Useless Republicans Will Not Try To Repeal Obamacare Before They Might Lose The House
Patrick Howley
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Republican “leaders” in Congress are saying that they will not repeal Obamacare before the midterm election in November, which raises the possibility that Democrats might take over Paul Ryan’s barely-guarded House majority and dash any hope of actually removing Obamacare from the books.
They say this despite the fact that John McCain stopped partial Obamacare repeal last time around by one vote, and now his replacement Jon Kyl publicly supports repealing Obamacare (maybe just because he knows it won’t be voted on).
Steve Scalise is a good man who underwent a horrible trauma, but he still needs to be held to account for this decision-making.
Yet again, Republicans who cater to the will of insurance and pharmaceutical companies are trying to dodge around instead of achieving real results for the actual American people who vote these do-nothings into Congress. This is similar to when then-Majority Leader John Boehner refused to try for a tax reform bill in 2006 until after the midterms — which Republicans lost to Nancy Pelosi.
It is clear that the only way President Donald Trump can gain control of the Republican Party is to force a government shutdown, highlighting departing Paul Ryan’s inability to get anything done and encouraging voters to cast their ballots for Trump and not for the RINO industrial complex.
“I’m not going to be asking for another vote on that this year,” No. 2 Senate GOP leader John Cornyn of Texas said last week when asked if he favored reopening the issue in a postelection lame duck session. No. 3 House leader Steve Scalise, R-La., said, “We need to win this election and then get more seats next year.” Each is their party’s chief vote counter.
That means any serious push to annul the statute would almost certainly hinge on Republicans retaining House control and adding Senate seats in November’s elections, neither of which is assured. If either goal eludes them on Election Day, President Donald Trump’s ability to deliver on one of his top campaign promises would have to wait for a second term, if he gets one.
Republicans seemed to gain ground last week when Sen. Jon Kyl replaced McCain, who died in August from brain cancer. Kyl said in a brief interview that he would have backed the measure that McCain opposed, a pivotal vote that would have sustained the repeal drive.
“It seems to me that would have been a useful thing to do,” Kyl said.
That bill failed 51-49. A “yes” from McCain would have meant a 50-50 tie that Vice President Mike Pence could have broken by casting his own vote.
AP passage ends
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