A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Town Hall
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
By: Tom Schatz

Government Waste Watch, Fall 2009

The opening song of the 1966 play “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum” includes the following:  “something appealing, something appalling, something for everyone…”  Of course, what transpires afterwards is “comedy tonight,” a stark contrast to the deadly serious debate over healthcare that transpired over the August recess in town hall meetings held members of Congress.

When representatives and senators left for the August recess without completing healthcare legislation, they had their usual schedule of town hall meetings set up in advance.  Members traditionally use this month-long break to head back home to hear what the voters have to say on a variety of topics; however, it was clear to everyone that the major focus, at least from the taxpayers’ point of view, would be healthcare.

Members received far more than an earful.  Several cancelled their meetings and set up telephone or Internet discussions, apparently afraid to hear their constituents eagerly expressing their First Amendment right to free speech.

On August 3, which was the first day of recess for the House of Representatives, Rep. Lloyd Doggett (D-Texas), who has been in Congress since 1995 and won his last election with 66 percent of the vote in a safe Democratic district around Austin, was confronted by angry protestors at a town hall meeting.  Many shouted “Just Say No” to healthcare.  They were particularly upset after Rep. Doggett said he would vote for the healthcare plan even if a majority of voters were against it.

The response from Democrats was swift and pointed.  Senate Majority Whip Richard Durbin (D-Ill.) said that “health insurance companies and people like them are trying to load these town halls for visual impact on television.”  Rep. Doggett called them “a mob” that was part of “the party of no.”

On August 4, Sen. Arlen Specter (D-Pa.), who abandoned the Republican party on ?, was roundly booed when he appeared with Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sibelius to push for the Obamacare plan.  Sen. Specter faced another skeptical crowd of more than 800 on August 11.

These events were part of a very hot and bothersome August for those members of Congress who support Obamacare, as the Obama/Pelosi/Reid nationalized healthcare proposal is often called.

Media reports, fueled in part by the Democratic Party, cited these events as “Astroturf” grassroots, meaning they were organized and funded by the Republican Party and conservative organizations.  The same claims were made against the Tax Day Tea Party events around the nation on April 15.  However, it did not take long for “the other side” labor unions and liberal interest groups to organize their members and supporters to attend the rallies.  At a rally in Baltimore on August 10, Sen. Ben Cardin’s office received 1,200 RSVPs for a Towson University concert hall that held 500.  Protestors outside the venue shouted across the street at each other, arguing both policy and which group had more pre-made signs.  Many of the healthcare reform supporters were carrying signs from Health Care for America now, while opponents carried around 20 questions for Sen. Cardin and “Obamacare” that had been circulated prior to the event, according to an August 12 article in The Washington Post.

The media has been focused on the “tone” of the questioners and the “manufactured” questions that were sent out by Republican/conservative organizations.  That is not newsworthy; every political event has talking points for participants on both sides.  Indeed, President Obama was a community organizer, so he recognized a good rally and debate when he saw one.  The White House immediately shifted into “campaign mode” and attempted to activate the 13 million Obama campaign email names that were now under the control of the Democratic National Committee to express their support for healthcare reform.

We at Citizens Against Government Waste can say with some authority that the vast majority of the protestors are just what they seem ordinary Americans who are fed up with the bank bailout, the auto bailout, the stimulus, and now healthcare.  No one forces anyone to show up at a rally (except perhaps labor unions which of course have been fully supportive of nationalized healthcare) or say anything they don’t want to say.  It is possible that the widespread use of online video clips has exacerbated some of the rhetoric, but most people are just trying to calmly express their views.

CAGW’s lobbying arm, the Council for Citizens Against Government Waste (CCAGW) organized hundreds of Taxpayer Action Day rallies in the early 1990s.  There was no widespread use of modern technology such as cell phones and email, so it was all done by telephone, fax, and snail mail.  Today, with Twitter, Facebook, myspace, and other social networking added to email and cell phones, anyone can organize a rally and convey information quickly.

Many of the people who were initially angry at “big business,” believing that they had made poor choices and bad investments that led to the recession, are now looking at federal control of vast swaths of the economy and have decided that government is by far the greater threat to their health, freedom, independence, choice, and livelihood.  Only in Washington could politicians make everyone else look good.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) did their side no favors when they wrote an op-ed in the August 10 USA Today that the behavior of the anti-healthcare reform advocates, calling it “an ugly campaign” “not merely to misrepresent the health insurance reform legislation, but to disrupt public meetings...”  They called attempts to “drown out opposing views” as being “simply un-American.”

It did not take long for the House Republican Conference to find a quote from the January 6, 2006 San Francisco Chronicle, in which Speaker Pelosi was quoted following a meeting with a group of anti-war protestors: “It’s always exciting…This is democracy in action.  I’m energized by it, frankly.”

The real problem for the Obama/Pelosi/Reid plan, as Leslie Paige writes in these pages, is that the more Americans know about the plan, the less supportive they have become.  This is particularly true of senior citizens, a group that has the lowest percentage of support of any other age group.

At the same time Democrats in Washington believe that Americans should not be able to choose their own doctors, they also apparently believe that they are incapable of choosing to participate in a protest without being told what to do by someone else.  No wonder people are outraged, and doing “funny things” on the way to the town hall.