With the slim details that are thus far available of the Senate’s Obamacare replacement legislation, I must say that I am both saddened and disgusted with the state of the Republican party in Congress, and highly annoyed with Donald Trump’s insistence on Wednesday night that more tax-payer money equals heart. That’s what he said, and it makes me ill. If Mr. Trump wishes to have more “heart” in healthcare, let him donate his billions. Most of us don’t have billions to give, or even hundreds, and the government doesn’t exactly “solicit donations.” It aims a gun at our heads, making demands for payment. What may disappoint me most about this is that from his base of support, a loud groan did not erupt when he made that statement before the audience in Iowa. Conservatism is dying because to a large extent, so many Americans, so fatigued by Obama’s war against them, would accept two smiling lashes per day from another President if it meant escaping Obama’s ten, delivered across their backs with full leftist fury. So happy are they to be removed from Obama’s ever more weighty iron jack-boot, that they’re willing to have Donald Trump’s wingtip on their neck. The stark truth of this whole situation is very simple, and it comes down to this: You cannot repeal a despicable law like Obamacare and then replace it with something very nearly as egregious, while hoping Americans won’t notice.
Apparently, most of a handful of Senators today noticed too: Senators Cruz(R-TX,) Johnson(R-WI,) Lee(R-UT,) and Paul(R-KY) signed a joint statement to the effect that they cannot support the Senate bill. I want to know where the other 48 Republican Senators are hiding. This bill is a scandal, promising to saddle our children and grandchildren with a mountain of debt that reaches out to infinity. President Trump should be ashamed. Vice President Pence should join him in guilt for this bill. Over in the House, Paul Ryan should be breathing at least a momentary sigh of relief as the worst Republican bill to come out of Congress in memory is no longer his pet, now reduced instead to a close second in the standings.
I realize President Trump is not a conservative, but leans somewhat conservative on a few issues. At present, however, he’s flirting with losing conservatives’ support because of this bill. The Republicans in both houses of Congress have failed to provide a true repeal of Obamacare, and I cannot possibly express how thoroughly disappointing this development has been. Rather than scrap the whole damnable thing, they are nearly all of the spending, and merely trimming some of the tax burdens Obamacare imposes. That’s not “repeal.” It’s scarcely “replace.”
The sad truth is that our country is headed into the toilet of world history, and this bill will do nothing to arrest its fall. We cannot have a system in which half the citizens are the beneficiaries of the lashes across the other half’s backs. I had hoped Trump would fight the left, rather than encouraging them, but this sort of thing provides fresh evidence that he’s just another big-government Republican, little different in this respect from the parade of so-called “moderates” who have repeatedly disappointed us.
President Trump’s supporters had better get in touch with Mr. “Big heart” and let him know that money doesn’t equal compassion when it is extracted at gunpoint, or affixed like a ball and chain to generations yet unborn. I could vomit.
