a Republican filibuster with a shockingly controversial maneuver—reconciliation. A tool intended only for budget adjustments, a reconciliation caps debate at twenty hours and requires only fifty-one votes for a majority. Because of this, the Republicans’ gain of Brown’s Senate seat was inconsequential. Despite much opposition, Democrats were able to ram through the unpopular legislation.
Their decision to ignore the will of the people had been bold, inspired, and politically toxic. Government spending was reaching a critical point because the economy, while showing signs of occasional growth, still was not creating jobs. The economic uncertainty in Washington had created an unwelcome environment for investors: the wealthy held on to their capital rather than risking it on new ventures. Congress had passed other industry-specific stimulus bills, like “Cash for Clunkers,” a failing program designed to boost auto sales by paying people for their old cars in hopes they would turn around and buy new ones. Other new bills had included the $8,000 per homebuyer tax credit, mortgage payment relief, and a new jobless pay extension of up to 99 weeks. Yet all of this legislation had merely stolen car and home purchases from the future, with sales falling immediately once the tax benefits expired.
The recovery that appeared to have begun in the summer of 2009 had decelerated. While gross domestic product (GDP) growth had hit 5% in the fourth quarter on the backs of an inventory rebound and overseas expansion, it had slumped to 1.6% in the second quarter. The unemployment rate had hit 9.6% after three consecutive months of job losses. Never before had the government spent so much and intervened so directly in credit allocation to spur economic growth. Yet in return for adding nearly $3 trillion in Federal debt in two years’ time, the government found that 14.9 million Americans remained unemployed.
The 2,400-page Affordable Care Act came with a tidal wave of regulations which, when taken together, promised to fundamentally alter the lives of each and every American. The President’s program centralized medical decisions in Washington. Politicians now were able to decide what healthcare plans should be offered, what benefits should be included, how much people should pay in premiums, and what medical trade-offs should be made.
Opponents protested immediately and in depth. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich said, “Turning power over to the government could lead to selective standards and euthanasia,” meaning the Affordable Care Act would perversely discourage cost-saving provisions by administrative action to limit excessive care or attempts to prevent fraud. The Act would restrict the sort of health insurance policies, such as consumer-oriented health savings accounts, that could be offered. Insurers would be penalized for unpredictable changes in healthcare costs. Skeptics warned the new measures would ultimately drive some insurers out of the market or even out of business, while the Congressional Budget Office cautioned, “A policy that affected a majority of issuers would be likely to substantially reduce flexibility in terms of the types, prices, and number of private sellers of health insurance.”
Moments after the legislation was signed into law Republicans vowed to repeal the measure. Attorney generals in more than a dozen states filed lawsuits contending the measure’s mandate that forced all Americans to purchase healthcare or pay a fine was unconstitutional.
“This is a somber day for the American people,” said House Republican Leader John Boehner. “By signing this bill, President Obama is abandoning our founding principle that government governs best when it governs closest to the people.”
Opposition to the Act unified Libertarians, moderate Republicans, and even blue-collar Democrats in the call for reform. As a result, the Tea Party was increasing in mass and magnitude, and it was in the Tea Party that Ronald Reagan found his third act.
Speaking to a group of Tea Party activists at the Des Moines Small Business Owner’s Convention, Reagan said, “The government in Washington is spending some seven million dollars every minute I talk to you. There’s no connection between my talk and their spending, and if they stop spending, I’ll stop talking.”
At every stop, Americans were asking Reagan to throw his hat in the ring again. He often smiled, sometimes winking at the suggestion, but publicly stayed mum on the subject. Privately, though, Reagan was preparing, telling his advisors, “Get ready. I’m going to make one last jump.”
Chapter 4
Reagan stared in disbelief at the message he had just typed on his iPad. It was July 22, 2011, and he was sitting alone in his Des Moines hotel room with a finger suspended in the air, hovering over the update button. It had been over a year since Reagan had started seriously considering another Presidential run. Through all the months of uncertainty and angst, he had slept soundly. But now he found himself wide awake, with a pounding heart, consumed by the two words on the screen: “I’M RUNNING.”
He took a deep breath and tapped his finger down, updating his Facebook status for more than 300,000 supporters. There was no turning back—for the third time in his life, Ronald Reagan had become a candidate for President of the United States.
In the months preceding this moment, there had been a frantic rush of town hall meetings, roadside dinners, and VFWs as Reagan toured the country, warning people about the dangers of the liberal healthcare overhaul while promoting his own plan, Free Market Healthcare Solutions. His scathing stump speech was an enormous success and one audience member’s taped account went viral on YouTube. In his speech, Reagan called for the repeal of ObamaCare (the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act) and warned that its individual mandate provisions and high costs amounted to backdoor socialism:
“One of the traditional methods of imposing statism or socialism on a people has been by way of medicine. It’s very easy to disguise a medical program as a humanitarian project. Most people are a little reluctant to oppose anything that suggests medical care for people who can’t afford it.
“Now, the American people, if you put it to them about socialized medicine and gave them a chance to choose, would unhesitatingly vote against it. We had an example of this in poll after poll.
“It was proposed that we have a compulsory health insurance program for all people in the United States and of course the American people unhesitatingly rejected it.
“So, with the American people on record not wanting socialized medicine, President Obama and the Democrats rammed through the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.
“This bill mandated that all people be brought into a program of compulsory health insurance. Now, by supporting this bill, President Obama was subscribing to a foot-in-the-door philosophy, because he said if we can break through and get our foot in the door then we can expand our program after that.
“The socialists themselves say now that once the Affordable Care Act is passed we will be provided with a mechanism for socialized medicine capable of indefinite expansion in every direction until it includes the entire population.
“Well, we can’t say we haven’t been warned.
“It is provided as a national emergency that millions of Americans are left without care. Advocates of this bill challenge us on an emotional basis. They say, ‘What would you do, throw these people out to die with no medical attention?’ That’s ridiculous and it’s something of course that no one has advocated.
“Now what reason could these other people have for backing a bill which says we insist on compulsory health insurance for citizens regardless of whether they are worth millions of dollars, whether they have an income, or whether they have savings? I think we can be excused for believing that this was simply an excuse to bring about what they wanted the entire time—socialized medicine.”
Reagan’s speaking tour did
