October 07, 2013 10:36 AM UTC

Lamborn Abandons Obamacare Defunding Demands

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• by: Colorado Pols

Curiouser and curiouser, as Bloomberg reports:

The first cracks are appearing in the Tea Party’s push to dismantle the nation’s health law as three House lawmakers with ties to the movement said they’d back a U.S. spending bill that doesn’t center on Obamacare.

Republican Representatives Blake Farenthold of Texas, Doug Lamborn of Colorado and Dennis Ross of Florida, all of whom identify with the Tea Party, said they’d back an agreement to end the government shutdown and lift the debt ceiling if it included major revisions to U.S. tax law, significant changes to Medicare and Social Security and other policy shifts…

“We’ve tried a lot of things and used just about every arrow in our quiver against Obamacare,” Lamborn, 59, said yesterday. “It has not been successful, so I think we do have to move on to the larger issues of the debt ceiling and the overall budget.” [Pols emphasis]

Lamborn said he would back a debt-limit increase if the agreement included an equal amount of spending cuts. He said he’s also seeking a deal that includes instructions for major tax-code revisions.

“I recognize the writing on the wall,” he said. [Pols emphasis]

It certainly is refreshing to hear one of our state's most obstinate conservatives "recognizing the writing on the wall," which we take to mean the growing anger directed at more vulnerable Republicans over the ongoing shutdown of the federal government. We can't say that "moving on" to gutting Social Security and Medicare is a better option for Republicans to continue either the shutdown or to fight the next battle over raising the so-called debt ceiling. But a willingness to give up what the same Rep. Doug Lamborn previously described as the "holy grail" of defunding the Affordable Care Act, to the extent that is a representative opinion on the hard right most responsible for the mess to begin with, could signal the terminal phase of this battle.

The only caveat we can add at this point is that Lamborn is, well, not smart. So maybe he's just off the reservation.