Op-ed de Pawlenty en el Union Leader

Artículo de opinión del Gobernador Tim Pawlenty en el Union Leader, periódico de referencia para los votantes republicanos de New Hampshire. Habla de recortar el gasto público y revocar la nueva ley de asistencia sanitaria.

Time to close the open bar in Washington

(...) Lobbyists, public-employee unions and special interests will fight every change. They'll insist that every program is sacred, every cut is too deep, and every reform will fail. But they're wrong.

The story in my state of Minnesota is instructive. In the four decades before I was elected governor, Minnesota's biennial budget increased an average of about 21 percent -- the same rate that the federal budget grew during President Obama's first two years in the White House. But under my watch, we cut that rate of growth down to less than 2 percent annually. Last year, we cut the 2-year budget in real terms for the first time in Minnesota's 150-year history.

It wasn't easy, especially in such a historically liberal state, but we proved it was possible to cut spending.

For example, when it came to state employees and their health care, we gave individuals more freedom and responsibility to decide how to spend their own money. What does that mean? To reverse the trend of soaring health care costs in Minnesota, we gave our state employees financial incentives to select high-quality, low-cost health care. With some of their own skin in the game, the vast majority of employees chose more efficient providers. As a result, over the last five years we've seen low, and in some years no, premium increases.

Contrast that with President Obama's approach to health care reform. It drags health care into Washington, D.C., expanding bureaucracy, mandates, entitlements and government subsidies. It does nothing to control costs. And once again, the government will serve up the allure of endless consumption and a magically disappearing bill. But we know nothing is truly free.

The new House of Representatives should make repeal of ObamaCare a top priority. And as I did in Minnesota, newly elected governors around the country should refuse to embrace it and join lawsuits to overturn it. (...)