Congress can stop Obamacare by refusing to fund its mandates

Should Republicans regain control of Congress, they could theoretically use their new power of the purse to deny Obama the funding needed to administer his signature accomplishment. This prospect is already gaining steam among opponents of the law. The new group DeFundit.org has gotten more than 90 candidates and current members of Congress to sign a pledge supporting stripping ObamaCare of money.

There are a lot of scenarios for how a defunding push could play out, especially based on whether Republicans gain control of one or both chambers of Congress. But in the end, such a strategy could result in a replay of late 1995, when a budgetary standoff led to a government shutdown.

Newt Gingrich, who as House Speaker was a central figure in the standoff leading to that shutdown, has been one of the most vocal proponents of the defunding strategy, and he presented the idea during an April breakfast hosted by TAS.

"A simple majority can refuse to fund," Gingrich said. "So if [John] Boehner is Speaker and Mitch McConnell is majority leader, all you have to do is write it into the appropriations bills. If the president vetoes the appropriations bills, you repass them. The president has got to go to the country and convince the country...to spend money on a program that has a 20 percent margin of disapproval."

He continued, "So the president has to somehow make it into a positive political issue to veto the appropriations bills. The only person who can close the government is the president. If you're determined to pass the appropriations bills, he has to decide to veto a bill you have passed."

The idea would be to gut ObamaCare by denying the money needed to implement its sweeping provisions. "There are 159 new offices, agencies, and commissions in this new bill," Gingrich explained. "All you say is, we're not gonna fund them. And you have in effect, stopped the project."