On Friday’s broadcast of Derek Hunter’s Baltimore WBAL 1090AM radio program, Utah Republican Sen. Mike Lee made an appearance to promote his new book, “Why John Roberts Was Wrong About Healthcare.” During that appearance, Lee let it be known he would be going all out to prevent President Barack Obama’s 2010 health care reform law, otherwise known as Obamacare, from being funded.
In that appearance, Lee first attacked the Obama administration for its explanation as to why the Obamacare law was unpopular, for which it often blames the Republican Party.
“The nice way to respond to it is to say is that it’s awfully convenient — awfully convenient that the law he designed, that he pushed through Congress as his signature legislative achievement is unpopular, not because it’s bad, not because the American people don’t like it, not because it’s making health care cost go up and its unfair in the way it’s being implemented — but because Republicans are criticizing it,” Lee said. “That’s a terribly convenient response. The less charitable way of describing that assertion is that that’s absolutely ludicrous. That’s one of the dumbest arguments I have ever heard. The White House ought to be ashamed of itself for making such an assertion.”
Hunter asked Lee if he would go as far as to filibuster the upcoming continuing resolution that would fund the federal government if included funding for the health care law.
“I’ll utilize every procedural mechanism at my disposal to do it,” Lee said. “I generally don’t signal in advance what procedural maneuvers exactly I’ll use because it’s usually not good strategy. But what I am saying is I will not vote for a continuing resolution that contains funding for further Obamacare implantation and enforcement. So far I have got, I don’t know, 13 or 14 Senate Republicans who have joined me. I think a corresponding effort is starting to be kicked off in the House. And I expect these numbers to grow steadily as Americans realize the president has said he’s not going to implement the law as written. If he’s not going to implement the law, we shouldn’t be forced to fund it.”
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“It’s not lost on me this won’t necessarily be an easy or automatic thing,” Lee added. “But what I am saying is when voters in all 50 states starting learning more about this effort, start learn more about what Obamacare is and how it’s being implemented by this administration, they’re going to want to do anything they can to stop it. They are certainly going to want elected officials in Washington, as many of us who were elected specifically with the charge to stop Obamacare, to do everything in their power to stop it. This is our last chance. This is our last effort to stop it. This is the last opportunity we’re going to have to vote most likely on a continuing resolution before those Jan. 1, 2014 starting deadlines kick in. So we have to refuse to fund it now and the time for doing that is when the current continuing resolution expires on September 30.”
