WASHINGTON - Sen. David Vitter, R-La., has signed onto a letter that threatens a government shutdown unless Congress votes to defund President Barack Obama's health care law. The letter to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nevada, organized by Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, was signed by 11 fellow Republicans, including Vitter. It cites the president's recent decision to delay a...
WASHINGTON - Sen. David Vitter, R-La., has signed onto a letter that threatens a government shutdown unless Congress votes to defund President Barack Obama's health care law.
The letter to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nevada, organized by Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, was signed by 11 fellow Republicans, including Vitter. It cites the president's recent decision to delay a mandate for one year that requires employers with 50 or more workers to provide health insurance or pay a penalty while going ahead with implementation of the rest of the law, including an individual mandate to purchase insurance -- with subsidies for low-income Americans -- as scheduled in January.
"The president cannot seriously expect to waive ObamaCare's onerous mandates on large businesses, while simultaneously forcing individuals and families to pay to implement an individual mandate the public has opposed since before the law was even passed," reads the letter to Reid. "For these reasons, we will not support any continuing resolution or appropriations legislation that funds further implementation or enforcement of ObamaCare."
But the idea of blocking legislation to fund the government, unless congressional Democrats and President Barack Obama agree to eliminate funding for the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act was ridiculed as unworkable by some Senate Republicans. The bill passed without a single Republican vote in 2010.
"I think it's a silly effort," said Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., on MSNBC Tuesday. "What people are really saying who are behind that effort is that 'We don't have the courage to roll up our sleeves and deal with real deficit reduction and spending decisions, and we want to take ourselves out of the debate and act like we're being principled to the American people.'"
Sen. John McCain R-Ariz., and Sen. Roy Blunt, R-Mo., also raised objections. Last week, Sen. Richard Burr, R-N.C., said the threat of a government shutdown is "the dumbest idea I've ever heard."
Reid, the recipient of the letter, suggested the 12 GOP senators might want to consider the outcry against Republicans when Speaker Newt Gingrich refused to pass a measure funding the government in 1995 and 1996 because of a budget dispute with President Bill Clinton.
"I suggest to any of my Republican colleagues who have this idea, give a call to Newt Gingrich," Reid said on the Senate floor Monday. "He will return your phone calls. Ask him how it worked. It was disastrous for Newt Gingrich, the Republicans, and the country. It didn't work then and it will not work now. If Republicans threaten catastrophic default on the Nation's bills, the economy will suffer, and that is an understatement."
Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., one of the letter signers, defended the shutdown threat in a floor speech Tuesday.
"The pushback we get from that from some people is, 'Well, that's crazy, because that means you're willing to shut down the government over ObamaCare,'" Rubio said. "That's not the way I see it. The way I see it is, if we pass a budget that pays for everything except for ObamaCare, and te President says he'll veto that, it is he who wants to shut down the government.
"And here's my last point to my colleagues in the Republican Party, who I know every single one of the Senate members here in the Republican Party are against ObamaCare, this is our last chance and our last best chance to do something about this. When this thing starts to kick in and starts to take root, it is going to be very difficult to undo major portions of this, despite the damage that it is going to create."
Last week, Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., said the problem with the shutdown threat by Lee, Rubio, Vitter and other Republicans is that the American people won't like it, and that it fails to recognize the GOP lost the 2012 presidential election to President Obama who strongly defended the law during the campaign against Republican Mitt Romney.
"The strategy that had been laid out is a good way for Republicans to lose the House," Coburn said in an interview with the Washington Examiner. "I'm getting phone calls from Oklahoma saying, 'Support Mike Lee,' and I'm ramming right back - support him in destroying the Republican Party."
On Tuesday, he said, the Congressional Budget Office determined that funding would continue for the Affordable Care Act even if the government is shutdown.
Correction: An earlier version of this story incorrectly identified U.S. Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, as R-La.