The Heritage Foundation, like Sen. Ted Cruz, has been strongly urging senators to vote against a bill they actually support in order to shut down the government until President Obama and Senate Democrats agree to defund Obamacare.
And, being Heritage, they don’t mind completely reversing a position they held until just last year to do it.
Essentially, Heritage and other right-wing groups like Club for Growth want Senate Republicans to join Cruz in blocking debate (or voting against cloture) on the continuing resolution (CR) until Senate Democrats agree to establish a 60-vote threshold for amendments. Without the 60-vote threshold, Democrats can easily pass an amendment with 51 votes that strikes the Obamacare-defunding measure from the CR.
Cruz alleged that by simply following Senate rules on amendment votes, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is “abusing his power” and using “brute political force.”
Heritage agreed with Cruz’s absurd claim, and urged Republicans to deny cloture in order to “stop Harry Reid’s procedural assault.” The group also framed it as a “procedural trick”; “procedural power play”; “procedural gymnastics” and “Reid’s procedural attacks.”
However, just last year, Heritage called for the same 51-vote threshold that it now opposes to be against on Obamacare. Then-president Ed Feulner in an email, “Join the Fight to Repeal Obamacare,” urged the Senate to use “the 51-vote threshold available” in order to gut the health care law:
There’s also the fact that the individual mandate has acquired the official constitutional status of a “tax”—and if it is indeed a tax, then that is even more reason for the U.S. Senate to repeal it with the 51-vote threshold available under the Budget Act’s reconciliation process. It is a revenue provision. No filibuster problems there now.
Of course, such hypocrisy is nothing new for Heritage, which developed the idea for the individual mandate before it was against it.
Heritage also backed the individual mandate, insurance exchanges and the expansion of Medicaid…under Mitt Romney’s Massachusetts reform law.
Heritage president Jim DeMint even cited Romney’s health care reform law as a reason to endorse his presidential campaign in 2008.
In an amazing attempt to rewrite history, DeMint is now maintaining that Obamacare wasn’t an issue in the 2012 election — and therefore Obama’s re-election shouldn’t be interpreted as support Obamacare — “because of Romney and Romneycare.”
