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Conservative Pressure Groups Lose Their Minds Over New House CR

The Club For Growth said it will downgrade members’ rating on its Congressional Scoreboard if they don’t vote for the new Continuing Resolution.

Photo by Warren Little/Getty Images

The Senate Conservatives Fund, the group behind the “defund Obamacare” petition campaign, has pronounced that a vote for the new CR—the one that merely delays the invidual mandate and nixes subsidies for staffers’ health care plans—would be a fatal sellout. From its email to supporters:

The fact that these lawmakers don’t want to live under this program is one of the best reasons to stop Obamacare dead in its tracks. However, some Republicans in Washington are secretly planning to use the elimination of the congressional exemption as an excuse to fund all of Obamacare and force millions of Americans into the program. They think that if they subject themselves to Obamacare, you will forgive them for subjecting you to it. They will argue that it’s okay to fund Obamacare if the congressional exemption is removed because lawmakers will be motivated to repeal the law in the future if they’re forced to personally suffer the consequences. They are lying. Members of Congress will find a way to exempt themselves in the future. If they have to raise their own pay to cover the extra cost of their Obamacare plans, they will do it. If they have to create a special doctor’s office inside the Capitol Building, they will do it. As long as politicians are in control of the health care system, they will get a better deal than we do.

Meanwhile, the Club for Growth has asked House Republicans to vote for this deal—because no votes will hurt their lifetime ratings.

The Club for Growth urges all House members to vote “YES” on the latest version of the FY14 Continuing Resolution (H.J.Res. 59) that delays the individual mandate and eliminates the healthcare subsidies for members and their staff. Consideration of the resolution will likely occur later tonight. The vote will be included in the Club’s 2013 Congressional Scorecard.

And Heritage Action has come out against it but isn’t scoring it. Basically the Club is reacting to the moderate Republicans who are threatening to sink this compromise, and the other groups are refusing to move off the messaging of the past month.

Read the rest of Slate’s coverage of the government shutdown.