Back in January, as Republicans geared up for a fight on the debt ceiling, House Republican Leaders assured their constituents that a continuing resolution was the way to fight Obamacare.“The debt ceiling is a terrible place to have the fight when you have the sequester and the continuing resolution…. There is so much misinformation about the debt ceiling, the word ‘default’ keeps getting thrown around. Why go for a big fight? Better to take a small bite of the apple here knowing that you will get a few more whacks at it down the road.”
At the time, U.S. Senator John Cornyn (R-TX) penned an op-ed in which he wrote, “It may be necessary to partially shut down the government in order to secure the long-term fiscal well being of our country.”
Former Speaker Newt Gingrich went on CBS to advise Republicans that their fight with Barack Obama should be during a continuing resolution fight, not a debt ceiling fight.
Keith Hennessey, whose opinion is highly regarded on Capitol Hill, wrote that the GOP should, “Take whatever big spending cuts you want and make them conditions of extending the Continuing Resolution. Threaten to shut down the government rather than to make the government risk not paying its bills on time.”
The Politico reported that John Boehner would never allow a default to happen and, consequently, would raise the debt ceiling. In fact, the Politico report last January suggested the GOP would make its stand on the continuing resolution.
That was all in January of 2013. The House Republicans decided to pass a clean debt ceiling and gamble on sequestration cuts. When March rolled around, the GOP killed a measure that would have defunded Obamacare in the March 2013 continuing resolution.
They chose to punt until later in the year.
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