On the eve of the Supreme Court's ruling on ObamaCare, and with the Justices now presumably beyond political pressure, the liberal intimidation campaign has moved on to other targets. The latest is the small business lobby for having dared to join 26 states in challenging the law.
According to the smear campaign against the National Federation of Independent Business, or NFIB, small businesses are thrilled with the Affordable Care Act and the trade group betrayed the 300,000 companies it represents. Among the dozens of media outlets publishing anti-NFIB op-eds disguised as reporting, Reuters recently asked in a headline, "Who truly speaks for small businesses?" The question mark was superfluous.
The chairmen of the House Progressive Caucus, Democrats Raul Grijalva and Keith Ellison, chimed in with a letter accusing the NFIB of acting against "the best interest of small business owners" and "the popular opinion of the American small business community." They suggest Karl Rove is behind the suit, as he is everything else.
To the extent this passion play with the NFIB as Judas has any grounding in reality, the claim is that Mom and Pop shops will benefit from ObamaCare's subsidies. But among the four million small businesses eligible for new tax credits if they provide health insurance for their workers, a mere 170,300 have signed up.
And if the NFIB is as unrepresentative as liberals claim, then why have its ranks grown by 5% since it became a plaintiff in the ObamaCare suit? The charge is especially rich because NFIB regularly polls its full membership to inform its Washington agenda, something few trade associations do.
NFIB's members have ranked controlling health-care costs as their top priority every year since . . . 1986. Some 65% believe ObamaCare will do the opposite and 77% believe it will result in a higher tax burden, which are among the reasons the group joined the suit. One in five small businesses believes it'll be forced to alter the benefits it offers employees.
For a look at what an interest group acting against the interests of its members actually looks like in practice, consult the AARP documents in the House's investigation into ObamaCare log-rolling. On July 29, 2009, for example, an AARP functionary forwarded a memo to the White House explaining that callers were getting "very emotional and passionate." The email notes that 4,210 seniors phoned headquarters that day about health care, with 4,174 opposed....
Democrats do not handle rejection very well. Rather than learning something from the experience they lash out in a way that further alienates them from the people they failed to persuade in the first instance. And, they are very busy these days lashing out at people who don't support them and they are apoplectic against those who support Republicans and Romney. This is clearly not good long term thinking.
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