As much as he’d love to defund Obamacare, Sen. Jeff Flake (R-AZ) said Wednesday that he just doesn’t think the effort being pushed by some of his GOP colleagues is practical.
Republican lawmakers like Sens. Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Marco Rubio (R-FL) have threatened to block any continuing resolution to fund the government if it also includes funding for the new healthcare law.
GOP leaders on Capitol Hill, meanwhile, have publicly spoken out against the effort. House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) said that Republicans simply don’t have the votes to make it happen, while Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) rightly pointed out that a government shutdown “won’t stop Obamacare.”
Speaking in Gilbert, Ariz., Flake said that while he’s sympathetic to the likes of Cruz and Rubio, he ultimately sides with the GOP leadership.
“There’s a move by my Republican colleagues to use the continuing resolution to defund Obamacare,” Flake said, as quoted by The Arizona Republic. “I would love to defund Obamacare, but the continuing resolution is not the mechanism.”
Cruz and Rubio have been backed heavily by the conservative organization Heritage Action, which launched a nine-city tour earlier this week to promote the defunding efforts.
At the first stop of the tour Monday in Fayetteville, Ark., Heritage Foundation president Jim DeMint, a former GOP senator, suggested that President Barack Obama may actually sign a bill that guts his signature piece of legislaton. When the tour shifted to Dallas the next day, Cruz assured supporters that the defunding effort is a “fight we can win.”
