Rebellion! Americans demand Obamacare spending halt

Stopping Obamacare has been a topic of conversation since Democrats, without a single Republican vote, rammed the legislation through Congress during a lame duck session under the orchestration of President Obama.

One of the strategies that has come up time and again has been simply to stop funding the law.

That sentiment now is surging, with some prominent leaders pleading with Congress to act immediately or risk losing the war over nationalization of health care forever.

"Obamacare can be stopped only if Congress denies funding for it in the next spending bill, which must be passed in September, writes former senator Jim DeMint, now of the Heritage Foundation, and Mike Needham of Heritage Action for America in a Wall Street Journal column.

"That would immediately halt the implementation of Obamacare and fulfill a defining GOP promise to the American people," they say.

DeMint and Needham point out Americans apparently don't want the government to shut down, but a majority believe Obamacare will be a disaster.

"So why is President Obama threatening to shut down the government if Congress sends him a year-end spending bill to fully support government operations but without funding for his (unfair, unworkable and unaffordable) health-care law?" they ask.

"The president has not been forthright with America about health care. He promised that people would not lose their health-care plan if they wanted to keep it, but now we know that millions will lose their current coverage. The president promised that the law would be fair, but he is forcing every American to buy government-approved health-care plans while delaying that mandate for businesses and granting exemptions to members of Congress and unions."

And there's no validity to the argument that Obamacare spending is "mandatory," they contend.

"According to the Congressional Research Service, Obamacare 'administrative costs will have to be funded through the annual discretionary appropriations.' Furthermore, annual appropriations bills routinely carry funding limitations to mandatory spending and often block a wide range of potential government activities."

The bottom line, they write, is Congress "can disallow funding for Obamacare and effectively stop the implementation of the law."

They note Obama has threatened to shut down the government if the GOP doesn't fund Obamacare.

"This is why some Republican leaders and consultants are pleading with conservatives in the House and Senate not to pick a fight with the president over Obamacare. … Their do-nothing strategy? Allow Obamacare to be fully implemented so the American people will see what a mess it is."

But DeMint points out that by that time, Obamacare may have accomplished the destruction of the private-insurance market, created physician shortages and forced "Americans and states into total dependency on the federal government."

The only needed ingredient is resolve on the part of Republicans, they contend.

The comments echoed those of former Alabama governor Mike Huckabee, who wrote House Speaker John Boehner a letter recently.

"I urge you and your House majority to assert and defend your Article One purse power and credit authority of Congress with ALL YOUR MIGHT. SCOTUS has neither constitutional right nor power to compel Congress to appropriate a single dime for same sex marriage benefits – just as Congress has no obligation to keep debt-financing Planned Parenthood subsidies," Huckabee wrote.

"Nor can SCOTUS compel Congress to start debt-financing iron-fist federal enforcement of an invisible and non-existent right to nullify 37 state constitutions or statutes upholding Natural Law and One-Man, One Woman Marriage.

"Nor has SCOTUS forced Congress to keep on debt-financing the rollout of Obamacare and its killing mandate," the governor wrote.

"For the sake of millions of Americans yet to be born, I urge you to similarly use the constitutional purse power and credit authority of Congress, controlled by you and your House Republican majority, to end all U.S. debt-financed abortion subsidies, the U.S. debt-financed rollout of Obamacare and its killing mandate, and abortion pills for 11-year-olds," Huckabee wrote.

Others who have called for similar action include Republican Sens. Ted Cruz of Texas, Marco Rubio of Florida and Mike Lee of Utah.

Sen. Mitch McConnell, the Senate majority leader, has said he's for stopping Obamacare and has co-sponsored a bill with Cruz to strip funding from the continuing resolution.

Numerous grass-roots tea party organizations are lobbying Congress to stop the flow of cash to Obamacare. And a number of petitions are gaining online attention on the issue.

Detractors point out that stopping the funding won't take the law off the books.

"The tax provisions would still be the law. And that means individuals and companies would still legally owe them," CNN said.

The report also noted that Obamacare requires estimated spending of at least $1.4 trillion.

But ConservativeHQ reported Rep. Steve Stockman, R- Texas, recently told colleagues in a memo that only two weeks into the House's five-week recess, "it seems I can't go anywhere without being asked whether I support leveraging the CR to defund Obamacare."

"If your constituents are anything like mine, you too are besieged by folks demanding to know where you stand," he said.

Stockman pointed out that Americans gave Republicans control of the House in 1994 because Bill Clinton "overreached on Hillarycare," and the GOP took over in 2010 because voters "wanted us to pull the plug on Obamacare."

The ConservativeHQ blog said Stockman "has it right."

"'We the People' are watching every Republican member of Congress to see if they are willing to show us where they stand during town hall meeting season this August."