The ObamaCare ruling: Four positive things
Excerpt:
Chief Justice Roberts actually ruled the mandate, relative to the commerce clause, was unconstitutional. That’s how the Democrats got Obama-care through in the first place. His ruling means Congress can’t compel American citizens to purchase anything. Ever. The notion is now officially and forever, unconstitutional. As it should be.
"Construing the Commerce Clause to permit Congress to regulate individuals precisely because they are doing nothing would open a new and potentially vast domain to congressional authority. Congress already possesses expansive power to regulate what people do. Upholding the Affordable Care Act under the Commerce Clause would give Congress the same license to regulate what people do not do. The Framers knew the difference between doing something and doing nothing. They gave Congress the power to regulate commerce, not to compel it. Ignoring that distinction would undermine the principle that the Federal Government is a government of limited and enumerated powers. The individual mandate thus cannot be sustained under Congress’s power to “regulate Commerce.”Excerpt from ruling (p 12):
Those decisions are entrusted to our Nation’s elected leaders, who can be thrown out of office if the people disagree with them. It is not our job to protect the people from the consequences of their political choicesComments:
Here are the four positive things:
- It's a tax: Roberts correctly called it a tax. Republicans can run on this!
- Door closed on the use (er ... abuse) of the commerce clause to compel citizens to purchase something!
- The ball is now in Mitt Romney’s court. The GOP leaders of the Congress have been given a political gift of historic dimensions
- We are just months away from another quadrennial election. People have a choice and if we (the collective we) are stupid enough to reelect Obama well we deserve what we get!
George Will: Conservatives’ consolation prize:
ReplyDeleteBy persuading the court to reject a Commerce Clause rationale for a president’s signature act, the conservative legal insurgency against Obamacare has won a huge victory for the long haul.
It's a tax! Unwanted Label of 'Tax' Saves Health Measure:
ReplyDeleteMr. Obama from the outset could ill afford to be seen as raising taxes on the middle-class families he pledged to champion. As a candidate in 2008, speaking to an audience in Orlando, Fla., he vowed to spare most families any tax increase. For those making less than $250,000 a year, he said, "my plan won't raise your taxes one penny—not your income taxes, not your payroll taxes, not your capital gains taxes, not any of your taxes."
In an interview in 2009 with ABC's George Stephanopoulos, Mr. Obama said in the most emphatic terms that the health-care measures moving through Congress didn't amount to a new tax, as Republican lawmakers charged. At one point, Mr. Stephanopoulos read him the dictionary definition of the word.
Asked if he rejected the idea that the proposal was a tax increase, the president said: "I absolutely reject that notion." Higher premiums were the norm, he said, under a flawed system in which those who have insurance subsidize the medical costs of those who don't.
"For us to say that you've got to take responsibility to get health insurance is absolutely not a tax increase," he told ABC.
Mr. Obama's semantic distinctions didn't escape the court's notice. During oral arguments in March, Justice Antonin Scalia asked the government's lawyer: "The president said it wasn't a tax, didn't he?''
...
But in the ruling upholding the law, Chief Justice John Roberts wrote, "the Affordable Care Act's requirement that certain individuals pay a financial penalty for not obtaining health insurance may reasonably be characterized as a tax. Because the Constitution permits such a tax, it is not our role to forbid it, or to pass upon its wisdom or fairness."
He added that it didn't matter that the payment was designed more to influence behavior than to raise tax revenue. The penalty functioned like a tax—and plenty of taxes, like those on cigarettes, are enacted principally to create incentives rather than raise revenue, he wrote.
Finally: This Election Just Became About Obamacare
ReplyDelete... the reason why this election is the most important since the Civil War is not because Mitt Romney would make a far better steward of the economy than President Obama (though he would). Rather, it’s because we are about to decide whether to put what will soon be one-fifth of our economy under the control of the federal government; whether to funnel previously unthinkable amounts of power and money to Washington; and whether this nation conceived in liberty will continue to prioritize liberty.