This is the defining moment in Congressman Michael Arcuri’s career.
This is the moment that Arcuri decides if he lives in, as Ben Franklin called it, "a republic, if you can keep it." Franklin knew that every democracy in history destroyed itself from within when the people discovered they could vote themselves more benefits than they could afford.
This is the moment that Arcuri decides if the market economy, despite its faults, will survive in America, because so far, stampeding voters with fear, his party has commandeered the banking, transportation, and education sectors, and they are on their way to do the same with charity, communication, and the one-sixth of the economy that is health care.
Still, Arcuri postures that he is "reading" the bill. What he needs to read are the specific concerns raised about the three versions — presidential, House, and Senate — of irretrievable jumble that passes under the false label of health care reform and that instead form the platform for a nomenklatura — a new ruling bureaucratic elite that will further break the economic engine that brought this country so far.
Arcuri can "read" the 1,990-page House bill, full as it is with legalese and technical jargon — even understand it — and never be able to project with certainty what will result from it. That alone should cause him to vote "No." This Frankenstein’s monster of misplaced do-goodery is a runaway train from which, even well-intentioned Democrats may never be able to recover.
Arcuri already knows that the bill is unsustainable. It taxes voters for 10 years to "pay" for six years of coverage. He knows that cost containment depends on cutting more than 20 percent of Medicare coverage, which Congress does not have the political will to do. He knows that forcing business to surrender eight percent of their payroll to government will eat into employee wages. He knows the bill’s complexity is a mechanism for rent-seekers to lobby Congress for special treatment for special friends. He knows that money, sucked into government will cut down on what little competition we already have under legislative insurance mandates. He knows that a "health choices commissioner" who decides "essential benefits" will make your choices for you.
Yes, by all means give Arcuri his chance to "read" the bill.
That will give him time to consider the most important vote he is going to make in his career. Is Arcuri willing to stand up to the venal political class like Nancy Pelosi, Barney Frank, Henry Waxman, Charlie Rangel, John Conyers, and their ilk, who use their power to consolidate their ability to milk the system? Is he willing to trust the economic engine that brought us so far? Is he willing to recall Ben Franklin’s ominous warning?
Or will he, in one vote, cheat his children of the life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness that owning one’s own labor can produce?
