It's the ObamaCare, Stupid

James Carville's famous statement in 1992, "it's the economy, stupid", has become political folklore.  The line is used over and over again by pundits and journalists (or at least some rendition of the line).  Come to think of it, I just used it in my article title, didn't I?Well here is the point I am making, and it is intended for my readers who share some sympathies with my political worldview: Of the extraordinary plethora of options we have as to why we should be energized this election cycle, there is no greater motivation that ought to be enraging us to action than the Health Care atrocity that the President signed into law last spring.  Don't get me wrong: the $800 billion stimulus bill is unforgivable, and by now it is hard to find a thinking grown-up who believes it was a good idea.  Not all of those stimulus critics are necessarily economically literate enough to understand that a two-year break in the corporate tax rate would have cost less than half of the stimulus price tag and created 5x as many jobs.  But unless you are talking to a direct recipient of stimulus funds (read: probably not a very productive member of society), no one believes it worked.  What we got was an unemployment rate that is far higher than it was, that shows no signs of getting any better, and yet also carried with it an additional $1 trillion that our children are on the hook for.  The stimulus bill is why the tea party movement ever got started, and when all is said and done I do believe the stimulus bill will finally be what kills the moronic economics of Keynes, even in such stubborn venues as "academia".  I would also point out, by the way, that the completely unanimous opposition to the stimulus bill from House Republicans is one of the only reasons that the GOP has any credibility this election cycle at all.  The understandable doubt that many have in the fiscal behavior of GOP lawmakers would be far worse if they had not held their ground on this.  So yes, the stimulus bill is and was a disaster, but it is not the primary reason that voters should be viewing this election as life or death.I could go on for a very long time about other disastrous decisions this administration has made.  The illegal pummeling of the General Motors and Chrysler bondholders for the benefit of his union friends strikes me as the most immoral act committed by a President in a long time.  The effects it will end up having in the capital markets are not going to be fully appreciated for a long time, but as far as I am concerned it was an impeachable offense.  But no, it is not the primary reason to be charged up this election cycle.The fact that this President has extended what the prior President did with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and in fact made it far worse, is totally inexplicable to any rational person.  The further fact that they actually passed a 2,000 page "financial regulation" bill without ever so much as mentioning the entities of Fannie and Freddie, let alone addressing the hundreds of billions of dollars that we have given them (never ever ever to be paid back), is despicable.  But I am still not to his magnum opus.His "world apology" tours have all been pretty funny, but they don't rise to the level of ObamaCare either.  When he goes around Western Europe and the Middle East talking about how bad Americanism is, at least it is still technically just rhetoric.ObamaCare was not rhetoric.  For with this piece of legislation, President Obama proved beyond any shadow of any doubt just how totally unAmerican he really is.Nothing could be less American than the horse trading and backroom deals and mechanical maneuvering implored to pass this bill.  Supporters of Obama should be utterly ashamed of themselves even if they support the bill's atrocious content, for there is no possible excuse for the manner in which the bill was passed.But at the end of the day, even apart from their sinister protocol, the greatest sin committed by this abyssmal administration has been the actual content of this bill.  No piece of legislation in American history has ever more radically altered the relationship between the citizen and the state than this multi-trillion dollar debacle.  The accounting shenanigans they used to sell the bill have been discredited by even the most leftist of analysts.  The fundamental accomplishment of the bill, a mandate that all Americans buy health insurance, or else, is something that our founding fathers would not be able to even fathom.  The progressive and dishonest taxation that it mandates is both a violation of his explicit campaign promises but also a job-killing, investment-killing mess.  The fees the bill levies against pharmaceutical companies and medical device companies represent dollars getting directly siphoned out of research and development, and right into the redistribution scheme that this bill promulgates. I wrote just after the bill was passed that our memory of this atrocity would dictate how this election worked out.  I stand by those words now.  This bill, if not de-funded, repealed, and thrown into the ash heap of history, will ruin medical care in America forever and ever.  It is my absolute belief that the President and Congress know this, and never ever ever intended this bill to be their final draft.  When things turn out as badly as experts on both sides of the aisle predict it will, this administration is well aware that the federal government will be asked to get more involved, not surrender the control they already asserted.  This is a fact of government.  It is immutable.But next Tuesday, I believe that we have a chance to rebel against ObamaCare up and down all levels of government.  From the city council races to the state legislature to the House to the Senate to the Governor's races, Americans have a chance to either directly or indirectly punish anyone whoever so much as smiled about the Health Care atrocity.  Not one single Democrat should be trusted in this election cycle.  Who could ever forget Bart Stupak's sickening last minute deal to give a totally non-enforceable wink and nod regarding the federal funding of abortion?  And who could ever forget Ben Nelson's capitulation to out-and-out bribes for the benefit of his state (in exchange for his vote)?  These men are beneath contempt.  Next Tuesday, Americans have a responsibility to tell Washington D.C. - "not so fast".It will go down in history as a clear fact that the Obama administration (and their suck-up friends in the mainstream media) dramatically mis-read the election of 2008.  The gall of ObamaCare can only be explained by the idea that these people actually thought they had such a mandate.  They now know they didn't.I still believe the GOP is one or two votes short in the Senate, but I believe the House will see over 50 votes switch to the Republican side, and I believe the Governor races are going to be an utter disaster for Democrats (which means real pain and misery for them in 2012, by the way).  And if I do get to retire to my bed Tuesday night with the feeling that some part of America was improved by the election results, I hope it is because on Tuesday Americans thought about ObamaCare and replied like any God-fearing American would: "We're mad as hell, and we're not going to take it any more."