{"id":1670,"date":"2013-10-07T12:08:01","date_gmt":"2013-10-07T19:08:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.clarkjudge.org\/?p=1670"},"modified":"2013-10-07T12:08:01","modified_gmt":"2013-10-07T19:08:01","slug":"scorecard-the-shutdown-the-debt-ceiling-the-house-gop-and-delaying-obamcare-hughhewitt-com-10-07-13","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.clarkjudge.org\/wordpress\/2013\/10\/07\/scorecard-the-shutdown-the-debt-ceiling-the-house-gop-and-delaying-obamcare-hughhewitt-com-10-07-13\/","title":{"rendered":"Scorecard: The Shutdown, the Debt Ceiling, the House GOP and Delaying Obamcare | HughHewitt.com | 10.07.13"},"content":{"rendered":"

If you want to see how the lockstep-with-the-Obama-administration media is trying to spin the American people, pick up Sunday\u2019s\u00a0New York Times<\/i>\u00a0(or click here:\u00a0http:\/\/nyti.ms\/15VMXAx<\/a><\/i><http:\/\/nyti.ms\/15VMXAx><\/a>\u00a0).<\/i>\u00a0 In the middle of the front page you will find an article headlined: \u201cA Crisis Months in Planning: Conservative Focused on budget as Health Law Weapon.\u201d<\/p>\n

On a good portion of page one and all of an inner page, the\u00a0Times<\/i>\u00a0details a supposedly stealth campaign costing \u201chundreds of millions of dollars [that] have been raised and spent since 2012 by organizations\u2026 leading opposition\u201c to Obamacare.\u00a0 Sounds overwhelming, doesn\u2019t it?\u00a0 Set aside that the\u00a0Times<\/i>\u00a0appears to have counted not just funds for fighting the president\u2019s national health insurance program but the all money raised to support a number of multi-issue think tanks and political action committees.\u00a0 By article\u2019s end, readers surely sigh, \u201cAh, our beleaguered president struggles so heroically against such massive resources.\u201d<\/p>\n

But now compare the article\u2019s big message to a single lonely paragraph half way through that inner page.\u00a0 It reads: \u201cIn the fight to shape public opinion, conservatives face well-organized liberal foes.\u00a0 Enroll America, a non-profit group allied with the Obama White House, is waging a campaign to persuade millions of the uninsured to buy coverage.\u00a0 The law\u2019s supporters are also getting huge assistance from the insurance industry, which is expected to spend $1 billion on advertising to help sell it plans on the exchanges.\u201d<\/p>\n

So just one Administration ally alone is targeting sufficient funds to Obamacare promotion to reach millions of people.\u00a0 Another has $1 billion dollars devoted to the campaign.\u00a0 And, as everyone has seen by now, the entire U.S. government itself is working overtime to discredit Congressional Republicans fight against Obamacare.\u00a0 This past week, the White House apparently ordered the Park Service to build barricades around and doors to the World War II Memorial (which was otherwise open air) on the Mall in Washington.\u00a0 With their senseless government shutdown, the White House-ordered action said, the Republican Grinches have even stolen the ability of the Greatest Generation to see their memorial.<\/p>\n

So as with everything coming out of the MSM\u2019s coverage of Washington during the Obama years, the truth is close to the opposite of the story.\u00a0 It is the administration that enjoys the overwhelming resource advantage.\u00a0 It is Congressional Republicans who have shown brave heart holding on against a massive assault.\u00a0 And, as it happens, it is the administration that closed the WWII memorial.\u00a0 The White House just needed to tell the Park Service employees manning the barricades to keep an eye on an open memorial instead.<\/p>\n

And yet despite all that is coming down on them, the House GOP won this past week, and a momentum appears to be building in their favor.\u00a0 The president\u2019s approval-disapproval scores are under water again.\u00a0 Reporters are starting to ask administration spokespeople, why can\u2019t you compromise?<\/p>\n

I was on a BBC radio show last week.\u00a0 In a typical left-right paring, the other guest was a Cabinet-level veteran of the Clinton White House.\u00a0 After running through the Obama talking points, to my surprise he focused on the administration\u2019s refusal to engage seriously with Congress.\u00a0 He could not believe that the White House was not involved in any talks of any kind with GOP Congressional leadership.\u00a0 If I read him correctly, he put the lapse on the West Wing\u2019s doorstep, not Congresses.<\/p>\n

What is to be done this week?\u00a0 Several thoughts.<\/p>\n

The GOP\u2019s targeted compromises have worked well.\u00a0 The White House and Congressional Democrats have positioned themselves obstructionist, a fatal place in any negotiation if you are seeking public support.\u00a0 Now the markets and the media are focusing on the debt ceiling.\u00a0 You will drive the U.S. government into default, they cry.<\/p>\n

So take the debt ceiling off the table.\u00a0 The House should pass a bill raising the ceiling now, at least for the purpose of paying interest on the debt, even as the shutdown continues.\u00a0 If the White House says no, the president is to blame for the default.\u00a0 If Obama takes the deal, the GOP has won a round without giving up any leverage.<\/p>\n

Last week, as it maneuvered the Democrats into the obstructionist corner, the GOP lost sight of the two core positions of the week\u2019s start.\u00a0 The first was equal treatment for everyone \u2014 no special exemptions for big businesses or anyone else unless everyone else got the same consideration.\u00a0 The second was to delay all implementation of the act by a year.\u00a0 As Treasury secretary Jack Lew\u2019s fumbling response confirmed when he was questioned yesterday on Fox News Sunday, the government isn\u2019t even close to ready to sign people up and the public is not eager to be signed up.\u00a0 Both positions \u2013 equality and delay \u2014 poll overwhelmingly.\u00a0 Each represents a key compromise from the original defund-now stance, again making the administration the obstructionists.<\/p>\n

On TV and radio and in their floor speeches, Congressional Republicans need to keep hitting on these themes.\u00a0 Against all odds, they have made tremendous progress so far.\u00a0 Now is the time to keep focused and keep it up.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If you want to see how the lockstep-with-the-Obama-administration media is trying to spin the American people, pick up Sunday\u2019s\u00a0New York Times\u00a0(or click here:\u00a0http:\/\/nyti.ms\/15VMXAx<http:\/\/nyti.ms\/15VMXAx>\u00a0).\u00a0 In the middle of the front page you will find an article headlined: \u201cA Crisis Months in Planning: Conservative Focused on budget as Health Law Weapon.\u201d On a good portion of page […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[50,12,60,64,44,191],"class_list":["post-1670","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economic-policy-health-care","tag-gop","tag-hugh-hewitt","tag-obama","tag-obamacare","tag-republicans","tag-shutdown"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.clarkjudge.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1670","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.clarkjudge.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.clarkjudge.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.clarkjudge.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.clarkjudge.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1670"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.clarkjudge.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1670\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1672,"href":"https:\/\/www.clarkjudge.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1670\/revisions\/1672"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.clarkjudge.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1670"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.clarkjudge.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1670"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.clarkjudge.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1670"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}