Repealooza!

The 33rd Repeal Of The Affordable Healthcare Reform Act. 

It cost the taxpayers millions when the Congress is wasting time on symbolic votes. President Barack Obama is going to take on not only Mitt Romney, the presumptive nominee for the Republican Party, but Congress as well.

Never in my day has Congress been so bad. The Republicans took control of the U.S. House of Representatives in January 2011, on the whim of the U.S. Midterms. They had the wind in their sails when the conservative Tea Party Movement came forth. In 2009, a few months after the president signed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (the Stimulus), the Tea Party was born. The Tea Party opposed the president's involvement in the rescue of the automotive and banking industry. The Tea Party opposed the health care reform law that was signed by the president in 2010.

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Virginia) speaks.

Republicans ran on the slow economy. As the economy was picking up, the Republicans were screaming that the president and Democratic leaders weren't doing enough. Congressman John Boehner (R-Ohio) chanted "Where's the jobs?" The Minority Leader at the time, Boehner and Congressman Eric Cantor (R-Virginia) were masterminding a message to the voters. The Republicans vowed that they'll get their act together. They vowed that if you elect the Republicans, they'll promise to bring back jobs and fiscal restraint.

That message proved to be fruitful for the Republicans. The Republican Party won back the House of Representatives and a majority of state/territorial governorships.

When unemployment was at its highest 10.9%, the Republicans had managed to win the message war. They claimed that "the Stimulus" failed, health care is a government takeover (later a huge tax burden), and Barack Obama was coming for the guns. It riled up White voters and it wiped out the Democratic supermajority in the U.S. Senate and gave the Democrats unease.

The House Democrats are now in the minority. They've been waiting for a way to win the message war! I think its coming in the form of CBS reporter Nancy Cordes.



Cordes reports that Congress is holding their 33rd attempt at repealing the Affordable Healthcare Reform Act (Obamacare). She also reports that Congress will have only 42 days left in their agenda schedule and many other important issues are coming up to vote.

Congress must fund the government. They must compromise on passing tax breaks for small businesses and the middle class. The Republicans will in the beginning say they'll refuse to compromise on anything the president does! But when pressure and of course negative publicity comes forth, the Republicans will take this fight all the way to the end!


Nancy Cordes reports that CBS News had a tally that found the Republican repeal effort has taken up at least 80 hours on the House floor, or two full work weeks, since 2010.

"Obamacare is a massive tax hike on the middle class," said Texas Republican Lamar Smith. 
                       


But Wednesday's measure will suffer the same fate as the other full repeal efforts, which sailed through the Republican-controlled House but died, predictably, in the Democrat-controlled Senate
."I say shame," said John Dingell, a Democratic congressman from Michigan. "You're wasting the time of the American people. You're wasting the time of Congress."

And time is precious on Capitol Hill, where House leaders have scheduled only 42 more working days between now and the end of the year when critical deadlines loom. The Bush-era tax cuts are set to expire then for everyone, and steep across-the-board spending cuts will kick in.

There's been little attempt to seek common ground on those issues or on funding the government, which must be done by October, or on tackling the nation's 8.2 percent unemployment rate.

Virginia's Eric Cantor, the second highest ranking House Republican, spearheaded today's repeal measure.

When asked why they keep holding these debates and repeal votes, Cantor said Republicans "want to try and get it right."

"Again the American people have rejected Obamacare," Cantor said. "You know they don't want Washington telling them what kind of health care they should have."

Is the GOP proposing something else? "Absolutely," Cantor said. "All along the process during which Obamacare was being discussed here in Capitol Hill we posited an alternative."


Republicans did release a short outline of their health care priorities in 2009, but they haven't released any formal replacement for the president's health care law and have no immediate plans to do so. One of their main goals with all these votes is to tie vulnerable Democrats to an unpopular law in an election year.

Politics as usual!