Reversing direction from last week Speaker of the House John Boehner, R-Ohio, has yielded to pressure from the more conservative wing of the Republican Party and added measures to completely defund the Affordable Care Act to a stopgap funding bill making the possibility of a government shutdown far more likely, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Boehner was joined by House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va., in announcing that the stopgap funding bill will have a rider blocking all funding of the health care reform derisively referred to as Obamacare. In addition the bill will have a slew of riders representing everything that Republicans seem focused on accomplishing; a delay of the health care law, a tax code overhaul and the approval of the controversial Keystone XL pipeline, according to the Washington Post.
House Republicans have attempted to repeal or defund the health care law over 40 times since it passed three years ago. Many Republicans have been calling for a rider to be attached to a budget in order to force a showdown with Democrats over the law; it is highly unlikely that the Senate would pass any bill defunding the Affordable Care Act and if they did it would surely be met with a veto.
"The law's a train wreck," Boehner said about the Affordable Care Act, according to the New York Times. "It's time to protect American families from this unworkable law."
President Barack Obama immediately came out against the deal reiterating his vow not to negotiate over the debt limit while speaking with the Business Roundtable, a trade group, according to the Post.
"I'm prepared to look at priorities the Republicans think we should be promoting and priorities the Republicans think we shouldn't be promoting," President Obama said. "What I will not do is create a habit, a pattern, whereby the full faith and credit of the United States ends up being a bargaining chip to set policy."
President Obama was also critical of the ongoing attempts to overturn the health care reform law, his signature legislation, for the past three years.
"We have not seen this in the past," President Obama said. "That a budget is contingent on us eliminating a program that was voted on, passed by both chambers of Congress, ruled constitutional by the Supreme Court, is two weeks from being implemented, and helps 30 million get health care coverage."
During the meeting with his party Boehner said that he supports the current plan but warned those who had not been in office as long as he had about what happened after a similar tactic was used during the Clinton years; Clinton's approval rating soared and the Republicans lost their majority in the next election, according to the Post.
"I don't think there's much doubt about his passion or his commitment to getting something done, and frankly when we're at 218, we're at our strongest," Rep. Tom Cole, R-Okla., said about Boehner. "That was the basic message. We've been looking for the formula to get us there, and he thinks he's found it."
