Wisconsin senator Ron Johnson says he recognizes the need to stop Obamacare from going into effect, but he doesn’t believe forcing a government shutdown in upcoming budget negotiations is the best solution. Some of his Republican colleagues, led by senators Ted Cruz, Mike Lee, and Marco Rubio, have been urging members of their party to refuse to pass a continuing resolution that doesn’t explicitly defund the president’s health-care law.
Johnson, who was elected in the tea-party wave of 2010 midterms, much of which was propelled by opposition to Obamacare, said that he sees defunding the law as “next to impossible” with a Democratic president, and encouraged Republican lawmakers to use other tactics.
“I’m for an all-of-the-above strategy,” Johnson told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. “Anything the Republicans can do by getting information to the public where we can delay and prevent Obamacare from taking permanent root, I’m for it.”