Writing for The Federalist, Sean Davis suggests that Republicans seeking the best strategy for fighting ObamaCare might look for a compromise position between those of Republican Sen. Ted Cruz and House Majority Leader Eric Cantor.
Rather than pushing for a year-long defunding of Obamacare via the [continuing resolution] fight, Republicans could do the following: pass a CR that funds the government for the next fiscal year at the same levels required by the sequestration law, codify in statute the suspension of the corporate employer mandate already announced by the Obama administration, and pair the statutory suspension of the corporate employer mandate with an equivalent suspension of the individual mandate and the exchange subsidies that go along with it.
That compromise plan has multiple benefits: 1) it uses the threat of a government shutdown, the only real point of leverage possessed by congressional Republicans, without necessitating the threat of the U.S. defaulting on its debt, 2) it shifts away from the less popular “defund” to the more popular “delay” framework while effectively accomplishing the same thing, 3) it forces Senate Democrats and the president to argue that politically connected corporations deserve a break from the law but cash-strapped families don’t, and 4) it also forces them to explain why the president’s constitutionally questionable plan to unilaterally suspend a law he doesn’t like is better than taking his exact plan and actually making it the law.
The first benefit is a concession to proponents of the current defund effort. The second benefit is a concession to the proponents of the delay effort. And the third and fourth benefits allow Republicans to utilize popular populist arguments about the unfairness and hypocrisy of the Obama White House’s plan to throw a bone to the president’s corporate cronies while still sticking it to families who are struggling just to put food on the table.
