Tea Party darling, Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) has some bad news for his fellow Republicans. Johnson admitted that as long as Harry Reid is Majority Leader and Barack Obama is president, it will be impossible to defund Obamacare.According to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Johnson burst the defund Obamacare bubble, “Even if we were to not pass the continuing resolution (to fund the federal government), you’re not going to be able to defund Obamacare, absent of President Obama signing a law, which I think is highly unlikely. So I appreciate the fact that they’ve raised the issue. But defunding Obamacare, with President Obama in the White House and Harry Reid in the Senate, I think is next to impossible.”
You might remember Sen. Johnson as the senator who tried to attack the Hillary Clinton with a Benghazi conspiracy theory only to be made a fool of by the then Sec. of State. Having learned nothing from the humiliation suffered at the hands of Hillary Clinton, Sen. Johnson came back the next day with the same conspiracy theory, and John Kerry made him look like a complete idiot.
Sen. Johnson isn’t someone who is prone to bouts of rational and reality based thought, so this admission from him is a bit of surprise.
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Ron Johnson was correct. Republicans can huff and puff and stomp their feet all they want, but there is zero chance that they will be able to defund the ACA. The Republicans who are championing the shutdown to defund scheme really want to use a government shutdown as a campaign platform in 2014 and 2016. People like Sen.Ted Cruz are eyeing a government shutdown as a way to raise his national profile and set himself for a run at the Republican nomination in 2016.
It doesn’t matter to these people that there is no chance that the ACA will be defunded. The Republicans who are pushing for a government shutdown think that tying it to defunding the ACA is good politics. Reality doesn’t enter into their political calculus.
Republicans need to win both the presidency and capture 60 Senate seats to defund Obamacare. The odds of these two things both happening are slim and none. Even a tea party drone like Sen. Ron Johnson understands that the ACA is here to stay.
Jason is the managing editor. He is also a White House Press Pool and a Congressional correspondent for PoliticusUSA. Jason has a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science. His graduate work focused on public policy, with a specialization in social reform movements.
Awards and Professional Memberships
Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association
