In support of the bill, Cruz issued the following statement:
Consistent with my long-standing position that no continuing resolution or other appropriations measure should fund Obamacare, I am introducing a bill to permanently defund the law.
The Administration's recent announcement to delay the onerous and unpopular employer mandate until after the 2014 election, coupled with its announcement to delay income and health status eligibility requirements in favor of an honor system for the most expensive entitlement for our generation, confirms what has been obvious from the start—this law is a colossal mistake.
Yesterday, all 46 Senate Republicans called on President Obama to permanently delay the law. This legislation would guarantee that result by ensuring not one more taxpayer dime is wasted in its establishment.
The Administration's selective enforcement of Obamacare's implementation is no indication that the law is going away. To the contrary, it demonstrates the President's unyielding determination to force the unworkable law on the American people.
Delaying only one aspect of this tangled mess leaves Americans holding the tab for an irreparably broken law they do not support. Moreover, it leaves in motion many of the most egregious parts of the law, ensuring they will take root in just a few short months. This is untenable.
I agree with the lead Senate author of Obamacare, Democrat Senator Max Baucus, that Obamacare has become a "huge train wreck."
President Obama wants to delay the employer mandate – giving large businesses a temporary reprieve from part of Obamacare's job-killing impact – but he is unwilling to give hardworking American families the same consideration. But everyone, not just large corporations, deserves to be spared being forced to participate in the Obamacare "train wreck."
Moreover, in light of the admitted misconduct of the IRS – targeting those whose political views differed from the President's – we cannot trust the IRS to implement Obamacare. The American people cannot trust the IRS to create and enforce the largest federal database in history, containing the intimate details of our personal healthcare matters.
And we cannot just wait for this law to implode under its own weight. The clock is ticking, and the time to act is now – Obamacare full implementation is set for January 1, 2014, but the enrollment for new entitlements starts on October 1, 2013.
We must remain vigilant in making the argument that Obamacare harms economic growth, disrupts the doctor-patient relationship and tramples on our liberties. But it doesn't end there. We must guarantee that American taxpayers do not spend one more dime to implement Obamacare.
Florida Senator Marco Rubio addressed the topic of why he supports defunding Obamacare in his remarks at the Concerned Veterans for America and The Weekly Standard’s “Defend & Reform” Breakfast earlier today. You can watch his full speech here:
Excerpts from Rubio's speech:
In September of this year, we’re going to start debating our budget. Because of the deep philosophical divide between Republicans and Democrats – most Democrats, not all – because of that deep philosophical divide, we can’t pass a budget. And so we are funding government on these short-term budgets called Continuing Resolutions. But this debate is going to take place at the same time as the implosion of ObamaCare is happening before our very eyes.
Let me tell you, ObamaCare is not just a bad idea, it is unimplementable. And I’ll tell you when it is going to come to a head, and that is here in the next couple of weeks and months when members of Congress realize that under ObamaCare they too will lose their health insurance. They too will be thrown into an exchange, a federal exchange. And hey, if that is the law, we need to live under that. The problem is that exchanges don’t exist. They haven’t been set up yet. We've already seen the president had to delay a significant portion of the health care law – the employer mandate, although individuals are still mandated. We heard last Friday that they are going to have no way to verify the income levels of people that are receiving subsidies. You basically get to show up and say, ‘This is how much I make.’ And they’re going to believe you, and you’ll get a subsidy based on that attestation. I don’t think that’s going to work very well.
It is unimplementable. And the impact it is going to have on our economy is going to be disastrous, but it is already having an impact right now. Right now, as we speak, it is holding back economic growth. Right now, as we speak, there are people that are deciding not to open a new business or not to grow an existing business because they cannot calculate and have no idea how they are going to live under these mandates that are being created under ObamaCare.
So, as we get to this continuing resolution debate, I believe that we should not vote nor pass a continuing resolution unless that continuing resolution defunds ObamaCare. You want to delay implementation? Don’t fund it.
And if we have a six month continuing resolution, we should defund the implementation of ObamaCare by those six months. But we should not pass a continuing resolution, and I will not vote for a continuing resolution unless it defunds ObamaCare for the period of time of the continuing resolution. I’d like to see it permanently repealed, but at a minimum, we should agree to do that.
Soon after we are done with the short term budget will come another recurring issue, and that’s the debt limit or debt ceiling. Our national debt is now about $17 trillion and it is growing. And here is the most startling part about it: there is no plan in place to stop it from growing in the near future. It’s $17 trillion, it requires us to raise the debt limit here in a couple of months, and it will require us to do it again in the next 18 to 20 months. There is no plan in place, and quite frankly, there is no one seriously working on one.
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The fact that there is this $17 trillion debt and no plan to fix it is discouraging growth right now. People are afraid to risk and invest their money in an economy that they think is headed for either disruptive changes in the government or massive tax increases to deal with the debt. You think the $17 trillion debt and no plan to get control of it is encouraging economic growth? How many chambers of commerce around America are bragging about "Come to America, invest here, we have a $17 trillion debt!" Because it discourages growth. It discourages job creation. It is having an impact right now as we speak.
And so, that’s why I believe that we should refuse to raise the debt limit by one single cent unless we pass and the president agrees to sign a budget that shows how we are going to begin to get to balance it [within] ten years.
This is not an unreasonable request. They will say that it is, but it is not.
Follow me on Twitter at @rumpfshaker
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