by Bobby Jindal

Republicans panicked that abortion will ruin their November prospects can learn from Obamacare .

Passing that legislation cost President Barack Obama control of the House of Representatives — and the ability to pass significant legislation. Backlash against the massive increase in government spending gave birth to the Tea Party and helped Republicans gain dozens of congressional seats, seven Senate seats, and six gubernatorial seats. Republicans won control of several legislative chambers, advantaging them in 2012 redistricting. Still, Obama would make the trade-off again if given the chance.

Obamacare represented a rejection of President Bill Clinton’s vow to “end welfare as we know it” and his bipartisan embrace of work requirements and time limits to replace open-ended entitlements. Obama pushed through a partisan generational expansion of entitlement spending and entrenched the federal government in healthcare. Obama said, “Elections have consequences,” and moving the nation toward liberals’ single-payer healthcare system was the main consequence of his victory. He vowed to be transformational like Ronald Reagan, not incremental like Clinton, and viewed midterm losses as the price he paid to bend the political process to his ideological beliefs rather than triangulate based on polls.