Conservative Group Warns GOPers on Debt Deal: “This Vote Is a Vote for Funding Obamacare”

Sens. Harry Reid and Mitch McConnellPete Marovich/ZUMA

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


The deal to lift the debt ceiling and reopen the federal government unveiled by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid on Wednesday barely touches Obamacare. That’s a major blow to conservative lawmakers in the House and Senate who shut down the government on October 1 over demands to delay or defund President Obama’s health-care law. This deal, crafted by Reid and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, leaves them empty-handed, with little, if anything, to show for their anti-Obamacare crusade.

Now, one prominent conservative group is telling Republicans that they cannot claim to oppose Obamacare if they vote yes on the Reid-McConnell deb ceiling deal. Those members who support the deal “can’t credibly claim they oppose Obamacare if they vote for this deal,” Rick Manning, a spokesman for Americans for Limited Government, tells Mother Jones. “This vote is a vote for funding Obamacare.”

Manning says that ALG will urge members to vote no on the Reid-McConnell deal. “This whole thing was about Obamacare,” he says. “And now this deal doesn’t touch Obamacare at all.”

The glitches marring the roll-out of Obamacare’s insurance exchanges, which opened for business on October 1, are even more reason to do everything possible to kill the law, Manning says. “We now have dramatically more evidence that this thing is a failure. Even if you like Obamacare, you can’t like what you’re getting right now.”

The Club for Growth, another heavy-hitting conservative group, is also telling members to vote no on the Reid-McConnell bill. The House and Senate are expected to vote on the bill later on Wednesday or early Thursday.

WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

payment methods

WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate