The brakes come off

The Brakes Come Off:

I'm sure many of you might like to discuss the passage of the health care bill in the House last night. I've been on a pretty even keel about this all along, simply because I can't see any way in which this thing lasts long enough to create the fundamental change in American society that Mark Steyn sees. The fact is that, pre-HCR, we had somewhere around $100 Trillion in unfunded liabilities. We've been a train racing down the mountain to Insolvency Gorge; all the HCR bill does is tear off what were already stressed and failing brakes.

From my perspective, then, all this means is that we get to the crash faster. The important questions have always been what we'd do after the crash, since it was clear these last few years that neither party in Washington intended to be the ones who avoided the crash.

However, if you really want to avoid it, take heart! The best thing that could have happened to you has happened. If the Stupak faction had held firm, yesterday would have been the end of HCR. We'd have a good six months of history to take people's minds off the attempt. Now, with the court cases that are certain to happen, and the possibility of the states demanding its repeal, it'll continue to be headline news every night. People will still be focused on it come Election Day, and the Tea Party movement -- which might be the one chance for those who'd really like to avoid seeing the nation crash into the aforementioned gorge -- will be strengthened by mounting populist outrage, and the states' need for a political force to help them repeal this before it destroys them.

We may even get to see a Constitutional Convention forced by the states. The Balanced Budget Amendment got 32 of the required 34 states to sign its petition; this bill creates even more pressure on the state governments than any previous act of Congress. A "reasserting the 10th Amendment" petition might well get the required 34 states, if the challenges to this bill fail in Federal court.

It's encouraging that there is a political movement forming around the idea of holding Congress to Art. 1 Sect. 8 and the 10th Amendment, just when one is needed. And it's good that this movement is now almost guaranteed to build in size and power before the elections, instead of fading away. It needs to continue to build and hold its power through at least 2012 to achieve the real effects that we need to save the country; but if it doesn't, we'll get those effects anyway. They'll just come through fire, instead, when the government can no longer pretend it will or can keep its word.

Pretty symbolic that the US lost its AAA bond rating in the same news cycle as the passage of this beast, eh? Would you loan this government money?