March 14, 2010
By Herman Cain
America is on a dangerous cliff called Divided.
President Obama is trying to push through a Health Care Deform plan the majority of Americans do not want. Congress is fiercely divided between Democrats and Republicans. Democrats are divided in Congress over which version of Medicare’s ugly twin sister to pass. And Republicans are divided over how to deliver their message for the way forward.
The president’s last ditch effort to resurrect and pass any version of health care deform is a direct slap in the face of the American people, and his Democrats in Congress are slapping us with the other hand. The president continues the false rhetoric that we must pass health care deform because it is going to reduce costs, cover more people and increase the quality of care. House Speaker Pelosi says “we must pass the bill first, so that you can find out what’s in it.” What?
And let’s not forget Obama’s other reason for wanting to pass health care legislation: “It would be historic.” Yes, Mr. President, it would be a historic disaster. Just look at all of the other countries that have gone down this same road to health care disaster before and are now unable to reverse their course.
But the fierce division between the Democrats and the Republicans on health care legislation is not all bad, because their philosophical approaches to addressing our health care cost issues are polar opposites. As a result, the Republicans have not compromised, because in this case you can’t just “split the baby” in the interest of political compromise.
The Republicans’ resistance, plus the courage of enough moderate Democrats to not cave in to the pressure (bribery) of the president and the Democrat leadership has, so far, saved us from a power grab unmatched in history.
This fierce divisiveness in Washington does not help our economy, nor does it help people to find jobs or make us feel safer from terrorist attacks. In fact, the divisiveness enhances the uncertainty that’s stalling our economy, keeping businesses in a state of stop, and makes us wonder just how safe are we.
We are in desperate need of leadership. It starts with working on the right problems, and developing the right solutions to address those problems. Right now, we have neither.
We have a president who is determined to make history for the wrong reasons with the wrong ideas, and Democrats in Congress who are willing to follow him over that cliff with gimmicky accounting, and parliamentary trickery to pass sweeping liberal legislation at any cost. Despite the massive outcry from the voters at rallies and town-hall meetings, and through phone calls and e-mails to members of Congress, the president and Democratic leaders have shown absolutely no sign of listening to the people.
They are listening to themselves, and their most liberal constituencies.
I was one of the featured speakers at a very successful “Defending the American Dream Summit” in Wisconsin last Saturday, where over 2,000 attendees came to hear and learn what they can do to defend against the liberties this president and Congress are trying to take away from us. I heard the same sentiment that I hear almost every night from callers to my radio show.
Namely, the leadership in Washington is not listening, and we can’t vote some of them out until November 2010 in order to re-establish some resemblance of a balance of power. In the meantime, we will continue to make our voices heard louder and louder, and stronger and stronger.
Some of us have not forgotten the famous words, “United we stand and divided we fall.” We are not going to fall. We will remember in November.
