Speed Deemin': Dems Race toward Sunday 'Vote'

Speed Deemin': Dems Race toward Sunday 'Vote' by guest columnist, Tony Perkins, President of Family Research Council

The sun is streaming through windows across Capitol Hill, a striking picture of one of America's greatest skylines. But underneath the city's highest dome, few leaders are venturing out. Instead, they're hunkered down, preparing for one of the most important decisions of their political lives. For most of them, Sunday will not be a day of rest--but a day of unrest, as an exhausting year-long battle comes to an uncertain close. The President has postponed his overseas trip, trying to wring every last second out of his personal lobbying campaign. For shaky Democrats, that means uncomfortable sit-downs in the Oval Office where the President uses some familiar back-scratching to lean on "undecideds."

But it will take more than "rides on Air Force One" to woo party holdouts, particularly after the Congressional Budget Office's (CBO) latest score. New estimates from the CBO put the price tag of this reconciliation plan well over $1,200,000,000,000.00--most of which would be inherited by the lucky winner of the 2016 presidential election. Together with unsavory new taxes ($569.2 billions worth!), the CBO spotlights the bill's deep gashes in Medicare coverage ($523.5 million in cuts) and confirms that married couples will still be punished with steeper insurance premiums. Believe it or not, nearly half all the individual mandates under this bill will be paid by American families earning less than $66,150 per year. The CBO also points out that a million Americans will have to get their coverage from a bankrupt Medicaid program on the brink of collapsing.

And if you thought dealing with the IRS is a nightmare now, just wait. Republicans on the Ways and Means Committee say the agency's tentacles will strangle families under ObamaCare. According to their report, the IRS is on the verge of an unprecedented power grab under the President's bill. It will have the authority to: verify if you have "acceptable" health care coverage, fine you for failure to prove that you have purchased "minimum essential coverage," and even confiscate your tax refund.

Of course, the agency will need a massive cash influx ($10 billion!) to provide this kind of surveillance. That's why the GOP is predicting a huge increase in IRS audits and an army of 16,500 new agents and employees to hunt down taxpayers. For all the phony talk of "reducing the deficit," Democrats are neglecting to mention the very real deficits--of money and freedom--incurred by every American if this plan goes into effect. This legislation spells a loss of U.S. life, savings, doctors, and freedom in exchange for nothing but greater government involvement in our personal decisions.

Meanwhile, President Obama is meeting with Democrats and telling them, "Our fates are tied to the health bill." The reality is, the people whose fates are truly tied to this bill are the Americans that none of us have met. They're the unborn, who our dollars will be directed to kill. They're the next generation, who will survive abortion only to suffer the weight of this crushing debt. Like the great men before them, the 111th Congress will walk the long marble hallways to their seats this weekend, where the great voices still echo, "Independence forever!" Ultimately, every one of them will cast a vote heard throughout history. They will choose to pay for legislation with our country's future or stand with the millions of us who know that "liberty--once lost--is lost forever."

Originally published in FRC.org on March 20, 2010