The U.S. House took another whack this week at defunding Obamacare—although the Senate and White House are poised to protect the funding.  They took a good swing, but didn’t get a hit.

This week the House by 238-183 passed HR 1213, which would repeal the automatic funding that Obamacare provides for federally-dictated insurance exchanges, the mechanisms to sell the re-fashioned and federally-approved insurance policies.  That’s what it would do IF it became law—which the Senate and White House will make sure it does not.

The bill does not, however, seek to repeal the requirement that each state either establish such an exchange or have the feds do it for them.

Billions of taxpayer dollars could be saved if the House bill had a chance to become law, however.  The Congressional Budget Office estimates savings of $14.6-billion over ten years, but the amount is inexact because Obamacare placed no limit on how much would be spent.  The Secretary of Health and Human Services was given a blank check for that purpose.  It’s just one part of the overall $105-billion slush fund in automatic spending under Obamacare.

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Untouchable.  That’s the treatment being given to the $23.6 billion being spent right now to implement Obamacare.

This $23.6 billion is part of the $105.5 billion appropriated by the last Congress to fund Obamacare.  The remainder (Think of it as post-dated checks for the other $81.9 billion.) automatically becomes available between now and FY2019.

None of this is to be confused with an additional $115 billion authorized for additional appropriation to Obamacare—but which the current Congress is unlikely to provide.

The most pressing question, however, is whether any of the current $23.6 billion will be rescinded as part of the spending reductions being pursued in Congress.

Despite campaign promises to defund Obamacare, it isn’t being done.  Why not?

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As the battle of the budget wages on, the March 4^th D-Day moves inexorably closer, and with the Continuing Resolution passed in the House of Representatives early this morning, including two amendments by Rep. Steve King (R-IA) to defund Obamacare, the media is increasingly raising the specter of a possible government shutdown. What every Republican, every patriot, every person conceivably affected needs to understand is how this will impact average Americans.

Will airports shut down because air traffic controllers have gone on leave? Will those mean Republicans throw granny out in the street when Social Security stops sending payments? Will everyone who receives checks in the mail see their income dry up because the Post Office shuts down?

The Democrats will tell you that and more. A Google search of “government shutdown” brings up pages describing dire consequences. But if you follow the links you will see that this is more a reflection of leftist web domination than anything else.

The greatest consequence of a government shutdown will be the Democrat-generated media hysteria we will have to put up with unless/until they get their way. They will demagogue at every opportunity, describing fantastic scenes of nationwide anarchy. They will do what they always do, about the only thing they do well, and in fact have already begun doing:

They will lie.

President Obama almost immediately threatened that Social Security checks would stop coming.

He lied.

Think Progress, the archetypical radical left propaganda rag, interviewed freshman Republican Rep. Mike Kelly (R-PA), who pooh poohed worries about a government shutdown. They didn’t ask him to qualify, but later attempted to discredit his message:

Kelly’s assertions are simply not true. One need look no further than the federal government shutdown of 1995 for proof. During the nearly four-week shutdown, Social Security checks were not mailed and Medicare/Medicaid reimbursements were disrupted.

They lie.

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