Congress thinks they’re done once they vote on something. We must show them that they’re never done until we say they are. We must continue to fight the coercive, statist, healthcare bill.
Use the promises Obama and other Democrats made to win election to make your case. Here’s how I did it in my letter to Congress (you can copy some or all of it for your own letter) . . .
I want Congress to scrap the healthcare bill the House just passed, and the similar bill pending in the Senate.
It seems to me that Obama and many other Democrats lied to win election (just like the Republicans did before them). We were promised . . .
- No mandates requiring Americans to buy health insurance
- No tax increases on Americans earning less than $250,000 a year
- A tax cut for the middle class
The House and Senate healthcare bills break these promises.
The Baucus bill in the Senate contains the following language on page 29: “The consequence for not maintaining (health) insurance would be an excise tax.”
This is both a mandate and a tax increase — two broken promises in one short sentence.
Congress wants to force all Americans — including those who earn less than $250,000 a year — to buy government mandated insurance (a tax!), or pay a tax penalty if we don’t. Either way we’re going to pay higher taxes to comply with your wishes, or face a policeman’s gun if we refuse.
To make matters worse, the Congressional leadership wants to force me to include the IRS in my personal healthcare decisions. The Baucus bill requires . . .
- Individuals, health insurers, employers, and government health agencies to report detailed health insurance information on all Americans to the IRS.
- The IRS to report my personal income level to state exchanges, insurance companies, and employers, as part of a scheme to control how much insurance I can have, and how much I can spend out of my own pocket.
Complying with these regulations will cost money. That’s another tax, and another broken promise.
It get’s worse. The Baucus plan actually depends on the non-compliance tax to fund itself! A report issued by the Joint Committee on Taxation and the Congressional Budget Office projects the federal government will raise about $2.8 billion from these individual mandate penalties.
I will also have to pay the cost of employer mandated coverage, or the tax penalty employers will pay if they don’t provide coverage. This mandate/tax scheme will increase the prices I pay for goods and services. I could even lose my job if my employer can’t afford to buy the mandated insurance, or has to pay the penalty for not buying it. But this part of the scheme is even worse than it sounds, because . . .
The employer mandate/tax is rigged to hit hardest on small businesses that employ workers from low-income families. But there’s more . . .
The Senate bill expands Medicaid by $37 billion. The states fund most of Medicaid. Where will they get the money? . . . from the Martians? No. They’ll get it from me by raising my state taxes at the behest of Congress.
And, of course, these increased state taxes are likely to fall on people who earn less than $250,000!
First the Republicans promised us fiscal restraint and no nation building. We gave them power and they broke their promises. Then the Democrats promised us middle class tax cuts, no middle class tax increases, and no expensive health insurance mandates. We gave them power and they too broke their promises. PLEASE STOP LYING TO US!
Scrap the healthcare bills! DO IT NOW!
END OF SAMPLE LETTER
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Jim Babka
President, DownsizeDC.org, Inc.
Sources:
You can see Barack Obama and Joe Biden making tax promises that are now being broken . . .
Obama: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q8erePM8V5U
Biden: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ShDaWICNZ4
You can find an analysis of future IRS involvement in healthcare, and the impact of the employer mandate/tax on small businesses and low income families here: http://www.heritage.org/Research/HealthCare/wm2619.cfm