One Tea Party group is urging its members to keep up the fight against health care, saying it’s a mistake to consider President Barack Obama’s legislation dead simply because of recent setbacks.
“You’ve probably seen the movie ‘The Terminator,’” Tea Party Patriot co-founder Mark Meckler said at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C, on Wednesday. “Until those beady, little red eyes actually burn out and the show is over, the game is not over. We’ll fight as long as we have to fight.”
Obama’s health reform has been in jeopardy since last week’s election of Massachusetts’s Scott Brown, who will become Republicans 41st senator and end Democrats’ filibuster-proof majority.
On Wednesday, hours before Obama’s State of the Union address, members of the Tea Party Patriots endorsed the “Healthcare Declaration of Independence,” an initiative led by Rep. Michele Bachmann, Rep. Steve King and Rep. Louie Gohmert, all Republicans.
Jenny Beth Martin, the group’s co-founder, said the Tea Party Patriots will encourage all members of both houses to sign the pledge. The initiative espouses several principles, including protecting the doctor/patient relationship; rejecting any addition to the national debt; ensuring transparency in the health-care reform process; preventing federal funds to be used for abortions and ensuring free market values.
“This declaration comes at a crucial time in American politics when the United States government has attempted a public takeover of private industry, and the quality of health care for Americans is at stake,” Martin said.
The group — which Meckler said boasts more than 15 million members — also gave their support to Republican Sen. Tom Coburn’s failed amendment Tuesday to stop the increase to the debt limit. On Tuesday, Coburn’s amendment — that the group said would prevent a $1.9 trillion increase in the debt limit and cut spending by $120 billion — was shot down in Senate.
Meckler said “what we witnessed, unfortunately, was business as usual.” Martin decried the failure, saying the amendment “makes sense, it’s common sense and it’s what we want.”
“We re serious about this. We have to sit down at our kitchen tables and tighten our belts. We have to decide where were going to cut and what we’re going to spend on and we want Congress to do the same,” she said.