4/14/14, "A limp challenge against John Boehner," Washington Post, Jonathan Capehart, opinion
J.D. Winteregg is "seeking to unseat House Speaker John A. Boehner (R) from the Ohio congressional seat he has held since 1991....
Winteregg...makes promises he can’t keep and displays incredible ignorance about how things work in the real world. He vows that “Obamacare will be defunded.” Nevermind the 54 failed attempts to do so, plus a sitting president who will never sign legislation killing his signature legislative achievement."...
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Comment: The GOP House has never held a standalone up or down vote to defund ObamaCare.The 54 failed attempts you cite were all part of other bills, involved agencies, or required legislative changes, none of which are matters in which the House can rule unilaterally. These were mainly GOP charades and a waste of time. None were standalone, up or down bills to defund O'Care. Further, neither a "sitting president" nor senate has the power to reverse House decisions to withhold money. The power of the purse is reserved to the House alone--should it choose to exercise that power.
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Two PhD citations confirm basic civics about House of Representatives' unilateral power of the purse:
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1. 9/17/13, Professor Emeritus Dr. Angelo M. Codevilla:
Since January 2011 ObamaCare has survived only due to John Boehner. "John Boehner and his chosen band" have opted not "to use the constitutional power they have to refuse to appropriate money for Obamacare":
9/17/13, "The Obama-Boehner Project," Angelo M. Codevilla, libertylawsite.org
"The Republican Party owes its majority in the House of Representatives – and John Boehner his speakership thereof – to the American people’s dislike of Obamacare. Because the US Constitution is explicit that the US government may expend only funds appropriated by Congress, Obamacare has existed strictly at the sufferance of the House leadership since that majority took office in January 2011. But John Boehner and his chosen band have thwarted the majority of Republican congressmen’s desire to use the constitutional power they have to refuse to appropriate money for Obamacare. In this, Boehner &co. have worked in bipartisan coordination with the ruling class, including the media, including Fox News.
By September 2013, spurred by the Party’s constituent groups, Republican congressmen and senators had vowed to exclude Obamacare from the omnibus spending bill that funds government operations. (the existence of such bills, which neuter Congress’ constitutional authority over spending, will be the subject of another column).
Boehner and his band responded with a proposal to vote on the omnibus spending bill, twice: once without Obamacare, so as to allow Congressmen to feign evidence of faithfulness to the principles for which they were elected, and another with Obamacare. The latter would pass with the votes of all Democrats and just enough of the Republican leadership to put it over the top. It would become law, and satisfy the ruling class’ constituent groups: the insurance companies, the hospital lobby, as well as left wing ideologues....
Support for Obamacare was dwindling daily to the ruling class’ inner core as the membership of organizations whose leaders had supported its passage now demanded that these leaders lobby for exemptions from it. The labor movement, one of the ruling class’ key constituencies, was turning against it as vehemently as the Republican rank-and-file. Hence Boehner’s continued fidelity to Obamacare was especially boneheaded.
The ruling class’ foolishness and insincerity, its willingness to insult the American people’s intelligence, are no joke. But we can take comfort in its transparent ineptitude."
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"Angelo M. Codevilla: Angelo M. Codevilla is professor emeritus of international relations at Boston University. He served as a U.S. Senate Staff member dealing with oversight of the intelligence services. His book Peace Among Ourselves and With All Nations is forthcoming from Hoover Institution Press."
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2. Dr. Harold Pease, Professor of Political Science and History, Taft College:
The House can unilaterally defund ObamaCare via a standalone bill:
10/2/13, “Obamacare can be defunded without Senate approval,“ Examiner, Christopher Collins
"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....
"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....
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.”
“Still, the intent of the Founding Fathers was to give the people, through their House of Representatives, the power collectively to say no to any proposed federal tax, which she is decidedly doing.”
[Edited for clarity] If Obamacare is removed from the government budget, presented, and voted on as a separate bill, Obamacare can be defunded by the House. "...
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Added: Beyond the defunding issue, ObamaCare has never been approved as a tax by the House. John Roberts said it was legal as a tax, but he didn't amend the Constitution, Article I, Section 7. "Only the House may introduce a bill that involves taxes." John Boehner has never allowed a vote to approve O'Care as a tax:
10/2/13, “Still, the intent of the Founding Fathers was to give the people, through their House of Representatives, the power collectively to say no to any proposed federal tax, which she is decidedly doing.” (2nd parag. from end)
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About the 6/28/12 Supreme Court ObamaCare ruling:
7/5/12, "What the Supreme Court ruled on health care 'tax'," CNN, Josh Levs
"The high court overturned a unanimous decision by the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that the mandate did not impose a tax....
The court emphasized that it was not weighing in on whether the mandate is a good idea.
"Because the
Constitution permits such a tax, it is not our role to forbid it, or to
pass upon its wisdom or fairness," the decision said."
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8/30/13, "Founders made defunding 'the most complete and effectual weapon'," Mark Tapscott, Washington Examiner
"James Madison, the "father of the Constitution," made it clear in Federalist #58 that the Founders specifically gave the House of Representatives the power of the purse with the expectation that it would on occasion use that power to stop unwise acts by the Senate or either of the other two branches....
"The house of representatives can not only refuse, but they alone can propose the supplies requisite for the support of government. They in a word hold the purse; that powerful instrument by which we behold, in the history of the British constitution, an infant and humble representation of the people, gradually enlarging the sphere of its activity and importance, and finally reducing, as far as it seems to have wished, all the overgrown prerogatives of the other branches of the government. This power over the purse, may in fact be regarded as the most compleat and effectual weapon with which any constitution can arm the immediate representatives of the people, for obtaining a redress of every grievance, and for carrying into effect every just and salutary measure."...
Madison's observations about the House of Representatives make it absolutely clear that there is no such thing as "mandatory spending" that cannot be changed as Congress, and in particular at the insistence of the lower chamber.
First, Madison points to the superiority of the House over the Senate with regard to funding issues, noting that "notwithstanding the equal authority which will subsist between the two houses on all legislative subjects except the originating of money bills" and praising the "continual triumph of the British House of Commons over the other branches of the government whenever the engine of a money bill has been employed."
In other words, the prospect of the House standing firm and refusing to fund something favored by the Senate and the president was understood by the Founders to be a very real possibility because they had seen just such a conflict stretching over many decades in Parliament.
But Madison didn't just acknowledge the similarity of fiscal power between the House of Representatives and the House of Commons, he praised the singular exercise of the power of the purse as "the most complete and effectual weapon" available under the Constitution to any of the three branches of the federal government.
Madison's point here bears serious, deliberative study by anybody who has an interest in the Obamacare debate."...
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