Bob Woodward: Republicans ‘Using Extortion and Blackmail’ To Defund ObamaCare

September 15th, 2013 4:59 PM

Have you witnessed Republicans “using extortion and blackmail?”

The Washington Post’s Bob Woodward apparently has, and claimed on NBC’s Meet the Press Sunday that some House GOPers are using such methods to defund ObamaCare (video follows with transcript and commentary):

DAVID GREGORY, HOST: We’ve got a budget battle that’s brewing again with the debt ceiling. Bob, you think this is really the next crisis that Obama is facing with Congress. Are we going to raise the debt ceiling? Will he negotiate? He says, “No way.”

BOB WOODWARD, WASHINGTON POST: And this is really serious. Back in 2011, when the crisis visited them, the Secretary of the Treasury Tim Geithner was running around and saying, “If we don’t fix this, we could trigger a depression worse than the 1930s.” And when I talked to Obama about this, he said it was the most intense three weeks of his presidency, more than Osama bin Laden and so forth.

So, and, the Republicans are out here, a group of them in the House, essentially using extortion and blackmail methods to say, “If we don’t defund ObamaCare, we’re not going to do the routine things of government.”

When folks such as Woodward make such accusations, it would be nice if they divulged exactly what Republicans are doing that rises to the level of extortion and blackmail.

As for what Timothy Geithner claimed in 2011, numerous publications including NewsBusters reported at the time that there is ample money coming in each month from tax revenues to fund virtually all essential government functions.

As such, despite the hyperventilating from the left and their media minions, a delay in raising the debt ceiling would have little impact on the nation.

Consider, too, that the stock market is trading near an all-time high.

Would that be the case if the markets were concerned about this?

Certainly not.