Franklin T. Bell, CFM, RPA, FMA    Columbia, MD 21045

Barbara A. Mikulski   Benjamin L. Cardin

My Dear Ms. Mikulski and Mr. Cardin:

It is absolutely vital to the preservation of our Republic that you refuse to participate in and, in fact, defeat Obamacare! Here’s why:

1. The Declaration of Independence guarantees us "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" - NOT taxpayer-furnished, mandatory, health insurance. And the U. S. Constitution provides NO basis, no matter how far the stretch, for forcing its citizens to pay for government-funded and government-run healthcare as a replacement of what we already have.
2. White House spokesman Robert Gibbs recently admitted that he doesn't know if government lawyers have reviewed OBAMACARE to determine whether or NOT it is constitutional. LIBERAL Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid didn't care if he had to BRIBE any Senator to get the 60 votes needed to start the Senate debate.
3. Not only will OBAMACARE cost more than $1 trillion, according to the Congressional Budget Office, and as much as $3 TRILLION according to other sources, at a time when government spending and government debt already are at record peacetime levels, simply put: WE CANNOT AFFORD THIS BILL AT ALL!
4. Barack Hussein Obama is overstepping his bounds in a mad rush to severely weaken - if not destroy - our Constitutional republic, by sinking his leftist hooks so deep into the American people that they'll never be removed!

Both the House and Senate health care reform bills require individuals to purchase federally-approved health insurance, and those who fail to do so could face criminal prosecution. "Using [criminal law] to enforce one particular notion of appropriate insurance coverage is nothing less than a tyrannical assertion of raw government power over the private lives and economic rights of individual Americans," write Heritage legal scholars Brian Walsh and Hans von Spakovsky. This abuse of governmental power does not bode well for freedom, as it specifically targets those who choose to make their own decisions regarding their health insurance.

Moderates like Senators Lincoln, Landrieu and Nelson are now viewed by their voters as servants of Senator Reid and the White House. They destroyed all their work to try and get their voters to see them as something other than liberal Democrats who will just spend and tax and spend. This was the highest price Senator Reid paid to win the vote to proceed to the bill: he has forced the so-called moderate Senators into looking like lap-dogs.

Now, the moderates must go above and beyond opposing the White House and Senator Reid for them to earn their so-called moderate label back. Right now, the voters are never again going to believe these Senator’s happy-talk about being concerned about the public option, or the deficit, or being pro-life, or fighting against new taxes, or opposing Medicare cuts. And the only thing dramatic enough is to vote against ending the filibuster of the ObamaCare. It is the only vote that matters now.

Meanwhile, the Democrats sink farther in the polls the longer health care is front and center — and the Senate rules are going to make sure the health care bill is front and center.

Here’s where the American people stand, Rasmussen Reports this morning: Just 38% of voters now favor the health care plan proposed by President Obama and congressional Democrats. That’s the lowest level of support measured for the plan in nearly two dozen tracking polls conducted since June.

The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 56% now oppose the plan.

And yet you are moving rapidly to enact this legislation in direct defiance of the American people's express wishes. You are defying representative government, raising the question: If not the people, who do you represent?

Indeed.  It is becoming increasingly clear that you are putting Party over country.  What the people want is being cast to the side in a rush to enact a highly radical, ideological agenda that puts primacy on the power of the state over the people

On Friday, November 20, 2009, a group of prominent Christian clergy, ministry leaders and scholars released the Manhattan Declaration, which addresses the sanctity of life, traditional marriage and religious liberty.  The 4,700-word declaration issues a clarion call to Christians to adhere to their convictions and informs civil authorities that the signers will not - under any circumstance - abandon their Christian consciences.  Excerpts from the declaration include:

· "We are Christians who have joined together across historic lines of ecclesial differences to affirm our right - and, more importantly, to embrace our obligation - to speak and act in defense of these truths.  We pledge to each other, and to our fellow believers, that no power on earth, be it cultural or political, will intimidate us into silence or acquiescence."

· "We recognize the duty to comply with laws whether we happen to like them or not, unless the laws are gravely unjust or require those subject to them to do something unjust or otherwise immoral."

· “We will not comply with any edict that purports to compel our institutions to participate in abortions, embryo-destructive research, assisted suicide and euthanasia or any other anti-life act; nor will we bend to any rule purporting to force us to bless immoral sexual partnerships, treat them as marriage or the equivalent or refrain from proclaiming the truth, as we know it, about morality and immorality and marriage and the family.”

Your health care "reform" bill includes:

1. A government "option." The Senate proposal would create a one-size-fits-all public plan to "compete" with private insurers. But the government will retain its role as regulator and thus stifle any competition and causing millions to lose their private coverage.
2. More people in failed programs. Both bills would place millions of Americans under the failing government-run Medicaid program, reducing subsidized benefits from those who truly need them and increasing the financial burden on the states.
3. Employer mandates. All employers of 50 people or more will be required to provide coverage that meets new federal standards or else face a hefty penalty. This mandate will disproportionately impact low-income workers.
4. Individual mandates. For the first time in history, all Americans will be forced to purchase federally approved coverage minimums. Those who fail to comply are subject to new tax penalties and, in some cases, jail time.

You people may be congratulating each other for producing a health care bill that meets the President's $900 billion cap. But its $849 BILLION price tag is a preliminary estimate only, and it really only has one place to go -- up.

History has proven that the government cannot run a business; the U.S. Postal Service has run at a loss for years and there is now a move to “bail it out;” AMTRAK is a disaster in terms of paying for itself, not to mention making money. Virtually everything you touch fails or grows to an unmanageable size, or costs ten times your estimates and now they are requiring “bailouts.” Why can’t you get the message?

How in the world can you add millions of people into a system that you say already is too expensive and save money at the same time? You must think we are brain-dead. Your proposals are preposterous and can only be designed to grow government and increase its control of our lives because it surely isn’t going to save money. And, to make matters worse, it won’t even do what you originally proposed to do; it still leaves millions of people without coverage - you people are a joke.

THERE IS A REVOLUTION COMING! I CAN FEEL IT!

Sincerely,