defunded without Senate approval,“ Examiner, Christopher Collins
“When the House passed legislation to defund ObamaCare but would keep the government running through mid-December, the Senate, led by Senate Majority Leader, Senator Harry Reid (D-NV) stated that they would not budge on Obamacare and the legislation was defeated.
On Monday, Dr. Harold Pease, an expert on the United States Constitution, stated that the authority in dealing with Obamacare funding belongs to the U.S. House, not the U.S. Senate and that the House is doing this all wrong.
Pease said, “Everything hinged upon funding which was given exclusively to the House of Representatives, the only power that they alone had.”
Pease went on to say, “All bills for raising revenue shall originate in the House of Representatives; but the Senate may propose or concur with Amendments as on other Bills. To fund anything, in this case Obamacare, first approval is required by the House of Representatives.”
“If that does not happen taxpayer money cannot be spent. The people, through their representatives to Congress, have determined, after a three-year closer scrutiny of The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (Obamacare), that it does not protect the patient, is not affordable and is not even workable; hence in the interests of the vast majority of the people needs to be defunded.”
When the United States Supreme Court ruled on Obamacare in 2012, Chief Justice Roberts stance on Obamacare coincides with the intent of the U.S. Constitution, explained by Pease, and the powers between the House and Senate.
According to the U.S. Supreme Court ruling, Obamacare cannot be implemented and is not considered the law of the land….
Bubba Atkinson of the Independent Journal Review wrote, “Chief Justice Roberts actually ruled the mandate, relative to the commerce clause, was unconstitutional. That is how the Democrats got Obama-care going in the first place. This is critical. His ruling means Congress can’t compel American citizens to purchase anything, ever. The notion is now officially and forever, unconstitutional. As it should be.”
“Next, he stated that, because Congress doesn’t have the ability to mandate, it must, to fund Obama-care, rely on its power to tax. Therefore, the mechanism that funds Obama-care is a tax,” said Atkinson. “He struck down as unconstitutional, the Obama-care idea that the federal government can bully states into complying by yanking their existing medicaid funding. Liberals, through Obama-care, basically said to the states — “comply with Obama-care or we will stop existing funding.” Roberts ruled that is a no-no.”
When the House attached Obamacare to the legislation in funding the government, it made a mistake in doing so and the funding of Obamacare should have been separate, thereby giving the Senate no power in denying the Houses’ request to defund Obamacare.
Pease said, “House opposition to funding Obamacare would have been far more powerful if made a “stand alone” bill not attached to general funding, but it is not. “Stand alone,” having no other parts, would have left the Senate no wiggle or compromise room once it went to them, nor would there be for the Joint Conference Committee thereafter that reconciles any differences between the two houses.
- There would be nothing to reconcile, Obamacare is merely defunded.”
If Obamacare is removed from the government budget, presented, and voted on as a separate bill, Obamacare can be defunded by the House. If that is the case, then
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Apparently not wishing ObamaCare to be defunded, GOP House ‘leadership’ placed a defunding bill in the GOP controlled House Appropriations Committee where it remained “deadlocked” indefinitely. The only reason the Tea Party gave the GOP House the majority in Nov. 2010 was so they could defund ObamaCare. The GOP declined the opportunity:
9/29/11, “Draft spending bill would defund Obama healthcare law,” The Hill, Sam Baker
“House Republicans released a draft spending bill Thursday that would cut off funding for many parts of the healthcare reform law, though the bill remains deadlocked in the Appropriations Committee.“…
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