Persistence Is the Key
How about the party of "hell, no"?
BOBBY JINDAL
After forcing through a massive health-care overhaul that the public does not want, the president and Democratic leaders in Congress are threatening us with yet another PR campaign to make us like it. Good luck with that.
Meanwhile, some level of handwringing has broken out among GOP strategists. Should we push for repeal? Will it work? Is there some danger in that strategy?
Well, let's see. We just spent 13 months arguing against the Democrats' top-down approach to health care, contending that it must be stopped for the good of our country, the health of our citizens, and the future of our nation's economy. So, should we try to repeal it? Only in Washington is this a hard question.
The arguments against repeal are the following:
1) It's next to impossible. Nothing of this magnitude has ever been repealed.
2) Even if Republicans take control of Congress this fall, the president would veto repeal.
3) It will be hard to take things away from people once the government starts giving them out.
4) There are parts of the bill that the public will like.
5) We don't want to be labeled the party of "no."
Let's take them one at a time.
1) It's impossible. Wrong. There is a first time for everything. It's similarly "impossible" for the son of Indian immigrants to get elected in the deep South. It's impossible for an African-American to get elected president. You get the picture.
2) President Obama would veto a repeal bill. Yes, he sure would. Do it anyway. And do it again after he is gone. (By the way, President Clinton vetoed welfare reform twice before he signed it into law.)
3) It will be hard to take things away. Probably so. But the reality is that growth of federal entitlements is strangling the economic engine of our country. Someone has to draw the line somewhere. Do we want to go the way of Western Europe? If not, we better get moving in the other direction immediately.
4) There are parts of the bill the public will like. No doubt about it. There are parts I like—though I have yet to read the fine print—such as allowing parents to keep kids on their policies until they are 26 years old. And there's bound to be more good policy in there: 2,409 pages can't be all bad. But the overall direction of the bill is to empower government, not patients.
5) We don't want to be labeled the party of "no." As it pertains to this bill, how about "hell no"? Newt Gingrich is saying we should "repeal and replace." That works.
Mr. Jindal, a Republican, is the governor of Louisiana.
No comments:
Post a Comment