Later On

I’m not talking just Sarah Palin and McCain and the like. Steve Benen:

A couple of weeks ago, Ezra Klein had a helpful summary, noting the historical trajectory of the debate over health care reform in America. The significance of the evolution in Republicans’ thinking still matters.

To briefly summarize, when Truman tried to pass what was, in effect, Medicare for all, Republicans balked and said they preferred a more market-based pay-or-play system. When Clinton endorsed the market-based pay-or-play system, Republicans balked again, saying that they preferred a mandate/subsidies kind of system. When Obama endorsed the mandate/subsidies system crafted by Republicans in the ’90s and adopted by Mitt Romney in Massachusetts, Republicans balked again, this time saying they don’t want to address the problem at all.

But it’s that mandate that continues to be the key area of interest. It was, whether conservatives like it or not, a Republican idea, eventually (grudgingly) incorporated into the Democratic proposal. And yet, it was the central point of a court filing last week filed by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R), arguing that the mandate is unconstitutional.

The Kentucky Republican filed the brief last week in federal court in Florida, arguing that the individual mandate portion of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) is unconstitutional because it gives Congress too much power to regulate citizens’ activities. Thirty-one fellow Senate GOPers joined him. The rest did not.

"Where, as in this case with respect to the PPACA’s Individual Mandate, Congress legislates without authority, it damages its institutional legitimacy and precipitates divisive federalism conflicts like the instant litigation," argues the senators in the brief. "The long term harms that the PPACA may do to our governmental institutions and constitutional architecture are at least as important as are the specific consequences of the PPACA."

The Huffington explores an interesting angle to this: the brief was endorsed by 32 Senate Republicans, led by McConnell. But the article explores why the other nine GOP senators decided to withhold their support — and the fact that some of them don’t want to talk about it.

What I find especially noteworthy, though, are double-dippers — those Republicans who endorsed (and in several cases, co-sponsored) legislation to make an individual health care mandate the law of the land, but nevertheless signed onto McConnell’s brief declaring an individual health care mandate unconstitutional.

It’s quite a motley crew: Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), Kit Bond (R-Mo.), Bob Corker (R-Tenn.), Mike Crapo (R-Idaho), Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), John McCain (R-Ariz.), and John Thune (R-S.D.). All seven supported the individual mandate, right up until Democrats agreed with them, at which point they decided their own idea was unconstitutional. (My personal favorite is Grassley, who proclaimed on Fox News, during the fight over Obama’s plan, "I believe that there is a bipartisan consensus to have individual mandate.")

I realize that congressional Republicans are just lashing out wildly, and aren’t concerned about niceties like intellectual consistency, but if you’re going to co-sponsor legislation on an individual mandate, it takes a fair amount of chutzpah to turn around and sign McConnell’s brief.

And, of course, there’s this (Benen again):

Incoming House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) is well aware of the fact that his chamber is going to have to extend the federal debt limit. Late last week, he noted that’s already "made it pretty clear" to his own caucus that Republicans are "going to have to deal with it as adults." He added, "Whether we like it or not, the federal government has obligations and we have obligations on our part."

How’s that working out so far? Not too well.

Rep.-elect Bill Johnson of Ohio said those who ran on such messages didn’t intend to reverse themselves now. "Most of us agreed that to increase the limit would be a betrayal of what we told voters we would do," he said. GOP leaders hope to package a debt-limit vote with significant spending cuts, making it easier for Republicans to vote for it. But it isn’t clear that will be enough for many of the GOP freshmen.

What’s fascinating about this to me is the twisted notion of popular support. If lawmakers balk and refuse to raise the debt limit, the United States goes into default, signaling to the world that the country isn’t in a position to repay its debts. U.S. treasuries, considered the safest investment on the planet, would no longer have the backing of the full faith and credit of the United States. The result is a government shutdown — and quite possibly a massive catastrophe.

And as far as guys like Bill Johnson are concerned, the electorate will be fine with all of this.

Also note the likelihood of an extortion/hostage dynamic. To hear the Ohio freshman put it, Republicans may tell the White House, "Slash spending the way we want or the global economic system gets it right between the eyes." But also note the next sentence in that paragraph — even if the president paid the ransom, some Republicans still may not be willing to do the right thing.

It’s not just the House, either. Sen.-elect Mike Lee (R) of Utah has vowed to oppose any efforts to raise the debt ceiling. Told that his approach would likely create a global disaster, Lee said, "That presupposes that we continue spending at unsustainable rates. I’m not going to vote to increase the debt ceiling."

The incoming House Speaker wants his fellow Republicans to act like "adults"? That sounds like a good idea, but the child-to-grown-up ratio in the GOP caucuses suggests Boehner’s challenge isn’t going to be easy.