Now that the Tea Party has succeeded in shutting down the government in protest over the Affordable Care Act, it's time for them to pretend it was all President Obama's idea.
After latching onto (largely exaggerated) reports of veterans forcing their way into Washington D.C.'s World War II memorial, Tea Party Republicans are now seizing on reports that roughly two hundred patients — including thirty children — would not be admitted for clinical trials at the National Institutes of Health, prompting the House to quickly pass a bill to fund the NIH.
Via his Twitter account, the dependably looney and incendiary Rep. Steve Stockman (R-TX) alleged the following:
President Stompy Feet now says he'll kill funding for children's cancer treatment. Will the media still cover for him?
What Stockman and co. may have been hoping nobody would notice is that the G.O.P.'s continuing resolution preserves the budget cuts imposed on the institute by sequestration.
Stockman is evidently also praying that nobody will remember what he and his Tea Party colleagues had been trying to do leading up to the shutdown: Delay or dismantle the Affordable Care Act, which includes provisions to allow people (including children) with preexisting conditions to enroll in health insurance.
Steve Stockman might want to pretend he cares about young cancer patients now that it is politically convenient, but the undeniable reality is that, had he and his colleagues accomplished what they intended with the fight over the spending bill, many of them likely would not be able to receive treatment at all.
