As we write this short essay, we are being promised by Nancy Pelosi that the health care bill will be posted online so that we and those who will “deem” it already to have been enacted can actually read it. This online posting has been repeatedly postponed so that the Congressional Budget Office could score it for its 10-year cost. That exercise, which went on behind closed doors, has been tainted by secret deals, and new stealth taxes slipped in at the last minute without disclosure or debate and are based on assumptions provided by the House leadership which the CBO is required to follow. Only this weekend will the 535 members of Congress and the American people be given an opportunity to see what is in the surprise package consisting of over 2700 pages of text. They will have 72 hours to read it before they “deem” it to be the law of the land. Presumably, they have completed the Evelyn Woods speed-reading course. We believe that millions of Americans will “deem” those Members of Congress who actually participate in this farce to be unworthy of further service. Of course, they, unlike their Congresspersons, will actually have to vote.
We make no secret about our negative view of this legislation as bad public policy. But something far more important is at work here. We would rather have the House pass the bill in normal fashion even if only by a tiny margin (as they did with their first version in November 2009) and have it properly enacted into law, than to use trickery and deceit to get their way.
The Democrats in Congress point at the Republicans and say “they did it before” as if that justifies this kind of corruption of process. Leave aside that no one can cite any previous example of the use of such a combination of trickery and deceit to pass a major piece of legislation; instead let’s focus on where this country is headed. For their part the Republicans seem to be enjoying this debacle on the Hill, licking their chops awaiting this fall’s Congressional elections. For what reason? Is it just to get back in power for the purposes of payback?
The whole situation is beyond what commentators call gridlock or extreme partisanship. This is nothing less than a major erosion of the trust in the foundation upon which the American form of government rests. Will we have any bedrock principle of governance left upon which we can rely?
At this very time in history, we can see elsewhere what happens if the rule of law is subjugated to the will of those in control of governing. Look at the never ending cycle of democratic governments giving way to despots in many of the nations of Latin America. Take note of how in an economically successful China, an all-powerful controlling class can, by hiding the truth from its citizenry, keep over a billion people from the enjoyment of personal freedom. What has immunized us from this kind of despotism? We can point to the genius of our Founders and the experiment in constitutional government they created in Philadelphia. But the Constitutions is only words. Our system has endured because for over two centuries the American people have had faith that their elected representatives understood their obligation to carry out the expressed will of the people. That is what we know as “trust” and that trust is disappearing before our eyes.
Our leaders should pay attention to the words of our 35th president, John F. Kennedy who famously said “We are not afraid to entrust the American people with unpleasant facts, foreign ideas, alien philosophies and competitive values, for a nation that is afraid to let its people judge truth and falsehood in an open market, is a nation that is afraid of its own people.” If we do not follow that advice, we might never get back the precious trust upon which freedom and democracy rest, which is steadily slipping through our fingers. Once it is gone it will be difficult, if not impossible to ever restore.
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