Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, hold a copy of the health care bill on the West Front of the Capitol in Washington, Thursday, Nov. 5, 2009, during a Republican health care news conference. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
Go for the jugular.
Zip
Weasel Zippers
1/18/2011
ABC News’ Rick Klein reports: Though GOP efforts to repeal President Obama’s health care law is almost certainly set to fall short, Republicans are already plotting their next steps – and are planning to use power over the government’s purse strings to block much of the law from taking effect.
On ABC’s “Top Line” today, Rep. Steve King – a main co-sponsor of the repeal effort – told us that he’s not giving up on the possibility that the Senate will also repeal the law, as the House is planning to do this week.
That means a new Republican president could sign “the repeal of Obamacare as one of the first acts of his new presidency,” in 2013, King said.
In the meantime, he said, Republicans can attack the law by cutting off funds for its implementation:
“We can bring about, in effect, a full repeal by just stopping the funding,” said King, R-Iowa. “It stops the collection of taxes and it stops, well, it stops the expenditure of the money and it stops the enforcement.”
But without a repeal, he said, “it will grow back on us like a malignant tumor would grow back on us. So I want to pull it all out by the roots.”
While Republicans are promising to replace the current law with a more piecemeal approach that would include reforms to the insurance market, King said he’s willing to tell those helped by the current law that they’d be out of luck.
“I’m willing to do that — I’m willing to say we can’t afford it. They all know we can’t afford it,” King said.
With attention focused on political rhetoric in the wake of the Tucson shooting, King defended recent comments where he said the health care law is the result of an “irrational Leftist lust for socialized medicine.”
“The word ‘lust’ is more associated with the word love than it is violence. So I didn’t think that that was an irrational comment at all, I just thought that it described the scenario that we’re in,” King said. “And I have an irrational lust to love the Constitution and a fiscal responsibility in individualism. So I don’t think, I don’t think that’s sharp rhetoric.”
Related: Audio: Mark Levin to Harry Reid: Who’s the obstructionist now?
Update: At New Zeal, Hope for the future–Steve King
