TEA Party Reps Pledge NO Vote On CR That Permits Obamacare Funding

Update: The following post was preset to run identifying the opposition for a CR that did not defund Obamacare. However, late this afternoon, the US House passed (271-158) its sixth Continuing Budget Resolution despite increasing GOP opposition. The CR keeps the federal government funded for three more weeks. While the measure passed 54 Republicans who backed the last CR voted against this latest CR. The House CR version cuts cuts $6 billion from the federal budget including EPA funds of $172 million earmarked tribal assistance grants, $10 million in local government climate change grants and $10 million to replace or retrofit diesel engines. The bill also cuts $10.5 million from the US Geological Survey for researching climate change. In regard to the following story, both Rep King and Bachmann voted NO. So did another TEA Party favorite Rep Allen West (FL) who said, "54 of my Republican colleagues voted with me . . . against the 3-week CR. A testament that this is no longer business as usual."
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U.S. Representatives Steve King (R-IA) and Michele Bachmann (R-MN), two of the leading congressional proponents of the Tea Party movement, have taken a pledge and are asking all other House members to join them in it. Its terms are simple: The member vows to vote “no” on any continuing resolution that permits any funding for the implementation of Obamacare.

King and Bachmann sent a letter on Thursday to House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH), Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) and House Appropriations Chairman Hal Rogers (R-KY) asking them to include language completely defunding Obamacare in any new continuing resolution (CR). At the same time, King and Bachmann released a statement asking their House colleagues to join them in signing the letter and in pledging to vote against any CR that allows the Obama administration to spend any money to implement any part of Obamacare.

King and Bachmann wrote the leaders, “we ask that the following language, or more effective language, be added to the FY 2011 CR to cut off both the annual and automatic appropriations for Obamacare’s implementation: ‘Notwithstanding any other provision of law, none of the funds made available by this or any previous Act with respect to any fiscal year may be used to carry out the provision of Public Law 111-148 and Public Law 111-152, or any amendment made by either such Public Law.” (The two public laws cited here-- Public Law 111-148 and Public Law 111-152--are the Obamacare act itself and the reconciliation act passed along with it to carry the amendments House Democrats wanted incorporated into the Senate version of the bill.)

“We have to write my language into the CR and take a stand,” King said. “Stare the president in the eye and say: Mr. President, we are going to make sure that this government has the resources to function, but we’re also are going to make sure that there are no resources to implement or carry out the provisions of Obamacare, and if you should choose to shutdown the government in order to preserve socialized medicine that has your name on it, that is your choice not ours, but we are not going to allow that unconstitutional bill to be enacted on deceptive funding on our watch.”

At King's request the Congressional Research Service (CRS) produced a report, published Feb. 11, that itemized all the provisions in the Obamacare legislation that authorize automatic spending that Congress does not have to appropriate in each future year. The CRS report lists each of these items and provides their price tag. The total cost of these automatic spending provisions, the CRS determined, is approximately $105.5 billion over 10 years. Of this $105.5 billion in automatic Obamacare spending, $4.95 billion will take place in this fiscal year.

King and Bachmann argue that if the Republican majority in the House does not use the must-pass continuing resolution to terminate this $105.5 billion in automatic Obamacare funding—and thus terminate implementation of Obamacare—they will not have a better opportunity in the next two years to actually defund Obamacare and stop it from being implemented. [Full Story at CNSNews]

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