Fox News political analyst Erick Erickson, an influential voice among Tea Party Republicans, is calling on the new GOP Congress to push for a government shutdown.
In September 2013, House Republicans demanded that Obamacare be defunded, delayed, or derailed as their price for keeping the federal government open. The Senate refused to approve their spending bill, triggering a partial government shutdown and the furlough of 800,000 workers. After House Republicans failed to pass a new spending plan, the Senate passed a bill on October 16 that reopened the government. The partial shutdown took $24 billion out of the U.S. economy.
In a November 18 post to his RedState.com website headlined “Shut. It. Down.”, Erickson says that the 2013 shutdown provides an excellent model for Republicans to follow now that they control both houses of Congress. He joins Rush Limbaugh in urging the GOP to use the threat of a shutdown to achieve their political goals.
According to Erickson, since the warnings of many Republicans that the party would be blamed for a shutdown and lose ground in the midterm elections did not come true, embarking on a similar strategy -- passing budget bills that defund Obamacare and any future immigration executive action -- makes sense. He writes that this strategy will expose Obama as a “petulant man-child”:
Now, let us be clear on the parameters of the debate moving forward. I am not suggesting the GOP just say “to heck with it” and shut down the government. What I am suggesting is that the GOP pass everything except Obamacare funding and funding for any immigration actions the President wants to take.
And he will most certainly balk at all that.
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So set the course. Defund Obamacare and block amnesty. Obama can defy the will of the people and refuse to work with Congress. Sure, the GOP may get blamed. But so what?
And that is key here -- so what. They got blamed last time and the public rewarded them with the biggest election wave in modern American political history from the local level to the federal level.
Block Obama. Let him show himself again to be the petulant man-child Americans have started recognizing. And this time, when he shuts down the government, keep it shut till you have your way and then hold public hearings to show how Obama selectively shut things down to hurt the voters intentionally.
At the end of the day, there is no other choice. Either the President will cave to a Congress just elected to stop him or the GOP will cave to a President no one likes.