Last updated on February 8th, 2013 at 02:01 am
With House Republicans taking heat over not passing the Hurricane Sandy disaster relief bill, Michele Bachmann introduced the first bill of the new Congress to repeal Obamacare.
Bachmann proudly tweeted earlier today:
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At noon today, I introduced the first bill of the 113th Congress to repeal Obamacare in its entirety.
— Michele Bachmann (@MicheleBachmann) January 3, 2013
House Republicans have voted on zero actual job creation bills (disguising a tax cut as job creation doesn’t count), but they have voted on repealing Obamacare 33 times in the past two years. It is a certainty that Bachmann’s bill will come to the House floor, and the House will vote to repeal Obamacare for the 34th meaningless time.
It would be easy to pick on Bachmann’s priorities, but she is just a symptom of the larger disease. House Republicans don’t care about the victims of Hurricane Sandy. Gov. Chris Christie specifically blamed John Boehner for the bill not being brought to the floor, when the person he really should have blamed was Majority Leader Eric Cantor.
Cantor is the loudest and the most powerful GOP voice in the House behind the idea that disaster relief should be offset by spending cuts. In September 2011, Cantor wanted a 40% cut in funding for first responders in exchange for disaster relief. Cantor has a long history of disaster relief hypocrisy. The fact that he chose to call out Boehner instead of the right wing billionaires’ best boy reveals a lot about both Chris Christie and who really controls the Republican Party.
If House Republicans actually cared about the victims of Sandy, disaster relief would have been the first bill introduced today. Instead the nation was given another cheap stunt that is designed to do nothing but waste more time on another meaningless debate and vote that will score ideological points with the right wing zealots who still believe that Obamacare is the root of all evil.
As far as the House is concerned, it is business as usual for the least popular Congress of all time.
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
