“The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.” – Tenth Amendment to the United States Constitution
Late Sunday night, the United States House of Representatives passed a massive health care reform bill that Americans strongly opposed and rallied against. Passed by a slim majority and with bipartisan opposition, the bill represented everything the public despises about Washington-backroom deals, parliamentary chicanery, arrogant power grabs, and fiscal recklessness.
The president and congressional leaders have said they know better than the American public-dismissing public opposition in the name of socializing our health care system, betting that the public will support their efforts once the bill has passed. But they are wrong and will quickly see that they have stirred an anger that will only grow, as people recognize their freedoms are slipping away.
America and Texas need not wait for another wake-up call. Our federal government has sought to nationalize major parts of our country’s automotive industry, financial system, health care sector, and even the “jobs” machinery. These are things you typically hear out of despotic regimes, not countries who found a path to prosperity by empowering citizens over their government instead of the other way around.
Those in the Congress and the Obama Administration wish to take away the ability for states to be the laboratories of democracy, preferring instead for a command-and-control bureaucracy where Texas is indistinct from California or New York.
Our federal government is broken and working against us. It is our job at the Texas Public Policy Foundation to defend Texas’ liberty. Sunday night’s health care vote is not the beginning of the end. Rather, it is the end of the beginning. The health care debate has engaged Americans on a much more fundamental question: what is the proper balance of power between the federal government, the states…and the people?
During the next several months, the Texas Public Policy Foundation will begin to educate policymakers and the general public about the constitutional intrusion of federal government beyond what the Founding Fathers intended, the negative consequences of this expansion for the states and the people, and viable solutions for the states to avoid the costly and abusive interference by the federal government.
As one example, the health care reform will push 16 million Americans into Medicaid, a dysfunctional federal insurance program for the poor and disabled that barely has the ability to serve the 60 million people already using it. And who will eventually pay for this mandatory expansion of care? The states.
As our executive director Arlene Wohlgemuth said in a press statement earlier today, “The runaway costs in Medicaid are at the core of Texas’ current budget problems, and this new federal law will increase Texas’ Medicaid caseload by 50 percent, putting one-fourth of Texas’ population into this government program. The federal government has no right to co-opt state budgets in the manner that it is with Medicaid.”
Unfortunately, health care is only one of hundreds of examples of how the federal government burdens the states with demands that are difficult-if not impossible-to meet, and enmeshes itself in decisions that should be yours and mine to make as free people.
But as much as we’d like to wave a magic wand and return things to as our Founding Fathers intended, that’s not how things work in the real world. We understand that the first step of fixing a problem is to understand exactly how big of a mess you’re in. (“Really gosh darned big” doesn’t cut it.)
That is why the Texas Public Policy Foundation will apply our expertise and develop the independent research that will help Texans realize the extent of the federal government’s overreach and provide practical solutions to help restore a proper balance and allows Texans to govern Texas-and to govern themselves. We hope you will help us toward this end.
Thank you for standing with me to defend our Constitution and freedom. Texas’ economy is the envy of those across the nation. Our talented team will work tirelessly to ensure that Texas continues to be the beacon of freedom and prosperity for the rest of the country and the world.
– Brooke Rollins