Senate Budget Chair Patty Murray (D-WA) on Thursday attacked Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) for threatening to withhold support for a routine government funding measure unless it defunds Obamacare, calling his position “absurd.”
“I was very discouraged to hear just this week from some tea party Republicans — many of the same ones who are blocking a budget conference — who are already talking, now, about shutting down the government to defund Obamacare,” she said on the floor. “This is an absurd position. We should not be talking about shutting the government down. And I really hope responsible Republicans reject this approach and work with us on real solutions, not more political fights.”
At a Thursday breakfast hosted by Concerned Veterans for America and Weekly Standard, Rubio said, “I believe that we should not vote [for] nor pass a continuing resolution unless that continuing resolution defunds Obamacare.”
He added: “You want to delay implementation? Don’t fund it. If we have six-month continuing resolution, we should defund the implementation of Obamacare by those six months.”
Sens. Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Mike Lee (R-UT) have taken a similar position.
“Not only do they want to push us to a crisis,” Murray said, “they want to do that in order to cut off health care coverage for 25 million people, reopen the doughnut hole and cause seniors to pay more for their prescriptions, end free preventive care for our seniors, and much more.”
Rubio defended his stance on the Senate floor after Murray spoke, declaring that “the real disaster is Obamacare itself.”
