Rep. Jim Bridenstine speaks during a town hall in the clubhouse at the Bailey Ranch Golf Club in Owasso earlier this month. MICHAEL WYKE/Tulsa World File
Efforts to defund the Affordable Care Act — “Obamacare" — are splitting the state’s all-Republican Congressional delegation.
They’re all against the federal health-care law, but they differ on the strategy for that opposition in the coming critical stages of federal spending debates.
The two Tulsans in Congress — First District Rep. Jim Bridenstine and U.S. Sen. Jim Inhofe — want Congress to pass a continuing resolution to fund the federal government into the future — except for the costs of implementing the Affordable Care Act.
The resolution that Bridenstine at 70 other House members have endorsed for would delay implementation of the Affordable Care Act until 2014.
Such an effort to zero-fund “Obamacare” would dare President Obama to veto the resolution, leaving the federal government without money to operate.
Last week Bridenstine told me by email that a spending compromise that includes “Obamacare” funding is a compromise he can’t accept.
“A vote to fund Obamacare in the (continuing resolution) is an affirmative vote FOR Obamacare,” Bridenstine said. “My goal is to fund the government, just not “Obamacare.” It would be terribly irresponsible for the president to shut down the government in response. Anyone who says Jim Bridenstine wants to shut down the government is misleading the public.”
On the other hand, Rep. Tom Cole, R-Fourth District, says while he has no taste for “Obamacare,” he won’t risk the economic risk of a government shutdown.
“While I agree with the goal of defunding and eliminating Obamacare, I will not vote for a government shutdown because it will be catastrophic for our economy, troops and veterans, national security and numerous other government-funded organizations and employees,” Cole wrote last week.
Cole’s statements are very similar to those earlier this summer by Sen. Tom Coburn, who added that the political shakeout of a government shutdown could even costs the GOP control of the U.S. House of Representatives.
Cole said he would continue fighting the Affordable Care Act and look for “strategic ways to dismantle” it, but “I will not sacrifice the livelihood of millions of Americans just to make a point that will only end in failure.”
So, the key question for the Oklahomans in Congress seems to be who catches the blame if an “Obamacare” showdown leads to a government shutdown.
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