Speaker John Boehner must be fuming at the Ted Cruz/Heritage Foundation-led House Republicans because he knows that previously he took opposite positions than those being held by the Tea party. He announced to the world that Obamacare was the law of the land and that he did not want there to be a government shutdown over it, and George Stephanopoulos called him on it this past Sunday.
STEPHANOPOULOS: But Mr. Speaker, this is clearly not what you want. I want to go back to several points you've made about this over the last few -- here you were right after the election with Diane Sawyer.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BOEHNER: It's pretty clear that the president was re-elected. Obamacare is the law of the land. If we were to put Obamacare into the CR and send it over to the Senate, we were risking shutting down the government. That is not our goal. (END VIDEO CLIP)
STEPHANOPOULOS: So right there, you say that's not your goal. You don't want to put Obamacare on the CR. You did it.
BOEHNER: George, I have made it clear to my colleagues. I don't want to shut the government down. We voted to keep the government open.
STEPHANOPOULOS: You also said you didn't want to put Obamacare on the CR.
BOEHNER: But providing -- providing fairness to the American people, under Obamacare, is -- all we're asking for. My goodness. They give big businesses a waiver. They give all these unions a waiver. And yet they're forcing the American people to buy a product, buy a product that they do not want and cannot afford.
STEPHANOPOULOS: It is -- the president has pointed out, it's the law of the land. It has been upheld by the Supreme Court. It was ratified in a presidential election. And perhaps more important to the moment right now, you have tried this several times, it hasn't worked. So, there's no change in your position?
BOEHNER: Absolutely not.
The American people 'fairly' voted Obama back into office which justified the passage of Obamacare and made Republican 'fairness' complaints a moot point. Everyone knows the R's have no interest in being fair to the American people. Speaker Boehner is also stuck saying over and over again that 'we need to have a conversation' about the government shutdown, but it's been Republicans who have refused to have a conversation for the last year.
House Republicans decided Monday that government shutdown or not, it was more important for them to keep trying to strike a blow against Obamacare. Having failed to convince Senate Democrats to go along, the Republicans resorted to seeking a "conference committee" to resolve the differences.
For Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), chair of the Senate Budget Committee, the move is ironic. She has been trying for more than a half-year to go to a conference to work out dramatic differences between the Senate budget and the House version. Senate and House Republicans have objected, repeatedly.--"We know going to a conference means that we have to compromise -- that's what a conference is," Murray said just before midnight. "But we're not going to do it with a gun to our head that says we're shutting government down and we're going to conference over a short little six-week C.R. We have to deal with the longer-term budget. We have asked many times to go to conference on that."
Indeed, Murray and her colleagues asked 18 times. They have been blocked by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and a group of tea party Republicans led by Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas).
If you have been listening to the right wing media elites and their politicians, you would never no the truth about what they've been doing in Congress.
