The WSJ sees something like the end of the republic if Obamacare passes:
Democrats are on the cusp of a profound and historic mistake, comparable in our view to the Smoot-Hawley tariff and FDR’s National Industrial Recovery Act. Everyone is preoccupied now with the politics, but ultimately at stake on Sunday is the kind of country America will be.
The consequences of this bill will not only be destructive for the health-care system and the country’s fiscal condition, though those will be bad enough. Inextricably bound up in a plan as far-reaching and ambitious as ObamaCare are also larger questions about the role of government, the dynamism of American enterprise and the nature of a free society…
Once the health-care markets are put through Mr. Obama’s de facto nationalization, costs will further explode. The Congressional Budget Office estimates ObamaCare will cost taxpayers $200 billion per year when fully implemented and grow annually at 8%, even under low-ball assumptions. Soon the public will reach its taxing limit, and then something will have to give on the care side…
Democrats deny this reality, but government rationing will become inevitable given that overall federal spending is already at 25% of GDP and heading north, and Medicare’s unfunded liabilities are roughly two and a half times larger than the entire U.S. economy in 2008. The ObamaCare bill already contains one of the largest tax increases outside the Great Depression or the world wars, including a major new tax on investment income — and no one seriously believes it will be enough.
We share a number of the Journal’s concerns, but if the last year has taught us anything, it has taught us the danger of drawing straight lines. The President was once very popular; now more American voters strongly disapprove of Obama than in total approve of him, however tepidly. If healthcare passes, it does not go away — it becomes a topic that will continue to dominate the national dialogue until November and beyond, in our view to the detriment of Democrats.
There’s a deep anger about this legislative process and about congress itself among many Americans, the kind that doesn’t fade easily. Unlike the clear majority of Americans favoring past healthcare reforms, there is no natural or national majority for this bill — the proof of that is that Democrats have been able to pass a bill for a year, and even the day before a vote is scheduled, they are still bickering among themselves and don’t have a clear path to a majority vote.
As for Republicans and Independents. the vast majority of whom oppose this measure, their opposition to the Obama agenda gives them a great deal in common as they stand together athwart history yelling “Stop!”
Moreover, there is a great deal of fury over the arrogance and rank corruption of America’s legislators. Matthew Continetti: “When you bake a cake, everything depends on the selection of ingredients and the manner of preparation. So, too, with the law. Health care reform’s inputs — the partisanship, the special deals, the procedural tricks, the budgetary gimmicks — will directly affect its outputs, i.e., its consequences. They are part and parcel of a $1 trillion-plus health bill that will raise taxes, cut Medicare, become ridiculously expensive sooner rather than later, and poison politics for a long time to come…The process is the substance.” Many of the opponents of this legislation don’t think simply that it’s a bad bill — they think it is an illegitimate bill.
There’s a need for real healthcare reform that is simple, incremental, and relies on decentralized solutions, and market solutions whenever possible. There is a need to control runaway entitlement spending. There’s an urgent need to get the skyrocketing deficit under control. Top-down, centrally imposed grand schemes for new entitlements are the wrong fantasy at the wrong time, and we think a clear majority of Americans know this. We may be wrong, but we expect the anti-Washington mood to grow, and we expect November to reveal that, while we may be a deeply divided country, we are no longer such a closely divided country.