In 2010, a Democrat-controlled House of Representatives,
without a single Republican vote, passed “ObamaCare” by a margin of 219 to 212.
In a staggering act of misfeasance, hardly a single member had read, let alone
studied, the 1,900 page law (2,700 pages according to some authorities), which
had been dumped into the House only days earlier. The 219 members of that House
who voted for ObamaCare were willing to impose massive, and massively expensive,
legislation on the American people without any real idea of what they were
doing. Had those members been members of the board of directors of a private
corporation, their complete and utter lack of due diligence would almost certainly
have exposed them to enormous law suits and, quite possibly, criminal
penalties.
Largely in consequence of the passage of ObamaCare, the
House of Representatives elected later in 2010, contained a substantial
Republican majority, which was continued in the elections of 2012, despite
Obama’s reelection, and is the basis of the Republicans’ present control of the
House.
Today, the Republican majority in the House is exercising
its constitutional power over the federal government’s spending by insisting on
excluding any funds for the implementation of ObamaCare in the coming fiscal
year. This is actually an extremely modest exercise of the House’s power over
the budget. It should be seen as giving the Democrats in the House and Senate
an opportunity finally to read and study the law they have passed (along with
the 20,000 pages of government regulations that have already been written in order
to carry out its provisions). Moreover, the elections of 2014 will give the
supporters of ObamaCare a chance to present their case to an electorate that
can then decide the issue by determining the makeup of the next Congress.
However, instead of agreeing to this very modest and
thoroughly justified proposal, the Democrat leadership of the Senate has dug in
its heels in a fanatical defense of ObamaCare, to the point of closing down
major portions of the federal government in order to implement it, irrespective
of not knowing what it is and irrespective of its consequences. The Republican
majority in the House does not want to shut down the federal government or have
it default on the national debt (which could happen later this month). It is
fully prepared to fund the federal government and has repeatedly done so, with the single exception of ObamaCare.
It is for the sake of maintaining ObamaCare that the Senate Democrats have shut down the federal government.
The House Republicans should hold fast, even to the point of
a default on the national debt, for which the supporters of ObamaCare, not
they, would be responsible, if it took place. Their first obligation is to
uphold the Constitution of the United States and protect its citizens from a
government that knows no limits to its reach and power, as manifested in
ObamaCare.
Yes, terrible consequences can result from upholding
principles. The United States has fought wars in order to uphold the principle
of individual freedom. The House of Representatives should be willing to risk a
default on the national debt to uphold that same principle today.
Few people in public life today have any principles, neither
Democrats nor Republicans. Most of them are concerned with nothing beyond
favorable “photo-ops” and their standing in the latest public opinion polls. They
change their views as though they were outfits of clothing, to be changed
whenever doing so will make them look better by some undefined standard. In the
same way, they will talk with anyone and negotiate with anyone, no matter how
evil and vicious, if they believe that doing so can improve their popularity.
This should imply that if the Republicans do hold fast, the
Democrats will yield. The only thing that makes this assessment uncertain is that
it well may be that the Democrats in the Senate hate individual freedom and
love the augmentation of government power more than they hate or fear anything
else. They well may hate liberty more than they fear nuclear weapons in the
hands of Iranian religious fanatics or North Korean Marxist fanatics. And if
that is the case, then while they would meet and negotiate with the Iranians
and North Koreans and in some ways agree to their demands, they will not be
willing to be as accommodating to the House Republicans and thus will be
willing to bring about an actual default on the national debt.
The only way to deal with this possibility is for the
Republicans to do everything in their power to make sure that the American
people understand what the issue is. Namely, responsible, knowledgeable
legislation consistent with the principle of individual freedom, or reckless,
power-grabbing legislation of a kind enacted by Congressmen who might as well
have been drunk or asleep as far as their votes for ObamaCare were concerned.
If the American people can be made to understand this, then
even a default on the national debt will serve as the basis of a great victory
and be well worth the price. It would establish a turning point in American history:
the point at which the relentless advance of government power was stopped by
unyielding, principled opposition.
There are signs that here and there in the Republican Party,
there are some men of principle, men who understand what is at stake and are
prepared to do whatever is necessary to remove the legislative detritus that is
ObamaCare. If their existence can be confirmed by their behavior in the coming
weeks, it will be remarkable indeed, representing a virtual evolutionary leap
in the ranks of our country’s politicians.
Unfortunately, Speaker Boehner’s pledge, reported in The New York Times of October 5, to avoid default, implies that the Republican opposition
will collapse, isolating whatever men of principle there may be in the
Republican Party. The pledge not to allow a default should have come from Harry
Reid, the Democrat majority leader of the Senate. Yet, somehow, Reid and the
other supporters of ObamaCare are thought to be free of any obligation to avoid
a default. Only the opponents of ObamaCare are thought to be under such obligation.
This perverse inequality of obligation is taken for granted as
proper in the media and probably by most of the general public. Barring some
unforeseen development, it will almost certainly result in yet another
Republican capitulation rather than in the great victory that is possible if
the Republicans stick to their principles. Let the Democrats and the media
think of these Republicans as lunatics if necessary. They are almost always
prepared to humor lunatics through compromise. This time, let them compromise
their statist principles by giving up ObamaCare for the next fiscal year, for
the sake of avoiding a default on the national debt. Surely, there is no moral
basis for maintaining a law that was passed by men who did not and could not
know what they were doing and which as more is revealed about it, can only be
expected to wreak great harm.
