A Mensa meeting it's not.

A Mensa meeting it's not.

Repealing the law “root and branch” is probably out of the question, the chamber’s parliamentarian is hinting, because some parts of Obamacare don’t affect the federal budget. That’s a must in order to use the obscure procedure known in Senate parlance as reconciliation, which allows lawmakers to avoid the 60-vote filibuster hurdle and pass bills on a simple majority vote. […] The conundrum has many on the far right urging GOP leaders to take on the Senate parliamentarian, who will ultimately rule what can and cannot be repealed through reconciliation, and try to repeal the entire law using a one- or two-line sentence that simply reads: "Repeal the Affordable Care Act." But policymakers and staff working on the matter are finding it's not so straightforward. The so-called Byrd rule prevents reconciliation from being used to make policy changes that don't affect the deficit, which is the main goal of the fast-track procedure. "We're really just trying to game out all of the different options our members have to basically repeal in whole or in part," said one senior GOP Senate aide. "We definitely are preparing to do only budgetary things."

Five years after the fact, Republicans are learning yet again that slogans don't actually equate with policy. They're also figuring out that while it's really easy to hold 55 symbolic votes to repeal Obamacare, making it actually happen isn't so easy —never mind coming up with something to replace it with!That means lots of hard work. And it means trying to figure out what will save money instead of just costing—and because so many of the provisions actually raise significant amounts of revenue, it's really complicated to try to tease out that balance. The simple idea of "repeal," sold by people with simple minds to voters with simple minds just isn't how it works in reality.

But they don't have to work in reality! That's because they have the "fairy dust" magic they created by imposing "dynamic scoring" on how the Congressional Budget Office figures out what stuff is going to cost. So they can at least make it all look like it could work, and on paper they can look like they're doing real stuff. And they know they won't have to suffer the consequences of it all blowing to hell, because a presidential veto will save them from that. So maybe this governing thing isn't that hard, after all. They can just keep pretending to do something.