Today the new House Republican majority is holding votes on a rule setting up debate and votes next week on a simple bill to repeal President Obama’s unpopular health care law. Republicans heard loud and clear the message from the voters that the health care takeover Democrats jammed through Congress needs to be repealed and replaced.

Though Democrats have attempted to claim the law is popular, poll after poll shows the public continues to disapprove of it, and a plurality supports repealing it altogether, as a new Gallup poll shows today. Forty-six percent of respondents say they would want their representative in Congress to vote “yes” to repeal the health care law. That includes 78% of Republicans, a plurality of independents (43%), and nearly a quarter of Democrats.

Yet Democrats in Congress are stubbornly protecting their massive expansion of government control and regulation over health care. As Kimberley Strassel explains in her Wall Street Journal column today, in the new Congress, Senate Democrats are about to wear the mantle of “The Party of No” that they previously tried so hard to stick to Republicans. Strassel writes, “This week’s news is the incoming House GOP majority and its sweeping reform plans. Next week’s news (and the news for most weeks thereafter) will likely be the many ways [Senate Majority Leader Harry] Reid [D-NV] goes about killing those reforms. Day after day, week after week, the House will be sending to the Senate bipartisan bills to cut spending, to make smart fixes to ObamaCare, and to rein in the federal government. And day after day, week after week, Mr. Reid will likely be cementing his party’s reputation for blocking, obstructing and deterring nearly every one of them.”

Strassel elaborates, “Democrats were unable to tar Republicans as the ‘Party of No’ for a simple reason: The American public wanted the GOP to halt the Obama agenda. As Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell famously noted, ‘It depends on what you are saying ‘no’ to.’ In this case, Mr. Reid—the public face of his party—will be saying no to exactly the reforms Americans voted for in the midterms.”

It’s clear that Americans sent a message that Congress needs to focus on creating jobs, reining in spending and debt, and stop growing the size of government. Repealing and replacing the Democrats’ unpopular health care law is a good first step on all of those goals.

Related:

Rasmussen Reports: Only 29% Say Congress Must Fund A Law It’s Unable To Repeal

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