By As Congress and the American people enter the final stage of the debate over ObamaCare, Congressional Democrats are attempting to delude themselves into believing that, as the Washington Post reports, “passing the legislation is key to limiting damage to the party during this year’s perilous midterm elections.”
This is based in part on the premise that after it is enacted the American people will come to support the government takeover of the nation’s health care system.
Of course, that acknowledges the grim reality for Democrats that the American people do not support the takeover. According to Rasmussen Reports latest survey on the matter, 53 percent remain opposed to the Obama plan that will ration care away from seniors, increase the cost of premiums, and cost a full $2.5 trillion over ten years once fully implemented.
55 percent want Congress to kill the bill and start over again on a bipartisan measure.
In fact, in Rasmussen’s surveys of likely voters, the American people have consistently opposed the plan for nearly a year. This has come after two years wherein they saw government’s heavy hand in taking over everything from the auto industry, the banking system, and the mortgage industry.
Obama’s first year in office alone saw the expansion of the federal government’s responsibility to being the caretaker of economic “recovery” and balancing broken state budgets.
Fiscally, Congress has been a catastrophe, spending $3.7 trillion and running a projected record $1.56 trillion deficit for 2010.
This, as they watch it get even worse with a proposed $3.8 trillion 2011 budget, and as the debt ceiling has already been raised by the highest ever $1.9 trillion to $14.294 trillion. Under Obama’s ten-year budget plan, by 2020, Congress will add another $10.6 trillion to the ever-growing national debt.
In the meantime, Americans have watched their future purchasing power eroded by yet more easy money, artificially low interest rates, and the firing up of the printing presses by the Federal Reserve.
They understand that the fiscally unsustainable path the nation is currently on will become irreversible if the $2.5 trillion ObamaCare is enacted. They know that providing health care cannot be provided to 30 million or so additional people by the government in a deficit-neutral manner.
They see the writing on the wall: likely default as the costs of repaying and refinancing the national debt skyrocket. They know that breaking the nation’s bank will mean higher interest rates, higher inflation, higher taxes, and a lower standard of living for their children and grandchildren.
In short, the American people have seen what an overly large government is already doing, and they don’t like it. And they know it will most certainly get worse once the health takeover ensues.
Democrats have also based on the premise that failure to enact the ObamaCare legislation would dispirit the Democrat Party’s political base, who would then sit out the midterm elections. But, beneath the surface of Rasmussen’s reporting, Democrats have a bigger problem: the loss of the support of political Independents.
That loss could become longer term if Democrats tether themselves to the fiscal troubles of the nation. Passing ObamaCare is seen as a tipping point for the nation’s finances. As ALG News has previously reported, Moody’s has warned about the nation’s credit being downgraded if Congress follows Obama’s ten year budget plan — which includes the unprecedented costs of ObamaCare.
If Democrats insist on pushing the public treasury off of the precipice, all of the predictable consequences economically, financially, and politically will be theirs alone to bear in the long run.
And in the meantime, they’ll have a mob of Americans at the gates seeking vengeance come November. The choice is theirs.
Robert Romano is the Senior Editor of ALG News Bureau.
