More than 1, 000 people rallied in the Upper Senate Park adjacent to the U.S. Capitol Tuesday afternoon to raise the heat on the Supreme Court as it went into its second day of deliberations in a demonstration sponsored by Americans for Prosperity.
Speakers including House Budget Committee Paul Ryan vowed to repeal the law if the Supreme Court fails to act. Each of the speakers raised the now familiar theme that there is no telling what the federal government will be able to get away with if it is allowed to force people to buy health insurance.
“We know what’s going on up there at the Supreme Court,” Ryan said. “I want to tell you what we are going to to; we are going to vote for a budget – a budget that’s going to repeal Obamacare.”
The vote will be largely symbolic because the budget will be dead on arrival in the Senate where Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid likely will not allow it to come up for a vote just like last year.
“You know what,” Ryan said. “We believe in the Constitution.”
Ryan, like those who followed him, argued that Obamacare trumps our individual rights and puts government in charge of the lives of ordinary Americans.
“We are going to reject it in Congress. We hare going to reject it in the Supreme Court, and this November we are going to reject it,” Ryan continued.
Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wisc., added a personal story to the mix talking about how his family was able to save the life of his daughter, who is now 28, when she had a congenital heart defect by having the choice of where to go to get the best care.
“This isn’t about health care; it’s about freedom,” Johnson said. “In my first year in Harry Reid’s do-nothing Senate, I’ve been trying to describe the problem, and folks, our problem is going to be very easy to describe.
“Far too many Americans have forgotten the foundational premise of this country that government is something to fear, not something to solve all of our problems, and …. as a result the left has been far too effective in addicting Americans on government.”
And others such as Media Research Center President Brent Bozell slammed Obama for passing the HHS Mandate that will force the Catholic Church and other religious institutions to provide abortion coverage in addition to contraception.
“You are not God. You are not my mother. Leave my country alone,” Bozell quipped.
He also vowed not to obey the mandate.
The rally also took on a bit of the character of an election year rally with people such as Rep. Allen West, R-Fla., vowing to send the president packing back to Chicago in November.
“George Will wrote this week that Obamacare is the last exit sign on the road to unlimited government,” Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C. said. “This court case is about more than health care; this court case is about what Patrick Henry said about the whether Constitution will be an instrument to restrain the government or whether it will be an instrument to restrain the people.”
