Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid gave a nearly 15-minute speech on Tuesday attacking the House Republican’s proposed lawsuit against the president.
Reid even went as far as mocking them with syndicated courtroom star Judge Judy Sheindlin, stating she would toss out the lawsuit in “half a second.”
Reid went on to call the proposed lawsuit a waste of money as well as a distraction from issues that really matter to the American public, issues being pushed by Democrats such as minimum wage, equal pay, “the crippling debt that is staggering this country.” He also pointed out the hypocrisy of Republicans for delaying the employer mandate – something they had pushed for themselves.
Republicans create an employer obligation provision in the Affordable Care Act. The Affordable Care Act becomes law. Republicans vilify the employer provision they themselves authored. Republicans demand that the employer provision in ObamaCare be delayed. President Obama agrees to delay the employer provision, and House Republicans sue President Obama for delaying the employer provision.Is this weird? Is this weird? I can answer my own question. Yes, it is weird.
Reid went on to accuse Republicans of deliberately undermining President Obama:
This is the behavior we have come to expect from the Republican Party that is determined to do one thing: undermine this President. No matter the issue, even when they ask him to do it, they oppose him on it. They sue him this time.
[…]
While Republicans accuse President Obama of Executive overreach, they neglect the fact that he has issued far fewer Executive orders than any two-term President in the last 50 years. President George W. Bush issued 291 Executive orders. President Clinton issued 364 Executive orders. President Reagan is the record holder; he issued 381 Executive orders. President Obama is not close to their records. He is 109 behind President Bush. He is 182 behind President Clinton. He is 199 behind President Reagan. What is the President’s tally to date? As I have indicated, he is behind them all–an 8-year President. He has issued only 182.
Reid also went into great detail about Obamacare, pointing out that Republicans refuse to accept its great success:
Republicans’ disdain for President Obama and health care reform has prevented them from accepting the obvious: ObamaCare is proving more and more successful every day. It seems as if every week–sometimes every other day–there is some new study or survey showing how good ObamaCare is, how it is helping American families.
The uninsured rate for people ages 19 to 64 declined from 20 percent in the July-to-September 2013 period to 15 percent in the April-to-June 2014 period. An estimated 9.5 million fewer adults were uninsured. That is big-time stuff.
Young men and women drove a large part of the decline: the uninsured rate for 19-to-34-year-olds declined from 28 percent to 18 percent– Remember when everybody said young people will run from this. They are not running from this. They are running to it– with an estimated 5.7 million fewer young adults uninsured.
[…]
By June, 60 percent of adults with new coverage through the marketplaces or Medicaid reported they had visited a doctor or hospital or filled a prescription; of these, 62 percent said they could not have accessed or afforded this care previously.
That is stunning. It is no wonder–it is no wonder–we have fewer and fewer Republicans coming down here giving these speeches about how bad ObamaCare is.
Returning to the subject of Boehner’s threatened lawsuit, Reid didn’t mince any words calling it absurd:
Is there anyone who believes this lawsuit has some basis? It is a sham–an effort to appease the tea party radicals in the House of Representatives. One Yale law professor was questioned on why the lawsuit is receiving so much media attention. Here is what he said: “I see this every day now, being covered as if it’s, as if it’s somehow not a joke.” It is a joke.
Another law professor from Harvard said: “The lawsuit will almost certainly fail, and it should fail, for lack of any Congressional standing.” Imagine how many lawsuits there would be if House Republicans could sue the President every time they disagreed with him about something–or some future President–but there is no reasoning with the radical Republicans in the House or the tea party-driven Members of the Senate.
House Republicans would rather waste taxpayer dollars than accept the fact that their constituents, their very own neighbors, are benefiting from health care reform.
This is a phony trial that will come up. It is a show trial. It is what Republicans want. I guess that is what they want, but if that is truly what they want, they should go talk to Judge Judy. I think she would throw this case out in half a second. The Congress is no place for inane, politically motivated litigation. I think Judge Judy would agree.
Reid concluded his speech by stating that Obamacare is “here to stay.”
It is expensive and wasteful. It is wasting taxpayers’ hard-earned money on something that is without any merit. Enough is enough. The fight over ObamaCare should be long since ended. The law is here to stay and, more importantly, newly insured Americans, all who have signed up, not only those who are newly insured but those who have signed up who had insurance before, want the law to stay just where it is.
You can watch Reid’s full speech, below, courtesy of C-SPAN:
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