The stalemate over federal government funding that consumes Washington is little more than an afterthought in Louisiana’s 4th Congressional District.
Its two military installations are operating at full capacity, and such social services as food stamps and free preschool are still flowing to its poorest residents.
U.S. Representative John Fleming, the district’s congressman, is among the House Republicans pushing to change the Affordable Care Act, known as Obamacare, as a condition to reopening the government -- a standoff with President Barack Obama that caused the shutdown. The focus these Republicans have on dismantling the health-care law has been fueled by Tea Party activists, and Fleming’s district embodies that movement’s small-government, anti-Obamacare views, reinforcing his position.
“They don’t seem to be that riled about the shutdown, to be honest with you,” Fleming said of his constituents in an interview in the U.S. Capitol. Voters sent him to Congress, he added, to “annihilate Obamacare.”
Obama yesterday accused the Tea Party wing of the Republican congressional caucus of concentrating so much on thwarting the health-care law that it’s willing to take the country to the financial brink, prompting the partial government shutdown and resisting an increase in the nation’s debt limit that administration officials say is needed by Oct. 17 to avoid a default.
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“A big chunk of the Republican Party right now are in gerrymandered districts where there’s no competition, and those folks are much more worried about a Tea Party challenger” in a primary “than they are about a general election where they’ve got to compete against a Democrat or go after independent votes,” Obama said. “And in that environment, it’s a lot harder for them to compromise.”
The messages to Tea Party-backed House members -- from states including Louisiana, North Carolina and Pennsylvania -- run counter to the notion of negotiations. These lawmakers are being cheered for holding ground, a dynamic that makes resolving the showdown a major political challenge for House Speaker John Boehner, an Ohio Republican.
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