Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has set up a vote to repeal ObamaCare in a bit do appease conservatives upset over a second planned vote to revive the Export-Import Bank.
McConnell on Friday announced he would file cloture — a motion to end a filibuster — on amendments to fully repeal ObamaCare and to reauthorize the Ex-Im Bank. Both votes likely will take place Sunday.
McConnell argued that taking votes on both amendments offered a "balanced" way forward.
"Ex-Im shouldn't be the only vote we take on this bill, and under the compromise I just filed, it won't be. That's a much fairer way forward," he said, adding that Republicans will "continue to fight for" a repeal of ObamaCare.
The Export-Import Bank is staunchly opposed by conservatives, including presidential candidate Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), who shortly after McConnell spoke denounced the decision.
Bringing back the bank is important to vulnerable GOP Sen. Mark Kirk (Ill.), one of the Democrats’ top targets in 2016, whom McConnell wants to help win re-election.
Also, Democrats have insisted that the six-year highway deal McConnell negotiated with liberal Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) include the Ex-Im Bank reauthorization.
McConnell has often said he personally opposes reauthorizing the bank, an agency panned by conservatives as a tool of corporate welfare.
He plans to file cloture to repeal ObamaCare and renew the bank’s charter after offering the highway bill on the Senate floor Friday.
So, bottom line, Republicans are planning to poison the must-pass Highway bill with a repeal of Obamacare. It won't pass, the amendment will need 60 votes, but it's amusing to see McConnell throw out a smoke bomb like this to cover his ass on the Export-Import Bank authorization.
But Mitch isn't very good at his job. He does however think Republican voters are pretty stupid.
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He does however think Republican voters are pretty stupid.
Which is what makes him good at his job: clinging to power by any means expedient.
Legislatin' an' stuff, that's just a dumb show for the rubes.
Seriously. The way American political and economic power is structured, the Republican base mostly wants to be relieved of governmental restraints on illegal and unethical behavior. The Democratic base mostly wants effective governmental action to relieve serious structural defects - along with a few demented Sanderistas howling for the dismemberment of the FDA. For reasons that are not at all clear.
This puts the Democrats at a terrible disadvantage. They have to get all their ducks in a row, then move the ball down the field while weasels rip their flesh. All the Republicans have to do is unleash the national id, a trivial matter, and watch it run rampant across the globe.
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