The temperature is sizzling in DC — but it’s nothing compared to the heat on Congress. As if there weren’t enough incentive to repeal Obamacare, the conservative movement just gave the Republicans more: next year’s election. Voters have been a patient bunch as Republicans fumble their way through the health care debate, but their tolerance is wearing thin. And Wednesday’s movement conference call proved it.

Top conservative leaders from groups like Club for Growth, FreedomWorks, Tea Party Patriots, For America, FRC, and others, gave the Senate GOP two choices: act now — or pay later. “All they have to do,” Ken Cuccinelli said, “is pass the bill they passed in 2015. It should be a lay-up.” All but three Republicans in Congress voted for this same language 18 months ago. What’s changed? Good question. One that RINOs like Sens. Lisa Murkowski (Alaska), Susan Collins (Maine), and Rob Portman (Ohio) will have a tough time answering.

Republicans ran 30,000 ads on Obamacare in 2014, Cuccinelli pointed out. If there’s anyone GOP lawmakers shouldn’t have to persuade, it’s their own party. Unfortunately for Americans, who’ve been crying out for relief from Obama’s law for eight years, some senators are intent on playing spoiler. But, ForAmerica’s David Bozell warned, the only thing they’ll be spoiling is their own re-election chances. “It’s no secret here in Washington that liberals like Susan Collins and company are using the Republican party pledge to repeal Obamacare as leverage to advance their own brand of liberalism. Thankfully, they’re being exposed as frauds… If the American people had the slightest appetite for their brand of liberal policy, John Kasich would be president right now. The Republican Party is honor-bound to repeal Obamacare. We expect nothing less.”

Club for Growth turned up the heat with its new website of “Traitorous Republicans,” where it juxtaposes the sudden repeal opponents with their glowing comments in 2015. Senator Murkowski, who’s threatening to flip-flop on her position now that the repeal has a chance for success, said at the time, “I will support the bill that repeals the [Affordable Care Act] and wipes out its harmful impact.” Now, she and others are actually fighting to keep the law they campaigned against! The message to them is the same one Donald Trump delivered to Sen. Dean Heller (R-NV.): “He wants to remain a senator, doesn’t he?”

The Senate Conservatives Fund is making sure that isn’t an empty threat, announcing Wednesday that it will help primary any Republican who breaks his word. As I said on the call, there is absolutely no reason not to act. These members will suffer, the American people will suffer, and the future balance of Congress certainly will. If they fail to deliver on almost a decade of promises, Senate Republicans will need to call hospice — because their majority is not long for this world. Health care won the election, but if the GOP isn’t careful, it’ll cost it one too.

Rep. Mark Meadows (R-NC), who was instrumental in closing the deal on the House bill, is still optimistic. “It’ll get done,” he said simply. With Senate open for business through August, there’s still plenty of time for Republicans to do the right thing. But it will take the persistence of voters like you to get this repeal over the finish line. Keep calling and emailing your senators. Urge them to send the 2015 bill where it belongs: to the president!

Originally published here.

Defense Dollars: MIA After Trans Vote?

If Republicans go along with Obama’s sex-changes-for-the-troops idea, it could cost them a lot more than $3.7 billion! It may cost them their defense budget. Turns out, the military’s top leaders aren’t the only ones steaming about the Left’s transgender push. So are voters. Calls and emails have been pouring into members’ offices since 23 Republicans helped sink the funding ban on pricey gender-reassignment surgery and hormone therapy. Obviously, taxpayers are tired of bearing the brunt of this extremism — especially when they elected a new president to stop it. Like us, they’ve watched with horror this stunning shift, as more politicians turn themselves inside out to change bathroom rules, military policy, sports eligibility, and school curriculum to normalize this wave of gender anarchy. And they’ve had enough.

Honestly, the only thing our military should be transitioning out of is this confused policy. Members are getting that message loud and clear from voters, who are lighting up phones on Capitol Hill to demand a return to military priorities — not a continuation of Obama’s radical social agenda. Conservative members, a lot of whom went slack-jawed at their party’s defection on the issue, are drawing a line in the sand. A growing chorus of them are insisting: There will be no support for a funding boost in the Make America Secure Act until the White House stops this runaway transgender train.

In a letter to Congress, FRC made it clear that we won’t back down. “Funding the military should not include funding sex-reassignment surgery or hormone therapy intended to change a person’s gender. Providing sex-reassignment surgery for service members is not a part of providing for the common defense. Indeed, it undermines the purpose of the military, which is to fight and win wars. In addition, even the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services under [Obama’s] administration admitted that there are not sufficient studies to show that sex-reassignment surgery actually helps the patient.”

If the military wants to lower its suicide rate, free sex changes won’t do it. In fact, as FRC’s Peter Sprigg points out, it will almost certainly make matters worse. People who undergo these radical surgeries are 19 times more likely to kill themselves than the national average, scientists have found. That certainly seems to undermine the Left’s argument that giving the gender-confused everything they ask for will solve their problems. On the contrary, it may hurt them more. If liberals truly cared about helping these suffering people, it should work to free Americans — not further enslave them — from this destructive lifestyle. Either way, taxpayers shouldn’t be stuck with the tab, which, according to some estimates, runs as much as $110,450 each.

Unfortunately, that’s nothing compared to the cost in military readiness. While ISIS marches across the Middle East and North Korea threatens from afar, our troops would lose an estimated 1.5 million training hours to “sensitivity” classes and politically correct distractions like this one. But all is far from lost! Members of Congress like Mark Meadows (R-NC), Scott Perry (R-PA), and Vicky Hartzler (R-MO) who were discouraged by their colleagues’ betrayal on such a clear-cut issue have new hope from your overwhelming response. Don’t stop now! Keep those calls and emails coming. We have to hold the line against this radical fringe before they impose their anti-science views on sexuality on the entire country. Keep standing!

Originally published here.

This is a publication of the Family Research Council. Mr. Perkins is president of FRC.