The Fever Swamps

Refusniks
Obamacare is such a disaster that the people who wrote it refuse to live under it themselves. That's right, Congress won a waiver from Obamacare. 

Responding to the people's will, House Republicans first voted to fund all of government -- except Obamacare. Obama refused to negotiate and Senate Democrats refused to pass it. 

Then the Republicans voted to fully fund the government, but merely delay the implementation of Obamacare for one year. Obama refused to negotiate and Senate Democrats refused to pass it. 

Finally, the Republicans voted to fully fund the government, but added a requirement that everyone live under Obamacare. No more special waivers for Congress and their staff, and no waivers for big business without the same waivers for individuals. 

Obama refused to negotiate and Senate Democrats refused to pass it. So as you can see, Republicans are the big holdup here. (AnnCoulter.com, 10/9/2013)

The official response issued jointly by the Obama administration and the office of Senator Harry Reid is as follows:

"Ted Cruz...hostage-takers...anarchists...Ted Cruz...Ted Cruz...blackmail...Ted Cruz."


Crash Test
The administration claims the Obamacare online exchanges crashed because the Web site got more than 8 million hits in the first week. Please. You know how many people visit Amazon.com every week? More than 70 million. The difference is: 1.) Amazon seldom crashes, and 2.) on Amazon, people actually buy something. (Marc A. Thiessen, Washington Post, 10/14/2013)

And yet somehow Kathleen Sebelius continues to have a job.

(Killer point by Thiessen.)


Tipped Off
But ObamaCare is the tipping point, the tea party believes. Unless the law is defunded, the land of limited government, individual liberty and personal responsibility will be gone forever, and the new America, dominated by dependent minorities who assert their "rights" without accepting their responsibilities, will have no place for people like them.

For the tea party, ObamaCare is much more than a policy dispute; it is an existential struggle. (William A. Galston, WSJ, 10/15/2013)

You may love the tea party, you may hate it, but you need to understand it.


What's for Lunch?
ObamaCare promised a free lunch: universal (or near-universal) coverage at lower cost without any diminution of quality or choice. It's a perpetual-motion machine. But even the Supreme Court can't strike down the laws of physics. If a large number of people benefit from ObamaCare--itself a big if--somebody has to pay. Much of the burden was supposed to fall on young, healthy people, who frequently do not have medical insurance. To compensate for price controls on premiums for patients with pre-existing conditions, their premiums would be jacked up. Somehow higher prices are supposed to induce them to get insured. (James Taranto, WSJ, 10/15/2013)

And you were cynical about today's youth!

(Killer point by Taranto.)


Threat Level
In response, Republicans threatened to default on America’s debts to force agreement on the Budget Control Act, which cut nearly $1 trillion in spending over 10 years with no tax increases. (Katrina vanden Heuvel, Washington Post, 10/15/2013)

Trying to find the logic in a vanden Heuvel column is like...well, don't bother. The whole point of Republican spending cuts is to cut spending. It is not to cut spending and then raise more revenue so that spending cuts could be reversed. As RedStateVT has said a thousand times, the Liberal answer is ALWAYS taxes, more taxes.