Ted Cruz Launches His 2016 Campaign By Proclaiming God Wants You To Have No Healthcare

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) launched his 2016 presidential campaign by announcing to the world that God wants a massive tax cut for the rich, and for tens of millions of Americans to lose their access to healthcare.

Video:

To get more stories like this, subscribe to our newsletter The Daily.

Sen. Cruz laid out his vision for the kind of America that God wants:

Five years ago today, the President signed Obamacare into law. Within hours, Liberty University went to court filing a lawsuit to stop that failed law. Instead of the joblessness, instead of the millions forced into part-time work, instead of the millions who’ve lost their health insurance, lost their doctors, have faced skyrocketing health insurance premiums, imagine in 2017 a new president signing legislation repealing every word of Obamacare.

Imagine health care reform that keeps government out of the way between you and your doctor and that makes health insurance personal and portable and affordable.

Instead of a tax code that crushes innovation, that imposes burdens on families struggling to make ends met, imagine a simple flat tax… that lets every American fill out his or her taxes on a postcard.

Imagine abolishing the IRS.

In case anyone missed the point that God hates affordable healthcare, Cruz later added, “From the dawn of this country, at every stage America has enjoyed God’s providential blessing. Over and over again, when we face impossible odds, the American people rose to the challenge. You know, compared to that, repealing Obamacare and abolishing the IRS ain’t all that tough.”

According to Ted Cruz, God wants 16.4 million Americans to have no health care. God also wants a regressive flat tax that will benefit the wealthy while increase the tax burden on everyone else. What Cruz described was not God. It was the agenda of the Koch brothers.

The media is already describing Cruz as trying to gain the support of the socially conservative wing of the Republican Party, but they are leaving something out. The socially conservative Republicans have opposed the last two Republican nominees, and it meant nothing. If social conservatives were the group of Republicans who mattered, Mike Huckabee would have been the 2008 Republican nominee, and Rick Santorum would have won the 2012 nomination.

Sen. Cruz pulled off a nifty trick during his speech. He spoke the language of the social conservative, but the heart of his agenda is pure corporatist oligarchy. Cruz is a climate change denier. The Texas senator also believes that there should no campaign finance laws. Cruz wants to repeal the ACA, abolish the IRS, and give the rich the biggest tax cut in history. What used to be known as the social conservative is actually the corporatist agenda hidden behind a few faith-based flourishes.

The message that God wants rich people to have all the money, and everyone else to have no health insurance is not going to play well with voters. The real agenda behind Sen. Cruz’s campaign is anything but godly. Cruz is running on massive upward redistribution of wealth to the rich.

Jason Easley

Jason is the managing editor. He is also a White House Press Pool and a Congressional correspondent for PoliticusUSA. Jason has a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science. His graduate work focused on public policy, with a specialization in social reform movements.

Awards and  Professional Memberships

Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association