Sen. Paul says GOP 'probably can't defeat or get rid' of Obamacare
By Marisa Schultz and Nolan Finley, September 21, 2013
U.S. Sen. Rand Paul, a libertarian leader and potential presidential contender, said Saturday Republicans likely have lost the battle on repealing Obamacare and should focus on improving the president’s signature health care law.
Paul struck a tone of realism Saturday — a day after the U.S. House voted for the 42nd time to derail the Affordable Care Act. The latest effort was a condition of funding federal operations past Sept. 30 or risking a government shutdown.
“I’m acknowledging that we probably can’t defeat or get rid of Obamacare but by starting with our position of not funding it maybe we get to a position where we make it less bad,” Paul, R-Ky., told reporters at the Mackinac Republican Leadership Conference.
Later in the evening in a keynote address that capped off the GOP confab, Paul avoided much talk about Obamacare and outlined the principles of the liberty movement his father, Ron Paul, launched and the younger now is preaching around the country to attract new diverse faces to the GOP.
Paul, who famously staged a 13-hour filibuster on the Senate floor in protest of drone strikes, spoke out against indefinite detentions and mandatory minimum sentences for drug crimes. On spending, Paul said the $85 billion in automatic cutbacks that kicked in this year was the right fiscal move.
“We aren’t winning every legislative battle, but on the sequester we won one,” Paul said of the budget rollbacks Democrats and the president want to restore for its reductions to Head Start, unemployment aid and senior nutrition programs.
Paul, an ophthalmologist who won the U.S. Senate seat in 2010, rattled off a list of programs he deemed wasteful, including $8 million to Fargo, North Dakota for Homeland Security. “If the terrorists get to Fargo we might as well just surrender.”
Paul, son of former presidential candidate Ron Paul, came to the island to address about 1,500 Republicans here on appealing to a broader swath of America. Paul said the party gave up on African American voters 30 years ago and needs to show up at all venues and try harder.
Paul said justice, civil liberty and less aggressive foreign policy platforms can appeal to more voters.
“Liberty issues ... will bring more people to the party,” said Paul, who testified before the Senate this week on eliminating mandatory minimum prison sentences he says disproportionately affect African Americans.
As for Obamacare, Paul says the GOP are united about defunding it because their constituents are universally urging them to. But there needs to be agreement on strategy.
“Because Democrats perceive disunity, our leverage doesn't really work,” Paul said. “Leverage doesn't work unless people believe you'll actually do something. The fact that Democrats don't believe we'll do anything, in the end they'll get what they want and a bill will be cobbled together.”
The Democratic-led Senate will take up the defunding legislation next week. President Obama has threatened to veto the plan and the Senate is expected to strip out offending Obamacare provisions and send a clean version back the the U.S. House.
Had the U.S. House leadership pushed the strategy three months ago, perhaps the different House and Senate versions could be hashed out in a conference committee and result in compromise on improving Obamacare, Paul said. But with a week left before the government runs out of money, Paul says lawmakers shouldn’t shut down the government over this issue.
“In the end the sausage factory in Washington will make sausage,” Paul told The News. “Nothing good will happen though. They'll pass a continuing resolution. When they do that though, they're acknowledging that we're borrowing $30,000 a second and I think that's unconscionable.”
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