Pro: GOP efforts to defund tarnishes their image

By: Ashley Campos 

On October 3, 2013 open enrollment for Obamacare will begin. Obamacare refers to the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act reintroduced by President Barack Obama. It ensures every American a healthcare plan that is intended to be affordable and easily accessible. However, Republicans are opposed to this healthcare reform because they believe it has more negative outcomes than the benefits Obama has intended. Republicans argue that Obamacare will take too much funding away from Medicare and will increase taxes. As the date to begin this new reform approaches, the Republican Party has proposed to defund this new healthcare act. However, due to the majority of Democrats in the House of Representatives, the effort to defund Obamacare by the upcoming deadlines does not look like it will be successful. In fact, the Republican effort to defund Obamacare is doing more harm than good to the Republican Party’s image.

There are at least four ways in which the endeavor to defund Obamacare has negatively impacted the image of the Republican Party.

First, Republicans are divided over the issue. This major decision is something that should bring a political party together, however there are many conservatives who do not support the effort. Some conservatives have even chosen to identify more as a Democrat.

The second problem with defunding Obamacare is the fact that many believe there are other options to take. For example, one alternative would be to propose the postponement of Obamacare for another year. This would have placed a setback on Obamacare and would have been financially better than actually defunding the bill.

The third way the Republican Party’s image has suffered is by making Obama and the Democratic Party appear to be making the right decisions.  Prior to this defunding effort, the focus had been on the Republican Party and their opposition to military intervention in Syria. In the political scene, when Obama is compared to the GOP interference on top issues, it creates more positivity towards the President and less favor towards the opinions of the conservatives.

The final negative result of the Republicans’ effort to defund Obamacare is the way it has added to the stereotypes of conservatives. Matt K. Lewis, a conservative blogger,  believes the defund effort has made Republicans appear to be the “party of ‘no.’” Also, due to the fact that there are not enough votes to stop Obamacare, Lewis believes the GOP is starting to look weak.

Even though it is expected that few will sign the bill to defund Obamacare, this topic has stirred many Democrats to take action against Republicans. For example, the Democratic National Committee launched a new website entitled ThisIsObamacare.com. This website provides the opportunity for Democrats, who oppose the Republican effort to defund Obamacare, to tweet Republican leaders and express their frustration. The DNC chair, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, argues that the Republicans’ effort to defund Obamacare will “drive the American economy off a cliff.” Therefore, as much as the Republican Party wants to stop Obamacare, their effort to defund the new healthcare law has only tarnished the image of the Republican Party.

Con: Republican response can make or break GOP 

By: Jackson De Vight

Every quarter century or so one of the major political parties in the U.S. is forced to reanalyze their collective identity. These changes may be aesthetic alterations, such as name changes or shifts in party rhetoric. An analysis of the continuum of governmental philosophy paralleled by the names and rhetoric of the major political parties demonstrates this. The are, however, instances where the party must deal with deeper and more dangerous issues within the fabric of the party itself. I assert this is what threatens the fabric of the Republican Party today, specifically in the context of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010.

For nearly a century, the supposed “polar natures” of the Democratic and Republican Parties have become increasingly less polar on many deep issues of governmental philosophy. Policy debate has been centered on comparatively superficial issues, such as where and how to spend and tax, as opposed to debating whether to spend and tax at all. There was a time conservatives believed that government could not fix social problems and ought not to try. However, ever since the economic upheavals of the ‘20s  and ‘30s and the ensuing explosion of government influence, particularly Federalism, that paradigm has become increasingly divorced from the actual policy position of the Republican Party. The objective grounds for the GOP’s image, not to mention relevance, were slowly abandoned, leading to the current state of affairs.

Political parties define their identity as much by who and what they are not as by who and what they are. So long as Party A stays further to the left or right then Party B, depending on which party is in question, it has achieved its criterion for relevance. Thus a party may claim it is truly “the” liberal or conservative alternative simply because it is ever so slightly closer to that end of the continuum than the other party. The end result is that both parties may end up far toward one end or the other of the spectrum without the casual observer being any the wiser.

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, informally known as Obamacare, has been passed, and all attempts to repeal, neuter, defund or otherwise gut the program have heretofore been unsuccessful. The Republican Party is torn not only on how but if it should wholeheartedly oppose this piece of legislation that marks an unprecedented expansion of government influence. Both parties are now distantly to the left on the political spectrum. Republicans have left their logical and philosophical grounds for legitimacy, imitating the Democrat platforms of a decade before.

The split in the Republican Party demonstrates both a threat and an opportunity. Establishment Republicans willing to concede to Democrat demands on this piece of legislation and others like it are not the leaders that a living, conscious conservative party needs to follow. The Republican Party shouldn’t be a reactionary establishment but an active thrust toward a smaller, more localized government and all the other foundational theories it was founded upon. The future of conservatism is out there, but it fights an uphill battle against those who have pirated its rhetoric, organization and constituency. Speaking, voting and running like moderate Democrats will not save the future of the Republican Party’s public image.