Sometimes citizens feel helpless to influence events.
I don’t know about you, but my feeling of helplessness was almost palpable last spring when Congress voted in 2,000-plus pages of mostly unread legislation that has the capacity to affect the most personal medical decisions of everybody in this country.
But there is something we can do.
Independent Women’s Voice is launching the ObamaCare Repeal Pledge.
You can make sure that your candidates sign it and, if you are not a candidate, that you sign the People’s Promise; it states that you will not to support any candidate for public office who refuses to sign the Repeal Pledge. There is an incumbent’s pledge. (Michael Barone has a good summary of what’s in the IWV Repeal Pledge. Our web site also has some excellent material on why this is an especially effective pledge.)
Please read—and sign—our pledge. One of the reasons I like it so much is that there is no wiggle room: incumbents and candidates who sign will agree to do everything necessary to repeal and replace the health bill enacted against the will of the majority of citizens—and they will agree to support the intermediate steps, including defunding.
I think we are at a watershed moment. For the first time in my memory, a huge number of voters are serious about cutting the cost of government. Many of us feel we are losing our personal liberties, those liberties that have made the United States unique among nations. We really do want change. I think politicians know this. They know how angry we are about being ignored (we do get to pay the bill, though).
But politicians are—politicians.
That’s why the pledge is essential.
If there is the expected dramatic shift in the make-up of Congress after the midterms, we still have to make sure politicians do what they told us they’d do.
The pledges are a way of getting clarity on what they are promising to do. Let’s get their promises in writing.