I had the opportunity to interview two Congressmen yesterday. One was Tom McClintock, a longtime conservative who serves California’s 4th District. He talks the conservative talk, but more refreshingly he walks it on some major issues, including not requesting a single earmark. He also knows his Constitution and actually shows up for work – he’s only missed one vote.
On healthcare – I asked him whether the Republicans will have an opportunity to strip out some of the really egregious nonsense like taxpayer funded Christian Scientist faith healing. No. They absolutely will not – Pelosi’s train wreck will go through undiluted, if it goes through at all. McClintock did offer an amendment that would have kept it deficit neutral but it was shot down in committee. He made a good point – it’s not just affirmative funding of things like the Christian Science issue that would have the ACLU screaming like a goth in the sun if it were a mainstream Christian denomination’s prayer session. It’s far worse than that. As McClintock put it,
The frightening thing is that under their bill, every one of us will be forced to purchase insurance that meets all of those mandates or end up being fined for not carrying such insurance.
I asked him about the Constitutionality of the mandate. McClintock focused, essentially, on voting the bums out. And of course, he’s right; that is the best option and it is greatly to his credit that it was his first reaction. Just as you can spot the liberal when the solution to every problem is more government (McCain-Feingold) you can spot conservatives the same way – Constitutional remedies are the first, best solution. My more immediate concern was challenging this current legislation; of course we should vote the bums out at our earliest opportunity, but what can we do to stop this, here and now? In my earlier interview with Congressman Mario Diaz-Balart, I had asked if there was anything a future GOP Congress could do to put the brakes on this. More on that here, but the short answer is not much, which is why I brought up the court challenge. McClintock agreed a court challenge is inevitable; he did not speculate on whether one would be successful.
It will be challenged, if it is adopted, but that misses the point. It should never be adopted. Every member of Congress takes an oath of office to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States. If they’re acting in a manner that is brazenly unconstitutional, the ultimate remedy is the ballot box.
I asked him next about energy, since Cap and Tax is still very high on the leftist wishlist. HR 49 is a bill that is before the House Committee on Natural Resources that would allow us to drill more. He says we don’t have the political will to get that passed now, nor for more nuclear energy. He is, however, in favor of those things and when the GOP takes back Congress, affordable American energy independence may be achievable.
When I pressed him on government reform for specific cuts he’d be willing to make, he was a bit slow to answer, finally coming up with the Department of Education; education would be returned to the states where it should have been all along. A very good start.
Finally, I asked him the William Shatneresque pageant question: What is the one thing citizens should be doing to stop the health care bill from passing?
He quoted Frederick Douglass: “Agitate, agitate, agitate.”
Get informed, and take that message to our fellow citizens in every forum we can find. It’s essential to keep the volume up and he gave a nice endorsement to the tea parties by saying,
Just look at the strides the American people have made in this debate over the past several months in the Pelosi takeover of our health care system. This was a bill that was supposed to have been signed into law at the beginning of the summer. Now it’s November, and Harry Reid’s now talking about, ‘Well, maybe next year.’ So that’s what the American people have done by entering and engaging in this debate over the summer and fall. So just keep doing that.
I think it’s wonderful that the GOP is finally doing more alternative media outreach, and I’m especially happy to have been included considering I’m not a Republican and have taken my share of shots against the GOP.
I’ll update this post with the transcript as soon as I get it.
Here’s the transcript. My notes in the original post do not match it precisely – it’s a professionally done transcript as opposed to the results of my flipping back and forth between Windows Media Player and Notepad with all sorts of distractions.
