We talked a lot about this last week, and it was good to see Ted Cruz standing firm on it, and not letting Candy Crowley trip him up with thinly veiled Democrat talking points such as, "It's already law. Why don't you just get on board and try it?" What a question. When you have major problems in the country like job losses, soaring health premiums and bloated federal implementation costs - and you can trace it all back to one law the federal government put in place - what is the job of the U.S. senator if not to get rid of that law?
Crowley does make an interesting statement, though, that betrays the mindset of establishment Washington at the moment: "President Obama will never sign a law de-funding ObamaCare."
The fact is that Congress doesn't need to pass "a law de-funding ObamaCare." Crowley makes it sound like the proposition is that the House and the Senate pass a bill saying, "ObamaCare is hereby de-funded" and they send it to Obama's desk for his signature. The implication is that funding of ObamaCare is by default and automatic unless such a bill is signed into law.
No. Not a dime of federal spending is ever by default or automatic. The federal government can only spend what Congress authorizes it to spend, by a federal budget during normal times or by endless continuing resolutions during the mis-reign of Obama and Harry Reid. Whenever Congress passes such a spending authorization, it makes choices about what it will fund and what it will not fund. What Cruz is advocating is that the next such authorization not include ObamaCare among those things it chooses to fund.
Does Candy Crowley not understand how this works? Does she think the passage of ObamaCare came with open-ended authorization to fund the law's implementation forever? Because it didn't. And the maddening thing about the current state of Congress is that those who want to de-fund ObamaCare only need 218 House votes or 41 Senate votes - and as of now Cruz concedes they don't have them, in spite of the fact that there are more than enough Republicans in each House to produce those votes.
By the way, he makes exactly the right points about how to reform health care after ObamaCare is gone, including the expansion of Health Savings Accounts so people can simply pay their own doctor bills, and the de-linking of health insurance from employment. That is the biggest factor that is driving up the cost of health care such that it becomes so difficult for people who would like to simply pay their own doctor bills to do so.
Cruz says it will take a "tsunami" of support to pass a spending authorization bill that doesn't fund ObamaCare. That's astonishing, but Cruz explains exactly why it is. You pass a spending bill that doesn't fund ObamaCare, and Obama and Harry Reid will scream that mean old Republicans want to shut down the government, and the media will report the story in exactly that way. This frightens establishment Republicans who think they can't possibly win that argument and are terrified of trying.
Cruz says it's time to stand up and win the argument. Damn straight. Watch the interview:
