In which I shamelessly swipe comments from my friend’s Facebook page. But he works at the Texas Public Policy Foundation, so it’s not like they’re just coming from thin air. TPPF are the Special Forces of conservative policy.
Before any of you gleefully kick more soil on the supposed political grave of my senator Ted Cruz, consider the following point raised by my colleague Chuck DeVore.
The major media refrain is that Sen. Ted Cruz and Republicans in general “lost” the shutdown effort politically.
Time may show otherwise.
Here’s why.
The compromise bill ending the shutdown only funds the government until January 15, 2014 and only gives enough room on the debt limit until February 7, 2014.
This is not the full year’s budget Pres. Obama and Sen. Reid wanted. And, it is not the full trillion dollars in new debt authority.
This is big.
What is means is that Americans get to kick the tires on ObamaCare and its nearly-impossible to sign up for exchanges for another three months before the federal government funding fight may be refought – if Sen. Cruz and like-minded allies chose to do so.
Interestingly enough, the ObamaCare open enrollment ends on Feb. 15, 2014 – that’s the deadline for an American to get health coverage and avoid paying a tax for not having insurance.
This may, if sign-ups continue to lag, give Sen. Cruz an opening to make the argument that we need to change the law, otherwise, how can we expect people to pay a fine for something they couldn’t sign up for?
Stay tuned, this fight isn’t over – not by a long-shot.
What do you think?
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