http://www.politico.com/story/2013/09/mitt-romney-criticizes-shutdown-effort-97476.html?hp=l2 Mitt Romney criticizes shutdown effort
By: Jose DelReal
September 27, 2013 03:40 PM EDT
Former Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney spoke out Friday against Congressional Republicans’ strategy to defund Obamacare, holding that it is not “effective.”
“We’re more effective tactically not to use a shutdown of some kind to pursue the … anti-Obamacare objective,” Romney told CNN. “I don’t think that will be as effective.”
Romney’s comments are scheduled to appear on Friday’s episode of CNN’s “The Lead with Jake Tapper”.
Both chambers of Congress must pass a continuing resolution, or CR, by Sept. 30 to keep the government from shutting down.
Earlier this week, the Republican-held House passed a CR that would defund the President’s signature health law, the Affordable Care Act, in an effort to force a vote on defunding Obamacare in the Senate. The strategy has resulted in divisions within the Republican Party, with one faction aggressively pursuing Obamacare defunding through the CR and others decrying the tactic as irresponsible.
On Friday, a version of the continuing resolution was passed in the Senate with the defunding language stripped, essentially putting the onus of a government shutdown back on the House and preventing interference with the implementation of the Affordable Care Act.
“I think there’s a better way of getting rid of Obamacare,” Romney said. “[D]elaying it by at least a year. That was Senator Manchin’s idea, the Democrats’ idea.”
“The other [option] would be potentially working hard to get Republicans elected to the House and Senate and they’d be able to do in a traditional way,” Romney said.