House Republican leaders briefly sidelined their mantra of a “job killing” health-care reform. Instead, Speaker John Boehner’s early remarks after the shooting substituted “job crushing” or “job destroying.” GOP leaders play down the linguistic shift: “We’ve often used those terms interchangeably,” says Boehner spokesman Michael Steel. But by midweek, “killing” was back in the lexicon of at least several Republicans. Democrats also reprised the term in floor debate, if only to chide Republicans for using it in the first place. The title of the Republicans’ bill remains “Repealing the Job-Killing Health Care Law Act.”
Kevin Lamarque
