House Republicans plan to schedule a vote next week on repealing the health care law Congress passed last year. I can report, without doing a lick of original reporting, that this will fail.
It's just arithmetic. Republicans have a majority in the new House, so repeal could pass there. The Democrats still control the Senate, so it probably won't pass there. Even if it did, President Obama could veto the bill. It takes a three-quarters vote in both Houses to override a veto. No way.
That leaves a larger question: what will the new, divided Congress do? The GOP Senate leader, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, says his overriding goal will be to make sure Obama is a one-term president. This would mean voting "no" on just about everything, I guess. It might shut down the federal government--we had one of those back in the 1990s--but it wouldn't necessarily mean a loss for Mr. Obama.
I mean, the voters might decide they liked a crippled government. You wouldn't have to pay taxes, I guess, though you might miss things like an Army and Social Security. Or maybe not.
You never know what these politicians will come up with next. Close Washington and this column might move to Vail, Colorado. Gerald Ford liked it there.
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