GOP congressman: We stumbled into war over Obamacare

[ashling]

On Thursday afternoon, as the government shutdown entered its third day, a Republican member of the House sat down with a group of reporters in an office building not far from the Capitol. He spoke on the condition that he be referred to only as a House lawmaker, but without betraying the agreement it's fair to say his was a perspective well worth listening to. The congressman walked the group through a set of issues involved in the shutdown -- the continuing resolution, House-Senate relations, the coming debt limit talks, and more -- but what was perhaps most striking was his frank talk about how the GOP leadership got itself into its current predicament. What became clear after an hour of discussion was that the House Republican leadership's position at the moment is the result of happenstance, blundering, and a continuing inability to understand the priorities of both GOP and Democratic colleagues.

The congressman began with an anecdote from the Civil War. "I would liken this a little bit to Gettysburg, where a Confederate unit went looking for shoes and stumbled into Union cavalry, and all of a sudden found itself embroiled in battle on a battlefield it didn't intend to be on, and everybody just kept feeding troops into it," the congressman said. "That's basically what's happening now in a political sense. This isn't exactly the fight I think Republicans wanted to have, certainly that the leadership wanted to have, but it's the fight that's here."

When the September 30 deadline for funding the government was still weeks away, the lawmaker explained, he never thought Republicans and Democrats would fail to reach agreement on a continuing resolution. "To be honest with you, I did not think we'd be in a government shutdown situation," he said. "I'm surprised that we're here." The congressman frankly admitted that he never saw the intensity of the party base's opposition to Obamacare that came to the fore in the August recess. "I think that probably the Cruz phenomenon had a lot to do with that," he said, referring to the campaign by Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz to raise support for an effort to defund Obamacare. "I think it disrupted everybody's plans, both in the administration and certainly the House Republican leadership."

As the congressman told the story, as August progressed — and Cruz, along with a few Senate colleagues, the Heritage Foundation, and others, ran a high-profile campaign to stir public opinion against Obamacare — the House GOP leadership was mostly unaware of what was going on. "They got surprised a little bit by the Obamacare thing," the lawmaker said. "This was something that blew up in August. Nobody really saw it coming — probably should have a little bit, I'm not being critical of anybody in that regard, on either side of this — but it just happened."

Even after the events of August, and the rise of Cruz forced House Republicans to take notice, GOP leaders had little understanding of the course that the conflict, both inside the House Republican conference and with Senate Democrats, would eventually take. "I never thought defund, and honestly, I never thought delay, would work," the lawmaker said. "I think the Democrats very much need the exchanges to come on and work to finally create a constituency for [Obamacare]…so I never thought they would agree on that."

[JustAnotherGen]

1. Can you add the link?

I want the full context. Thanks!

[DonViejo]

2. + 1,000 eom

[riderinthestorm]

3. +2000. nt

[JHB]

5. Not sure where the OP got it, but it appears to be from Byron York

http://washingtonexaminer.com/gop-congressman-we-stumbled-into-war-over-obamacare/article/2536874

[JustAnotherGen]

8. Thanks!

[NYC Liberal]

4. Republicans knew exactly what they were doing.

The fact that they've now doubled down proves it.

[JHB]

13. Not mutually exclusive

I think a lot of "moderate" Republicans have been kidding themselves about how far the hard-core RWers are willing to go. That may be the case with York's source.

[jsr]

6. Bullshit. It was premeditated and preplanned.

[Coyotl]

7. Agreed. Someone is spinning the story to divert blame from those who intended this to happen.

And it is easier to lie anonymously.

[JustAnotherGen]

9. In 100% agreement

This goes back to February 14, 2013. This was planned and deliberate.

[R. Daneel Olivaw]

10. I have to agree with others here.

What the congressman is saying doesn't make sense. They had to know what they were doing. It just sounds more like the excuse machine, under condition of anonymity, is being floated to make the GOP position to appear less hostile.

Also the anecdote of Gettysburg is a myth. The confederates had already picked the countryside clean, and there were no stores of shoes there.


There is one thing that can be taken away from Gettysburg though. The Federals won that battle, and hopefully they/the people win out over the obviously under-educated GOP.

[rhett o rick]

11. The handwriting was on the wall years ago. Republicans realized that they had nothing going

for themselves. They helped tear down the government and economy and now that the people wanted action, they had nothing. So along came the devil and convinced the more moderate Republican House members that if they wanted any power at all they had to all stick together (under the threat of being ostracized) and sell their souls to the devil (teabagger leaders). Now that the devil has lead them to the edge of the cliff and is telling them to jump, some are having second thoughts.

[magical thyme]

12. Sorry, not buying it...

The GOP didn't stumble into this mess looking to nab a pair of shoes. They were trying once again to undo a law that has withstood 42 attempts to undo it legislatively and a Supreme Court challenge.

"Instead, it's no, we're not going to negotiate, we're not going to negotiate, we're not going to negotiate," the lawmaker said. "Which means effectively you're going to try to humiliate the Speaker in front of his conference

No, sir, not trying to humiliate anybody. Had Boehner approached Reid in a reasonable fashion, suggesting that since businesses had a 1 year delay it would only be fair to give individuals a similar delay...and not tied that change to passing CR, but instead kept it separate, it would have been open to debate,discussion and negotiation.

Instead, Boehner went back on his prior agreement with Reid to a clean CR, and tried to refuse to fund ACA by holding the US hostage.

Furthermore, the delay was just another, "well that didn't work, so how about this." They tried first to defund settled law by holding the US hostage. When that failed, they tried to delay. A tactic out of the Bush/PNAC playbook: when it was proven that Saddam wasn't behind 911, then it was WMDs, then "bringing democracy" and so on, ad nauseum.

If he thought he could force President Obama to do what 42 legislative and one Supreme Court attempts have failed to do by holding the US hostage, he was very mistaken. That it is Obama's signature achievement that he attempted this with shows incredible stupidity -- say, Boehn-headedness -- in thinking he could pull it off.


This unnamed GOPer is simply trying to make it sound like blame is shared. It is not.

We cannot "negotiate" on paying our bills. The 14th amendment makes it clear that we *will* pay our bills. That is non-negotiable. Period.