Sep 28 2013
My Show Opening Monologue
Mike Huckabee
Brace yourself because I think there’s one aspect of Obamacare where the President is absolutely right: (SOT) The Republicans need to stop fighting among themselves about who dislikes Obamacare the most. Every single Republican in both the House and Senate voted against it. Every one. Not one Republican is on the hook for Obamacare. The Democrats own it--totally and completely. And if the Republicans in the House and Senate feel as I do that it really is a job-killing, economy-busting disaster that will increase costs, raise taxes, limit medical choices, and leave people in the lurches, then I want to suggest a way to fight it more effectively. All the Republicans in both the House and Senate voted to defund and or delay Obamacare, but they didn’t have the votes. So, my advice is simple: Give the Democrats Obamacare under these conditions: No delays for anyone. Not big business, not small business, not labor unions, not states, not members of Congress or their staffs. And no exemptions. None. Not one group gets an exemption from Obamacare. Especially not Congress or their staff. Make the Democrats eat their own cooking. If they think it’s good for our plates, then they need to put it on their plates too and take the first bite. Republicans can’t really defund Obamacare because the votes just aren’t there. So draft a bill that funds it, but which allows no exceptions for delays and no exemptions for anyone to avoid it. And add this provision based on the President’s proposal: write in the bill a sunset clause. The bill automatically expires and has to be reauthorized on January 15, 2015. If it’s as good as President Obama and Democrats say it is, they public will love it so much they will insist that it be reauthorized. If it’s as disastrous as Republicans, the general public, and I think it will be, then Republicans will win enough elections next year to gain control of the Senate with a likely super majority and add enough numbers in the House to override a Presidential veto. I sometimes see things through Biblical lessons so here’s the lesson. This is a Mt. Carmel moment. Remember that great moment from the book of I Kings, Chapter 18, when the prophet Elijah challenged 450 prophets of Baal to meet him on Mt. Carmel? Elijah didn’t try to delay or defund those false prophets. He told them they could take their best shot to call fire from heaven, and he would as well. There were 450 of them; just one of him. They tried for hours to call for fire to fall and they had no fire. Elijah, being a good sport, didn’t mind being outnumbered 450-1. He even ordered the wood around the altar to be drenched with water so any fire would have a hard time consuming his offering. He so believed he was following the right God that he put everything on the line—in public for the world to see. No middle of the night backroom deals—all out in the open. And when Elijah called, the fire fell and the sacrifice and the altar were consumed. My plan for the Republicans: Give the Democrats what they want for one year. Make it clear to the American public that it belongs to the Democrats. If it works like President Obama, Harry Reid, Hillary and Nancy Pelosi claim, then America will be better off and I will take to any platform or stage to apologize and acknowledge they were right and we were wrong. But if the people of America are as disgusted with it as I predict they will be, then Obamacare will end January 15, 2015 and Republicans will control both the House and Senate and be poised to elect a Republican President in 2016. Having convictions is one thing. Risking everything for them is political courage. We need that kind of confident courage in the Congress today. That’s how we stop Obamacare.
