Did the GOP Have a Choice?

If politics is about more than chairmanships, cushy offices, and life-time employment by going along to get along, then the GOP did the right thing by the American people.

I guess someone has to take a crack at commenting on a few of the points raised in David Frum’s rather self-flagellating article in which he laments that: “A huge part of the blame for today’s disaster attaches to conservatives and Republicans ourselves.”

His reasoning is that by going for all out victory and adhering to ideological rigidity, the GOP instead suffered our own Waterloo.  Had we just been more open to cooperating, maybe a more acceptable version of healthcare reform would now be on the President’s desk.

First of all, with a supermajority in the house, with the ultra-liberal triumvirate of Obama-Reid-Pelosi leading the debate, and with, as David admits, a more left-leaning congress than in years past, I would like to know exactly what provisions that fall in accordance to conservative dogma David believes would have been included by the Democrats.  I see no mention of specifics here rather just a general assertion that we should have at least tried.   Yet he goes on to freely admit that he has no idea if such efforts would have yielded anything.  I argue the result would have been the same and we would have looked weaker for our efforts.

David, so quick to rightfully point out the uncompromising nature of fringe elements of the tea-partiers, bombastic talk radio hosts and the more vocal fringe right wing on the blogosphere, nonetheless seems to turn a blind eye to the ideological zeal that drives the Democrats these days. This bill has been their dream for a generation and nothing was going to stop ‘em.  Yesterday they saw a brief window of opportunity to move the ball forward towards their ultimate goal of a single-payer government run healthcare system and a European quasi-socialist state.  If any group showed unwavering prostration before blind ideology in the face of their own electorate and anyone with a calculator it was the hard line liberal Democrats who jammed through by hook and crook a bill they knew was severely flawed come what may.

I think David misses something bigger here.  By voting as one against this unpopular bill, the GOP sent a strong message to the country: they heard us.  They did their best to place our desires over the political and ideological ambitions of a party that condescendingly demonstrated they feel they know what is best for us.  Now no one can deny the Democrats own healthcare in the USA.  When it breaks, and it will as all Ponzi schemes do no matter how well-intentioned, the onus will be on their shoulders.  David is absolutely correct in that this is small consolation.  But this bill, in this form or very similar to it, was inevitable.

I know Washington has its own sense of reality, but to many of us outside the beltway, what we saw was a blatant thwarting of the American ideal of representative government.  The Democrats voted for this bill not in accordance with the will of the people but in clear defiance of that will.  Yes, as David points out in 2008 Obama was elected by a clear majority.  But as every poll shows, there is a deep sense of buyer’s remorse among many who cast their ballots for the nebulous slogan of “hope and change” without really knowing what that meant.  This is especially true of the all-too-vital independents.  Yet the more voters have come to understand Obama’s version of “change” as epitomized in this bill the less they support the man they once so adored.   Obama cynically ran as a neo-centrist (even though those of us who bothered to research him knew better.)  But his actions since have revealed him to be well to the left of the US mainstream which still remains a center-right nation.  David forgets too that in 2004 George Bush won re-election by a convincing majority.  By 2006 the GOP had lost the House and the Senate.

David is indeed accurate in that the GOP will never repeal this bill. (David offers some common sense proposals in his CNN article to help the GOP at least clip the wings of some of the bill’s more draconian provisions.)  As the liberals who pushed this legislation understand with cool calculation, once an entitlement is enacted, it is here to stay.  The Republicans, along with the American people whom they clearly represented, realize this.  And from this acknowledgment sprang the need to oppose this bill in its entirety and start over from scratch.   And maybe by exhausting Obama’s political capital on this signature issue, the GOP will be better positioned to thwart the next phase of “hope and change” which I will bet anyone starts with amnesty for illegals to shore up the Democrats’ voting base.  If politics is about more than chairmanships, cushy offices, and life-time employment by going along to get along regardless of how damaging to the country a law may be, then the GOP did the right thing by the American people…even if it was bad strategy by insulated beltway measures.

Now, the November elections are a ways off still and the Democrats are counting on the frothy mood of the country simmering down by then.  And I do agree with David, Charles Krauthammer, and others that this may not be the harbinger of the GOP land-slide many are predicting.  After all, the tax hikes will affect our 2011 returns, not 2010 and some of the benefits kick in immediately.  This is all premeditated of course.  And as history shows it takes a while for any Ponzi scheme to collapse.  So the destructive nature of this bill with its crippling taxes, unfunded mandates, spiraling premiums and poorer quality care will not be apparent for some time.   Of course by that time Obama and Pelosi will be long retired and able to bask in their legacy…even as the rest of us pay for it.