As House Republicans remain resolute in opposition to Obamacare, Tea Party activists are rallying to confront Obama’s latest health care blitz by targeting wavering Democrats.
Republican Sen. Scott Brown’s election in Massachusetts is a very stark reminder to moderate Democrats that voter unrest over the goings-on in Washington can lead to consequences at the ballot box.
Most Americans are opposed to Obamacare. A poll conducted by Chay/McQueen and commissioned by Liberty Central and Tea Party Patriots makes clear, 58 percent of those polled either identify themselves as conservative or hold conservative policy views and were twice as likely to say they were focused on the 2010 elections.
House lawmakers opposed to abortion funding in the Senate bill are now being asked to take a leap of faith. There is no guarantee that any House-brokered deals on abortion restrictions will be honored by the Senate. The Senate leadership really can’t offer a guarantee, since the Senate’s reconciliation process is all about numbers and nothing about policy.
With support for Obamacare seemingly slipping daily, the White House and their congressional allies want to get the bill passed before Congressional members go back to their districts.
There is much more for lawmakers to worry about than just a lot of people with signs showing up on the grounds of the Washington Monument the evening of April 15.
Droves of patriots appear highly motivated to metaphorically charge up Capitol Hill to kill this assault on liberty.
FreedomWorks, the organization behind the massive Tea Party rally in Washington last October, is now partnering with Tea Party activists around the nation for a sunrise-to-sunset lobbying “People’s Surge Against Obamacare 2.0” on March 16. Tea Party activists plan to storm the three House Office buildings to personally encourage their representatives to vote with the will of the people.
Minutemen calls for liberty are now common under Obama’s reign. When Representative Michele Bachman (R-Minn.) went on “Hannity” on October 30 and exhorted people to join her for an anti-Obamacare rally on the Capitol lawn on November 5, buses streamed into Washington just days later, bringing thousands of people from all over the country to the rally with less than a week’s notice.
Hot Tea Radio, an Internet radio program featuring Tea Party leader C.L. Bryant, has also been educating the public on the risks of Obamacare and has influential contacts on Capitol Hill. This week, Rep. Michele Bachmann and Senator Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) are scheduled to discuss the health care bill. Numerous Tea Party resources and Web sites are providing details of the bill and suggesting ways for individual citizens to contact their Representatives in Congress.
But it’s also important to note that activism is something that can be done from the comfort of home. Calls and e-mails to lawmakers’ offices are very important. Nearly every member of Congress keeps close tabs on the daily tallies of constituent calls — whether they admit this or not.
That’s why continued citizen action is important. If the phones on Capitol Hill stop ringing off the hook, the leadership will use this to argue that the health care kerfuffle is over, and tell wavering members they can safely vote for Obamacare without severely endangering their re-election chances. Then the inevitable deals will be struck, and Obamacare will become a reality.
But if Americans opposed to Obamacare remain active and prevail, President Obama and the Democratic leadership in Congress will soon realize the Tea Party movement’s agenda reaches beyond health care.
Soaring deficits and the dramatic growth of government are also major concerns. Activists already are encouraging senators to support Sen. Lisa Murkowski’s (R–Alaska) resolution to block the Environmental Protection Agency’s backdoor effort to regulate carbon dioxide emissions. To many tea party activists, federal control over energy is as objectionable as the government running health care.
A government takeover of a substantial proportion of the economy presents a clear and present danger for liberty-minded Americans. This renewed effort to ram Obamacare through is proving to be a catalyst for citizen action, but the left should not deceive itself: Tea Party activists are likely to respond in force to every effort to dramatically expand the scope of federal power.
Deneen Borelli is a Project21.org fellow and Fox News contributor. Tom Borelli, Ph.D., is director of the Free Enterprise Project.
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