Once again, the Tea Party has become the favorite “whipping boy” of the left — this time with the ridiculously laughable and delusional assertion by Douglas Zeigler in the Roofers and Waterproofers Local 81 newsletter from Oakland, California, that Obamacare was “hatched in congress by mostly ‘Tea Party activists’ along with their insurance company lobbyists.”

Just when you thought you’d heard it all. Blame it on us!

In Mr. Zeigler’s alternate reality, Obamacare is somehow the fault of the Tea Party.

Zeigler does acknowledge that the Affordable Health Care Act is anything but “affordable,” lamenting rising health insurance costs to the detriment of those it was supposed to help.

One wonders, though, where this man and others who think like him have been for the last 3-4 years? Living under a rock completely unexposed to the Obamacare banter?

I find that hard to believe. Even “low information voters” understand that the Pelosi-Reid-Obama troika was 100% responsible for Obamacare.

On March 9, 2010, then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi said of the Affordable Care Act:

“We have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it, away from the fog of controversy.”

That infamous quote along with all the political jockying in 2010 went viral. Mr. Zeigler must have had his head in the sand during Obama’s first two years in office not to notice.

He might find it enlightening to know that 219 Democrats voted “Yes” for Obamacare whereas ZERO Republicans (null, zip, nada, zilch) voted “Yes.” Ouch!

In fact, all Republicans—including the handful who, at that time, associated with the Tea Party movement—voted AGAINST Obamacare along with 34 Democrats.

It strains credulity to believe anyone could be that oblivious but then again — in man-on-the-street interviews, people actually thought that Sarah Palin was Obama’s running mate.

No, I don’t imagine he was unexposed or even ignorant of the process. It’s more likely that he was just another “useful idiot” blindly trusting his union leaders, dutifully attending rallies and town halls with his union’s imprimatur and fully equipped with pre-made, pro-Obamacare signs supplied by his union.

He was probably misled into believing that his people would be taken care of if there were any messy glitches with Obamacare.

Remember all of the waivers granted to big unions and companies that supported Obama?

Now that “working families” and the middle class are feeling the pinch, they have to blame someone and they cannot point fingers at the very man they re-elected. That might suggest that they were, um, wrong.

So, they might as well do what they always do when backed into a political corner and change the narrative. This time, in addition to casting tea partiers as racist, sexist, homophobic, radicals, they have planted the seed that we are “birthers”—having given
“birth” to Obamacare.

But here’s the truth:  The Tea Party movement was a direct, grassroots response to the mammoth, out-of-control spending of the Obama Administration and the 111th Democrat –controlled congress in the months after they first took power. The Tea Party coalesced around Obamacare in the summer and fall of 2009 trying to prevent it, read it, defeat it, and expose it.

It was the passage of Obamacare on March 21, 2010 (much to the chagrin of over 60% of the country that opposed it) that ushered in a wave during the 2010 mid-term elections of the first “official” Tea Party candidates. No one—not even Democrats and their cronies in the press—denies that this was a clear referendum on Obamacare by Democrat and Republican voters who had it with government spending and overreach.

Tea Party activists who got elected couldn’t have hatched Obamacare prior to the 2010 mid-term elections, because they weren’t in office at that time.

The handful of Republicans in the 111th Congress who sympathized with the neophyte movement could not have hatched Obamacare because the entire concept of it—the expense, the regulations, the taxes and the government overreach—go against everything any tea partier ever stood for.

And, even if it were a Tea Party “baby”, conservatives didn’t have any voice in Nancy Pelosi’s Congress.

In any case, Pelosi and Obama have consistently and proudly touted Obamacare as his singular achievement in the first term. There is nothing in the record to suggest we owned this one. Quite the contrary.

As further evidence that Tea Party activists did not hatch Obamacare, Mr. Zeigler might take note that the 2010 and 2012 Republican Congresses have actually voted to repeal ObamaCare 33 times—yes, 33 times!

So, they had to pass the bill in order to kill the bill? That makes sense.

So, Mr. Zeigler and members of the Roofers and Waterproofers Local 81, you have been either been duped or have allowed yourselves to be used.

Your union and Democrat leaders did not enact Obamacare because it is what’s best for youand your family. They did it because it was what’s best for them. They did it for your vote.

For unsuspecting union activists like Mr. Zeigler, Pelosi was correct: you had to pass the bill, to see what’s in it.

Tea Partiers were reviled for being outraged at rallies and town halls because they were paying attention. It seems Mr. Zeigler is outraged because he wasn’t paying attention.

Photo Credit: Sally Zelikovsky addresses Bay Area patriots in San Francisco.

 

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