http://www.politico.com/story/2013/07/gop-feuds-obamacare-tactics-94774.htmlGOP feuds over Obamacare tactics
A brewing Republican versus Republican fight over whether to use a government funding measure to choke off Obamacare is splitting the party ahead of this fall’s budget battles.
A growing number of Republicans are rejecting calls from leading conservatives, including Sens. Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz and Rand Paul, to defund the president’s health care law in the resolution to keep the government running past Sept. 30. The rift exposes an emerging divide over how the GOP can best achieve its No. 1 goal — to repeal Obamacare — while highlighting the spreading fears that Republicans would lose a public relations war if the dispute leads to a government shutdown in the fall.
The debate is happening behind closed doors and over Senate lunches, as well as during a frank meeting Wednesday with House leaders in Speaker John Boehner’s suite where fresh concerns were aired about the party’s strategy. On Thursday, the dispute began to spill into public view, most notably when three Senate Republicans — including Minority Whip John Cornyn — withdrew their signatures from a conservative letter demanding defunding Obamacare as a condition for supporting the government funding measure.
(PHOTOS: 25 unforgettable Obamacare quotes)
Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.) called the push to defund the law through the continuing resolution the “dumbest idea” he had ever heard.
“Defunding the Affordable Care Act is not achievable by shutting down the federal government,” Burr said. “At some point, you’re going to open the federal government back up, and Barack Obama is going to be president.”
Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) and Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.) have circulated letters in the Senate and House to push their colleagues to unite behind the anti-Obamacare effort. The proponents of the push argue that if the government shuts down over Obamacare, it will be the president’s fault — not theirs.
“I see it as Obama is threatening to shut down the government unless we fund Obamacare,” Rubio said.
(Also on POLITICO: House Republicans: Defund Obamacare)
While the push has won the support of the GOP trio eyeing a White House run — Rubio, Cruz and Paul — the fight also has given the Florida Republican an opportunity to cater to the right after his star dimmed in the eyes of many conservatives for cutting a deal to pass a Senate immigration bill.
Indeed, Rubio seems to be relishing this fight that’s firing up the GOP base.
“I would say, ‘If we’re not going to have a red line in the sand on Obamacare, what will we have a line in the sand on?’” Rubio told POLITICO on Thursday. “For those who are saying it’s not achievable, I would say to them, ‘If it’s not achievable it’s because they are basically conceding defeat before they even try.’”
(Also on POLITICO: Rubio drums up rhetoric)
After recapturing the House majority in the 2010 midterms, Republicans were emboldened to cut spending, using must-pass government funding bills and debt ceiling increases as their leverage. But their steep demands for cuts quickly ran into political reality — namely the Democratic Senate and the White House — and the House and Senate leadership have made a series of compromises that have angered rank-and-file conservatives.
With the fall spending fights nearing and the White House struggling to implement the health care law, conservatives say now is the time to fight and force Democrats to bend to their will. But funding the health care law is hardly the only disagreement. Senate Democrats and House Republicans are tens of billions of dollars apart on their government funding targets.
Nonetheless, Rubio, Lee and other conservative lawmakers have begun to make the case that if Republicans back a budget bill that includes funding for Obamacare, they essentially are supporting the law.
“They will choose to fund it and thereby, become part of the legislative process of Obamacare’s implementation, but I’m not going to,” Lee said Thursday.
Such comments have irked a number of Republicans, virtually all of whom have called for the law’s repeal.
“That’s not true because a good portion of it is mandatory spending, and the only way you get rid of mandatory spending if you want to defund Obamacare is 67 votes because you got to override a presidential veto,” said Oklahoma Sen. Tom Coburn, a fellow conservative. “So that’s not an accurate assessment.”
Coburn called the conservative effort a “failed strategy” since “backbones don’t hold long” after a government shuts down, and he said it’s a political loser.
“My feeling is if you want to make sure that the Democrats take control of the House, run that strategy,” Coburn said.
Similarly, Cornyn said he disagrees with the assessment that supporting a budget bill with Obamacare funding is the same as supporting the law.
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