This week, House Republicans vow to cut at least $100 billion from current levels of federal spending when they take up a massive bill designed to continue to fund the government.
The Tatler has learned that Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) sees the current spending bill also as a way to stop ObamaCare, the unpopular health care program. He is going to introduce an amendment around noon today to bar funding for the implementation and enforcement costs for the program. For this fiscal year alone, ObamaCare will cost $105.5 billion.
But as he wrote today in the Washington Times, “There has been an effort behind the scenes to block my initiative to cut off all funding to ObamaCare.” This morning Laura Ingraham said that House Republicans are calling King a “troublemaker” for his initiative.
The Republican Iowan claims his bill is similar to House action last December that barred any funds to bring Guantanamo enemy combatants into the United States for civilian trial. He also says it is similar to the successful Democratic effort to cut off funds to South Vietnam, which led the the fall of the country to the communists.
King’s Republican opponents say that while sympathetic, they don’t want legislative amendments to be attached to an appropriations bill. Yet House leadership says there will be an “open rule” for anyone to raise an amendment to the spending bill. The bill will be taken up this afternoon. Let’s see what happens.
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