Conservative dissatisfaction with President Obama is profound, and being asked to select three items that would merit immediate change in a new Administration invites the question, “Where to begin?”
Social, economic and military policy are intertwined: a strong, growing economy is impossible without strong, stable families. Those families are foundational to our national security, which depends on human and financial capital to retain its leading-edge position in the world.
Here are three items that Mr. Obama’s successor should pursue:
• Obamacare must be repealed. The provision requiring all Americans to hold health insurance — the so-called mandate — is, as federal judge Roger Vinson ruled last year, unconstitutional. Additionally, the legislation subsidizes abortion and abortifacient drugs and leads to the oppressive mandate that demands persons of faith to comply with the will of the Administration even if doing so violates one’s religious beliefs. And Obamacare simply won’t work; revoking the law’s financial burdens (with new taxes on everything from wheelchairs to families with special-needs children) will save trillions of dollars and untold lives as access to the world’s finest system of health care is preserved and enhanced through private-sector-based innovations. Revoking the law in its entirety would also protect millions from government-run health care.
• The next President needs to give top priority to passage of the No Taxpayer Funding of Abortion Act and the repeal of the Obama health care mandate against conscience rights. The fact that religious liberty is the first freedom listed in the Bill of Rights is deliberate. Our Founders understood that one’s obligation to God took precedence to one’s allegiance to the state. Sadly, this principle seems lost on our current Chief Executive.
• Increasing the child tax credit to $5,000 would be a practical step toward easing the burdens on America’s families. More than 50% of the American people rely on one or more federal programs to make ends meet. This cannot continue if we are serious about sustaining representative self-government. And at a time when fewer than half of America’s children grow up in two-parent homes, we need to foster policies that encourage marriage, discourage divorce and cohabitation and recognize that children are a blessing, not an inconvenience.
The challenges before us are grave. It’s time to summon the moral courage to enact the policies and make the hard choices we need for America to enjoy a hopeful future.
Perkins is the president of the Family Research Council. The views expressed are solely his own.
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