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It seems House Minority Leader Eric Cantor, like his cohort John Boehner, is still living in fantasy-land when it comes to their ability to "repeal" the Affordable Care Act. Here he is on Fox this Monday, saying he wants "Obamacare" to be "on the table" during the upcoming deft and deficit negotiations.

Republican Leader Wants Deficit-Reducing Obamacare ‘On The Table’ In Debt Talks:

Echoing House Speaker John Boehner’s (R-OH) recent op-ed calling for a repeal of Obamacare through “oversight,” Cantor claimed that the law is a bloated entitlement and burden on the federal deficit that must be on the table during budget talks:

BILL HEMMER (HOST): In these negotiations, is Obamacare being negotiated?

CANTOR: If the president is serious about joining us and fixing the problem, he ought to be putting Obamacare on the table. There is no question in my mind, that is the largest expansion of government programs that we’ve seen.

HEMMER: Can you say at the moment that that is being talked about?

CANTOR: All I can say is that the president has got to get serious and the Speaker is correct, that Obamacare is such an expansion of government spending and involvement in folks’ lives it ought to be on the table.

HEMMER: You wonder what he is willing to concede on that.

While Republicans have been full-throated in parroting claims that Obamacare is not fiscally viable, the fact is that the health reform law actually reduces the deficit by billions in the next decade and by over $1 trillion in the decade after that, and repealing Obamacare would consequently increase the national debt while taking away Americans’ health benefits.

As the post at Think Progress also noted, Cantor is wrong about the law's support which has been gaining in popularity in recent months.

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Ezra Klein took a shot at John Boehner and the Republicans for pretending that they can still repeal Obamacare through the congressional oversight process. As ridiculous as that assertion is, that doesn't mean they're not going to do their best to still attempt to chip away at it where possible, but at this point, pretending that they can use the oversight process to somehow repeal the law, is just ludicrous.

After seeming to come to his senses and admitting that "Obamacare is the law of the land" Boehner quickly changed course and penned an op-ed for the Cincinnati Enquirer, arguing that the law "should be on the table for cuts in a deficit reduction deal." The White House shot that down pretty quickly, but as Klein's fellow contributor at The Washington Post wrote this week, you could still see tweaks to the law which the Democrats might go along with.

And as Klein noted, Boehner is up against the insurers and pharmaceutical companies who are now working with liberal advocacy groups, who both want to see as many Americans insured as possible for varying reasons. One wants more customers and the other wants to see as many people as possible have access to affordable health care.

Rough transcript below the fold.

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On this week's Fox News Sunday, Bloody Bill Kristol did his best to try to explain how Mitt Romney can make all the Republicans out there who really don't like him because they know he's a pandering flip-flopper that will change sides on issues after he sticks his finger in the air, forget about the fact that "Obamacare", or the Affordable Care Act, was indeed modeled after Mitt Romney's Massachusetts health care law.

Kristol's solution? Just talk repeatedly about repealing "Obamacare" and everyone will just magically forget about what he did six years ago.

KRISTOL: It's fine. It's fine. Whatever he did six years ago as governor of Massachusetts, I wish personally he would defend it a little less forcibly. But whatever he did, if Republican voters and Independent voters think, as president of the United States on day one or day two, Mitt Romney will repeal Obamacare, I think an awful lot of conservatives and an awful lot of Independents who don't like Obamacare will be much more comfortable with Romney.

I think the way to take care of his health care problems, to be more aggressive on Obamacare and more aggressive on Medicare reform.

It's been fairly amusing watching Republicans try to defend Mitt Romney when they all know their base hates him, but will end up holding their noses and voting for him anyway because the rest of their field looks like they're pretty well unelectable at this point.

Bill Kristol may be hoping that no one knows about or cares about what Mitt Romney did six years ago and I'm sure Fox will do their best to try to help them forget, but I have a feeling the Democrats won't allow that once the campaign ads start up for the general election if he ends up being their nominee.

I just want to know how long it's going to take for this photo to start showing up in advertisements. And no, it's not photoshopped. This is an actual picture of Mitt Romney and his friends from Bain Capital.

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I'm not sure what's worse in this clip: Rick Santorum's answer or the audience booing the gay soldier.

Santorum's bottom line: No sex in the military. Celibacy, FTW! Also, he would reinstate DADT. I promise to add the transcript later.

Here is the transcript:

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Dick Morris thinks that we should shut down the government if President Obama doesn't agree to defund the health care law. Even Bill O'Reilly is skeptical of his nonsense.

I'd like to know how may homeless people Dick Morris would like to take in after we have economic chaos if either the Congress or the president follow his suggestions here since he apparently has no concern whatsoever for what would happen if the government defaults on its debt.

The Conservative Pledge to Freeze the Debt Ceiling Is a Looming Disaster:

Led by the advice of Newt Gingrich, the former House Speaker who was the architect of the 1995-96 debt ceiling crisis, many conservatives are clamoring for a repeat of this past episode in recklessness.

By law, a statutory limit restricts the total amount of debt the federal government can accumulate. Only Congress can raise this limit. On the heels of the worst recession since the Great Depression, this “debt ceiling” is projected to be reached sometime early next year. Increasingly, conservatives are pledging to vote against any increases to the debt ceiling—even if this means shutting down the federal government. This reckless pledge would have disastrous consequences for the U.S. economy and the global financial markets, and would severely worsen the long-term budget situation to boot.

This conservative pledge has historical antecedents. In the fall of 1995, congressional Republicans refused to raise the debt ceiling for a period of about six months, until they reversed course in March 1996 in response to plummeting poll numbers. This original “debt ceiling crisis,” as it’s become known, was extraordinarily costly, roiling the financial markets and forcing two government shutdowns.

The consequences of refusing to raise the debt ceiling would be even more costly today, given the precarious state of the U.S. economy and global financial markets, and potentially could be disastrous. Unlike in 1995, when our economic outlook was good, we are currently fighting our way out of the Great Recession and coming off of the worst financial crisis since the 1930s.

Nonetheless, led by the advice of Newt Gingrich, the former House Speaker who was the architect of the 1995-96 debt ceiling crisis, many conservatives are clamoring for a repeat of this past episode in recklessness.

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From TPM -- Dem Trashes GOP 'Replace' Health Care Bill: We Already Did That!:

With less than 24 hours to go before the Republicans take over in the House and begin their quest to repeal and replace the Democrats' landmark health care reform law, Cuellar -- a new member of the House minority leadership -- told reporters today that whatever reforms the Republicans want to put in place as part of the "replace" portion of their agenda, the Democrats have already done it. [...]

At the House Democratic majority leadership's final press conference before Speaker Boehner and company are sworn in tomorrow, Cuellar read through the succinct health care "replace" bill House Republicans are planning to introduce this week. The bill is essentially a list of instructions for newly Republican-run committees to take up health care reform once (in theory) the Democratic law is repealed.

For each directive on the bill -- "preserve a patient's ability to keep his or her health plan if he or she likes it" is one example -- Cuellar had a simple response: we already did that.

Rough transcript of Cuellar's remarks.

CEULLAR: I have a copy of the resolution that they are… they will be looking at to instruct their committees to replace some of the health care. […] One of the things they’re instructing their committees is to lower health care premiums through increased competition and choice. We do that already.

Preserve the patient’s ability to keep his or her health plan if he or she likes it. We have that already in the health care bill. Provide people with pre-existing conditions access to affordable health coverage. We have that already.

Increase the number of insured Americans. We have that already. Protect doctor patient’s relationships. We have that already. Provide states credit flexibility to administer Medicaid programs. We have that already in law.

Expand incentives to encourage personal responsibility to have coverage. We have that. Prohibit taxpayers funding of abortions and provide for health care. We have that already.

Eliminate duplicate of government programs and wasteful spending, we surely have that already because we were working on that. Do not accelerate the insolvency of entitlements and tax burdens of Americans. We just passed a tax reduction bill itself. So again this is something that we have already but I guess this is an exercise we’ll be doing soon.

So in other words no matter how many ideas Republicans should have liked that are already incorporated into this bill, they're going to ignore that and pretend they care about governing when all they're doing is playing politics with meaningless votes on repealing a law they should have loved before the party lost their damned minds.

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Fox's Stuart Varney followed up with one of the GOP's "most prominent members" Tom DeLay on his statement that the Repubicans have to repeal the health-care law if they regain control of the Congress. Just another preview of what we're in for should they regain control; repeal, obstruct and defund everything while holding endless hearings.

DeLay: GOP in 'big trouble' if health law not repealed:

The Republican Party will be in "big trouble" if it does not repeal the healthcare reform law, former House GOP Leader Tom DeLay said Friday.

DeLay (Texas), who was recently dropped as the subject of a federal investigation, threw some sharp elbows at the Obama administration in an interview on MSNBC when asked what new ideas the GOP would put into place if it takes control of Congress this fall.

"They are going to have to reverse everything the Obama administration has done," he said. "If they don't repeal healthcare reform, they are going to be in big trouble."

Debate has swirled over what Republicans will do to block the healthcare law from taking effect.

Many lawmakers in the party now say a full repeal would not work with President Obama in office since he could veto the proposal. Some have argued that stripping the law of its funding would be a wiser strategy.

Still, other candidates and lawmakers want to push ahead with a full repeal measure, at least to show that they are committed to the idea.

DeLay rejected the argument that campaigning on healthcare repeal would hurt the party by drawing attention away from the economy, which is rated by voters as the top issue for the midterms.

"No, all you have to say is healthcare reform is destroying the economy and it will destroy it even more if it is allowed to go into effect," he said.

DeLay, whose pugnacious style earned him the nickname "The Hammer," accused the Obama administration of "trying to bamboozle the American people ever since it took office" and defended the GOP's governing credentials.

"Oh, they're definitely ready to govern," he said. "The leadership is in place" and the candidates are the type people want, he added.

Yeah, great leadership like that brain trust they've got in Boehner, Pence and Cantor. It would be nice if this guy finally gets convicted for money laundering so he's sitting in jail where he belongs instead of appearing on television.

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If Eric Cantor thought he was going to get a friendly interview on the O'Reilly Factor last Thursday night with guest host Laura Ingraham, he was sadly mistaken. Ingraham hammered Cantor about whether the Republicans would bring forth a bill to repeal "Obamacare" if they regain control of the House of Representatives to which Cantor responded "Absolutely I will pledge to do that! Are you kidding? Of course!"

As even Ingraham acknowledged though it's not likely the Republicans will have the numbers to over ride a veto by President Obama. Cantor laid out what their strategy will be instead of they regain control of the House.

So we are faced with a situation where, hopefully, this November, a conservative majority will regain position in the House. And we're going to do everything we can to repeal the Bill, to delay the Bill, to defund the Bill, to do all of the above. I mean, these things go hand in hand, Laura.

So they're going to take the weak tea we managed to get passed, most of which hasn't gone into effect yet and make it worse when what we need are improvements to the bill. Wonderful. Between that type of obstruction for obstruction's sake and Darrell Issa's endless witch hunts if the Republicans get back the House as well, they're going to make the days of the Clinton era look mild in comparison.

One last note on this interview as well, after the browbeating Cantor took from Ingraham during this segment, I've got to wonder if he'll be coming back on the air with her any time soon. Laura Ingraham tends to regularly emote about all of the warmth and fuzziness of a rattle snake IMHO.

Full transcript below the fold.

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