The conservative charge to repeal Obamacare is in trouble. House Speaker Paul Ryan has tried to rally the troops by reminding them of the Big Government tyranny of Obamacare. “Freedom is the ability to buy what you want to fit what you need,” Ryan recently tweeted. “Obamacare is Washington telling you what to buy regardless of your needs.”
This is familiar terrain for Ryan. He has warned that the safety net creates a “hammock” of dependency, sapping people of their initiative and autonomy. Barack Obama's center-left agenda, Ryan argued in 2012, “grows government, restricts freedom and liberty, and compromises those values, those Judeo-Christian, Western-civilization values that made us such a great and exceptional nation in the first place.”
That was the right's critique of the Obama years: that a decent, modern welfare state quashes freedom and is downright un-American. This line of attack has become so familiar, even omnipresent, that it's worth remembering how utterly it defies history and common sense. A decent government safety net that guarantees healthcare, guards against poverty, expands access to education, and aids families is far from a menace to individual freedom. In fact, it's the opposite: for most Americans, personal liberty and individual opportunity are impossible without the safety net.
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