Wednesday, November 27, 2013

Why I support the TEA Party

Recently I was asked why I don’t go all in with support for the Republican Party and their candidates because this is the party which more closely defines my values and that the TEA Party is not helping the cause.  They stated that the “purpose of political parties is to win elections.  Unless a political party can attract voters, it can not win.  In a multi-racial, and often bi-lingual society, winning usually requires some give and take.  Otherwise, it isn't a choice for governing, but for war”.  This assumes I support either of the established parties.  I don't, however, I truly believed that Mitt Romney was the right man for the Presidency at the right time in our history so I supported him and voted for him.  In 2008, I had no interest in seeing either of the established party candidates sitting in the WH so I didn't vote for either, opting instead for Ralph Nader who actually put up a platform I could support.

There does come a time when one has to stand up and be counted for their beliefs.  Standing up for a candidate just because he is the lesser of two evils is the reason why our two party political system is destroying the country, IMO.  The generational trend of having the government offer subsidies to the citizens in the form of entitlement programs and corporate donors in the form of tax benefits and huge government contracts has created a nation of dependency and it occurs through the acts of both established parties.

Ted Cruz stood up for principle.  The ObamaCare program is a travesty and he was right to stand up against it.  Was it the best way to proceed, I believe that it wasn't because it was an attempt to combine the cost of ObamaCare with the overall budget and the looming debt limit.  There were better ways to address the budgetary issues and not give Obama the upper hand, but at the time, Senator Cruz didn't know just how bad the ObamaCare rollout would be, so he was acting in good faith.

So now let’s address the issue of the TEA Party and it's growing pains.  Certainly there are mistakes being made, some of which have been outlined.  Having a group of idealistic citizens go up against the entrenched parties will always be met with resistance and having those citizens be marginalized is par for the course, in the short term. But I do believe that as the old saying goes, all politics is local and I honestly believe the majority of the citizens when it gets down to the local grassroots level, agree with Senator Cruz and the TEA Party platform.  I see it every day in the local coffee shops,in  the beer halls and at the local barber shops.  I see it with the college students I speak with when I return to my college campus for seminars and business support gatherings.  I witness it when I attend small business development conferences and conventions. Certainly there are naysayers, but when specifics are discussed, the majority agree with what the TEA Party represents.

Additionally, there is one more element which comes into play and is a real threat to the established parties.  This new element is the instantaneous communication afforded by access to the internet.  10 years ago, we could not use the FaceBook or the blogosphere to discuss our discontent, we could not Tweet the whereabouts of a TEA Party meeting in our local communities, we could not mount an instant effort to advise our "representatives" of the fact that we do not support a bill  they are willing to vote in favor of and most importantly, we could not immediately let them know that we were watching when they voted for that bill anyway and that as a result, we will be looking for someone else to support.

As we have seen over the past 3 national election cycles, the TEA Party candidates, although working through the Republican Party, are gaining ground and the quality of the candidates seeking office is showing dramatic improvement while the quality of the upcoming Democratic and incumbent Republican candidates remains incredibly self absorbed and dismal.   We as a nation need more of the self reliant American spirit to reach the surface and the TEA Party members bring the true ideals of the American spirit to the office. It may take some more time and it won't happen without additional scars and/or lost elections, but I do believe the TEA Party will become the dominant political party in our nation or the nation as we knew it will not survive. 

Wednesday, November 13, 2013

ObamaCare and the Lies by which it Passed



On Friday November 8, President Obama was speaking in Miami Florida at a Democratic fundraiser when he began another of his tirades against the TEA Party labeling them as “a small faction” and telling Democrats in attendance (it was a democratic fundraiser) that Republicans will have a price to pay for defying the American populace. He ramped it up by saying that the small faction, the TEA Party, “will not act on the basic interests of the American people”.  
Here something to consider – Due to the PPACA (ObamaCare), approximately 5 million people will lose their health insurance by spring of next year. When the large company and union enrollment begins as the year delay expires next October, another 12+ million working Americans will lose their insurance. All of these Americans will find themselves having to obtain more costly insurance as a result of a law passed by a very small faction of strictly partisan legislators and only after manipulation of their own rules. These legislators passed ObamaCare without reading it while making the incredible claim that they “had to pass it so we can read it to find out what is in it”.  Now we have read the bill and now we, the majority of Americans are seeing the truth. REGARDLESS of whether Americans like their plan or their doctor and even if the plan hasn't changed they are losing their insurance and are being forced into the ObamaCare collectives at higher cost and lower quality.
Is this acting on the basic interest of the majority of the American People?
I have been saying since 2009 when I actually read the entire PPACA , the ACT was not intended to help those who are unable to obtain insurance, it is designed to destroy the health insurance market in favor of another big government designed program like Medicaid. Any fool who can add will see that the numbers don't add up.  And you have to be really stupid to think that a government program as large as this would run smoothly without cost overruns. Lest we forget, at the time the bill was up for vote, the administration claimed that it would not cost a dime in added taxation and that the cost of insurance for the average family would decrease by $2500 per year.
President Obama sold the PPACA on the basis that it would help the “small faction” of Americans who needed protection because they were unable to obtain Health Care.  He continually misstated that they, the 30+ million uninsured Americans were unable to obtain HEALTH CARE.  This is just not true.  Everyone in America who gets sick or injured has access to very high quality HEALTH CARE, regardless of their ability to pay and it is just about the best quality care available in the world.
What this “small faction” lacks is access to health INSURANCE and while serious, it is a completely different issue. President Obama sold the concept of health CARE for everyone through the PPACA by stating over and over to the vast majority of Americans who have health insurance, “If you like your insurance, you can keep your insurance.  PERIOD. Nobody is going to take it away”  “If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor, no one is going to change this”.  He and his small faction of ideological zealots repeated this continually to the American people.  Just like he repeated continually that the mandate was not a tax.  He even continued claiming the ObamaCare mandated penalty was not a tax after the SCOTUS found that it is, in fact a tax on the American tax payer.
So much for truth from the office of the Chief Executive and so much for acting for the will of the majority.  When President Obama repeatedly made the statement that "If you like your insurance you can keep it, PERIOD, he was lying.  When he claimed that "If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor, no one is going to change this", he was lying again.  Last week he claimed he was sorry that people may have lost their insurance based on what he said. Considering that he had to know that large numbers of people would lose their insurance, why would he actually be sorry when it happened? Logically, many will say he lied yet again.
Even worse, he was lying not by omission, but willfully and knowingly to achieve his agenda, no matter the ultimate cost to the American people.  He lied because he knew that if he told the truth, upwards of 19 million people would lose their current insurance plans as a direct result of the "ACT" and American voters, even union member supporters and rank and file democrats would not stand for it.  He knew that if he told the truth, the "ACT" would never pass.
In an attempt to deceive yet again, he now deflects blame onto the TEA Party and excoriates them as small but vocal factions who are willing to thwart the "basic interests of the majority of Americans".  Funny thing is, President Obama and the extremely partisan Democrat Legislators, a small faction of Americans elected to represent all American citizens, paid no heed to the constituency they were elected to serve and passed the bill against the wishes of the majority by manipulating the senate rules to achieve their goal.
This is not to say the TEA Party Patriots are blameless. They were not willing to consider what the other side was saying in their zeal to have their voices heard.  They didn't listen to a common sense approach to regulating the Health Insurance industry and they didn't bother to differentiate between the progressives replacing the word INSURANCE for CARE.  No one is entitled to Health Care, but a case can be made that everyone should be entitled to access affordable Health Insurance. Had the TEA Party activists listened, they may have been able to limit the damage of the PPACA legislation to controls on the Health Insurance industry.  Had they listened, Americans might not be experiencing the fiasco of the government monstrosity which is ObamaCare. This is only speculation because the stacked house Obama experienced in 2008 through 2010 allowed him to push through any laws he wanted and the Democratic majority legislature rapturously fell right in line with his request.
Yet, the worst action taken by the TEA Party activists was shutting down the government in an attempt to defund ObamaCare.  The reason is because ObamaCare will fall on its own as the majority of Americans actually experience what is in it.  Had the TEA Party legislators focused where they should, on budget issues, If the house stood firm with the budget they passed, forcing the Senate to act or be the cause of the shutdown, if the house held Obama to a dollar cut for every dollar of increased revenue (ie...the debt limit increase) the American people would see who is truly putting the screws to them and it sure as hell isn't the TEA Party Patriots. Had Cruz and the House TEA Party contingent not forced the issue, had they played the cards they drew rather than going “all in” too early, it would be Democrats jumping ship and demanding that ObamaCare be modified or abolished and Obama's ability to vilify would be minimized.

So, let’s not fret about who is or isn’t truly the “small faction” or to what degree the President lied. Let’s accept the facts and show the president that the majority of Americans have the basic interests of America in their hearts and minds.  It is time for the majority -- true blue American Patriots -- to stand up and rally the support of your friends and neighbors to show President Obama and Harry Reid that we are NOT a small minority. We are the majority common sense voice of America and we will be heard.