By now, it is quite clear Randy Hultgren has aligned himself with the far right wing Republican contingent responsible for shutting down our government and threatening the debt ceiling crisis. Conservative commentator Charles Krauthammer has actually termed Hultgren and his contingent of about 79 other representatives as the “suicide caucus.”
Hultgren and the rest of the Republican politicians known as the “suicide caucus” are called that because they signed Republican Mark Meadows’ letter, known as The Meadows Letter, which demands that House Speaker Boehner pass legislation to defund the Patient’s Rights and Affordability Care Act (ACA–Obamacare) and to commit to defund the ACA by using the continuing resolution to fund the government. In other words, shut down our government.
On August 21, Meadows, a freshman representative, presented his signed letter to Boehner asking him to commit to use the threat of a government shut down to defund the ACA. Meadows got help from a group called FreedomWorks, and Senators Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, and Mike Lee.
Also this August, Hultgren teamed up with Ted Cruz and a few other signers and supporters of the Meadows Letter for a Heritage Foundation event called Heritage Action Town Hall in Indiana in an effort to drum up support to defund the Patient Rights and Affordability Care Act (Obamacare). Ted Cruz’s father, Rafael Cruz, did the opening prayer.
This is part of a long-range effort put together by a large group of moneyed, corporate, well-oiled, well fed conservatives and “think tanks” with an ideological bend toward forging a government by private corporations and religious extremists (Hence Rafael Cruz presence at the Indiana Heritage Action Town Hall meeting) — rather than a government of and by the American people. Government regulations meant to ensure regular folks aren’t abused by the health insurance industry, as they have been in the past, are not to these conservatives liking. Making sure sick and vulnerable people get adequate healthcare gets in the way of the corporate profit motive.
This conservative group met shortly at (believe it or not) a “secret location” just after Obama took office to plan their agendas. The group was led by Edwin Meese III, former Attorney General. The group came up with a “blueprint to defunding Obamacare” they all signed. According to the New York Times article by Sheryl Gay Stolberg and Mike McIntire, “It articulated a take-no-prisoners legislative strategy that had long percolated in conservative circles: that Republicans could derail the health care overhaul if conservative lawmakers were willing to push fellow Republicans — including their cautious leaders — into cutting off financing for the entire federal government.”
“We felt very strongly at the start of this year that the House needed to use the power of the purse,” said Michael A. Needham, director of Heritage Action. “At least at Heritage Action, we felt very strongly from the start that this was a fight that we were going to pick.” (See: “Coalition Letter: Congress Must Honor Sequester Savings and Defund ObamaCare Before It Is Too Late,” by Matt Kibbe, FeedomWorks, February 14, 2013.)
Remember, Hultgren was part of the Heritage Action Town Hall in Indiana with Cruz. Remember, Hultgren signed The Meadows Letter. This government shut down did not come out of the blue. It was a planned strategy out of the conservative coalition that participated in that meeting at that ‘“secret location.”
Some of the participants and signers of the agreement to pick a fight with the ACA–a law that was enacted by Congress, signed by the President, upheld by the Supreme Court, and endorsed by American voters who reelected Obama partially on Obamacare–are: Club For Growth, Tea Party Patriots, Concerned Women for America, Constitutional Congress, Inc., Americans for Limited Government, National Taxpayers Union, American Civil Rights Union, Traditional Values Coalition, The Paul Revere Project, National Tax Limitation Committee, For America, FreedomWorks, Susan B. Anthony List, Taxpayers Protection Alliance, Let Freedom Ring, Council for National Policy, Independent Women’s Forum, The Mommy Lobby, American Values, Heritage Action for America, Citizens United, Liberty Counsel Action, 60 Plus Assoc., RedState.com., The Galen Institute, Freedom Action, Traditional Values Coalition, Inst. for Global Economic Growth, Council for National Policy, America’s PAC, Ending Spending, Coalition for a Fair Judiciary, The Fund for American Studies, Patrick Henry Center for Individual Liberty, Center for Civic Virtue, Gregory Management and many individuals.
While the names of the groups make their motives sound generous, kind, and patriotic, their efforts are aimed at privatizing government projects such as the education of our children, Medicare, Social Security, Medicaid; ending environmental regulations (many of them deny the overwhelming science of global warming); ending unions; and establishing a flat tax (long known to be particularly unbalanced and hard on middle and working class incomes).
Hultgren is not part of our father’s Republican party. Like Joe Walsh and Ted Cruz, he has “gone off the reservation” and joined a distinctly ideologically rigid corporate driven model of government. “We the people” is absent from Hultgren and the rest of his group’s agenda. While he is a handsome, soft spoken man with words that have a “nice” sounding spin, his actions show he favors a small group of moneyed, corporate, well-oiled, well-fed conservatives with an ideological bend toward forging a government of corporations and religious extremists rather than a government of the American people.
We in the Fourteenth District need to look at the facts with open eyes. Not the eyes of wishful thinking. Not eyes looking backward at the former “glory” of the Republican Party when we believed we could expect them to hold the line on fiscal responsibility. Hultgren has for some time been stepping into an arena of fiscal irresponsibility coupled with a frightening ideological blindness to compromise.
Tags: 2014 elections, ACA, Affordable Care Act, conservatives, Heritage Action, IL-14, Illinois, Mark Meadows, Obamacare, Randy Hultgren, Republicans, shut down, Tea Party, Ted Cruz, The Meadows Letter
