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Tuesday, December 21, 2010

Beginning of the End for Obamacare?

Good news, as reported earlier, killing Omnibus is having the salutary effect of starting the strangulation of Obamacare. From today's WSJ, via Drudge.

A Senate deal to fund the federal government until early March doesn't include money to enact the health-care overhaul or stepped up regulation of Wall Street, boosting Republican efforts to curb key elements of President Barack Obama's domestic agenda.

Democrats last week sought $1 billion to expand federal agencies to cope with health-care demands as part of a proposed $1.1 trillion spending bill. That measure died after Senate Republicans closed ranks against it under pressure from conservative activists. [ed. note: aka Tea Party activists.]
The article goes on to say that the administration could conceivably shift funding from other sources to support the start up of health care death panels or Wall Street death panels, for that matter. However, that would seem to leave them open to both court challenge and Congressional subpoena over the "appropriations clause," neither of which the President might relish.

My assessment is that his only chance for re-election is to do the bipartisan shuffle. (Is that racist?) Picking a fight with the Congress that he loses in the courts is only going to hurt him. Further, the Republicans, by taking the House, hold the upper hand in this battle.

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