How Republicans can derail Obamacare without 60 votes in the Senate

By Tom Quiner

Obamacare’s stunning victory in the Supreme Court yesterday is the key to its demise.

“It’s a tax, stupid, not a penalty.” That’s essentially what the Court said. The mandate is a huge tax increase on the middle class.

Candidate Obama vowed he would not increase taxes on anyone earning less than $250,000 a year. With this decision, we can add another broken campaign promise to his already prolific list. And this one is a doozy.

President Obama is running a campaign based on fairness: “It’s the fat cats that are the problem. I’ll take them down a peg. I’ll confiscate more of their productivity and give it to you.”

Turns out its us middle class folks getting hammered by the mock benevolence of Mr. Obama.

Here’s the delicious politics:

√ If Romney wins, and …

√ If Republicans maintain their majority in the House, and …

√ If Republicans gain a majority in the Senate …

… they can gut Obamacare even if they don’t have a filabuster-proof majority (60 votes).

According to polls, Mitt Romney has a reasonable chance to win the election. Political strategist, Dick Morris, insists Romney will win in a landslide since “undecideds” always swing toward the challenger and against the incumbent.

Republicans have a good chance to win majorities in both the House and Senate, but no one expects them to come anywhere near 60 Senate seats.

So, assuming the above scenario takes place, how can Republicans overcome a filabuster in the Senate if they pass a bill to repeal Obamacare?

Because they don’t need a new bill.

The mandate is a tax, right? So the law can be gutted through the budget reconciliation process, which removes a filibuster from the equation.

As Marc Franc of the Heritage Foundation puts it:

“The mandate is now a revenue provision. Therefore, it is germane and not subject to a Senate parliamentary point of order to strike it from a repeal bill. The Senate’s filibuster process that would require a supermajority of 60 Senate votes to approve repeal is now irrelevant.”

How do we get rid of Obamacare? By electing at least 51 Republican Senators this November.