Reince Priebus, chairman of the Republican National Committee, remarked during an interview on the Frank Beckmann Show Wednesday that Congress cannot wait until 2017 to stop Obamacare; they should defund or delay the law to prevent further damage to the American people.
When asked whether he was "resigned to the fact that you're going to have to let it just go forward in its current form and fall apart," (i.e. wait until 2017 to do anything) Priebus stated:
My personal view is that I'd defund it, because it is not ready for primetime. That is not a groundbreaking comment, because Democrats have said the same thing. So I don't think you should use taxpayer money and fund a program that we all know is half broken and not working. The employer mandate is already suspended; the small business mandate is suspended, so why dump money into something like this? At the very least defund it for now and deal with it later.
But there's another theory, and that's a political theory, which I think is good for winning in politics-that's my job-but I think it's probably bad for the American people. The other theory is just let it go through. Let the exchanges happen and people will see what a miserable program this is, and then we will beat Democrats in red states all over America.
I wouldn't doubt that that's what the Democrats would try to do to us, but that is a political theory, and an answer that if I was, quite frankly, an elected member of Congress, I would probably say good politics, but bad for the American people, bad policy. So I'm just going to try to defund it or delay it.
Heritage Action CEO Mike Needham emphasized the same point on Fox News Wednesday morning. He noted that all or almost all House Republicans are concerned about Obamacare and added:
The question that the House has been asking is: Why can't we have a defund of this bill for a year? Why can't we we delay the bill for a year?