Over on the home page, Dan Holler, a spokesman for Heritage Action, says the group “encouraged” the Republican leadership to get behind their strategy to defund Obamacare. A leadership aide, however, tells me HA wasn’t serious about coming up with legislation that could pass the House and Senate. “They didn’t talk to anyone about crafting a plan that will actually work,” the aide says.
Here’s the aide’s email to NR:
Republicans didn’t win the White House or the Senate last year. Getting rid of ObamaCare when we control only one House of Congress is going to take a smart, coordinated, effective strategy. The folks pushing the notion that we can permanently defund a largely mandatory spending program on a short-term discretionary spending bill aren’t doing that. They didn’t talk to anyone about crafting a plan that will actually work. By raising unrealistic expectations and attacking fellow Republicans – people equally committed to repeal, who simply have a different plan – they are making it harder to get rid of this awful, awful law before it’s too late.
Jonathan Strong has more here.
UPDATE: Holler responds:
I can’t say for certain if Heritage Action met with the unnamed leadership aides who are firing off e-mails, but we have always said — publicly and privately — that we’d be happy to entertain any plan that can stop Obamacare before open enrollment begins on October 1. I suspect if their bosses had a plan to that effect, they wouldn’t be hiding behind the cloak of anonymity attacking conservatives who are trying to defund Obamacare.