To their credit, many liberals have criticized Obamacare. Some have said it doesn’t go far enough. If that’s their stance, they should be honest with the American people about what’s next and the direction they intend to go. But clearly, honesty and transparency haven’t been at the top of their priority list.
In order to pass the law, Democrats met behind closed doors. They bought critical votes with promises of pork, and even then rushed a late-night, party-line vote on a lengthy, complex bill. They committed disgusting abuses to the democratic process they say they love. What happened to transparency and honesty? Do liberals not value these things?
The law only survived in the Supreme Court because liberals have been willing to commit doublespeak on the individual mandate for the past two years. When selling it to the American people, President Obama insisted that it wasn’t a tax. But he had his lawyers argue in court that it is indeed a constitutional tax, one that will ultimately impact many middle-class Americans (whom Democrats promised they’d spare of tax increases).
That’s what’s so curious about leftists who are currently spiking the football and applauding the Supreme Court. Ironically, one day their ideological descendants will scratch their heads at the odd turn American liberalism took in this decade. The purported opponents of cronyism and back-room deals were suddenly able to embrace corruption and dishonesty at the people’s expense. And that’s not something to celebrate.
Hadley Heath is a senior policy analyst at the Independent Women’s Forum (www.iwf.org). Follow her on Twitter.
