House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, when asked if the Obamacare bill violated the Constitutional principle of enumerated powers by requiring that every American purchase health insurance, replied incredulously
W. James Antle at The American Spectator has a great essay "Constitutional Contempt" on the Supreme Court justices' battering of the weak pro-Obamacare arguments put forth by the administrations defenders earlier this week.
"Are you serious? Are you serious?
W. James Antle at The American Spectator has a great essay "Constitutional Contempt" on the Supreme Court justices' battering of the weak pro-Obamacare arguments put forth by the administrations defenders earlier this week.
Excerpt:
There is a remarkable groundswell of Americans who intend to restore limited Constitutional government and the rule of law to our country.
And we are very serious.
After three days of arguments before the Supreme Court, the Obama administration and its supporters have been found in contempt. Not of the court, but of the Constitution...
While liberals have been most comprehensive in their rejection of enumerated powers, preferring instead to use the Constitution as a battering ram against Christmas trees in the town square, this constitutional amnesia has been a bipartisan affliction. It manifested itself among the center-right policy wonks who toyed with the individual mandate since the 1990s. It was seen in the unchecked growth of government even when Republicans are in power...
The American republic was founded on the idea that the federal government possesses only the powers granted to it by a supermajority of the people and the states. Ratification of the Constitution and its amendments is the process by which that supermajority gives its consent. This once-basic notion of governance was relegated to the fringes. It is now returning to the mainstream.
Obama's solicitor general was caught flat-footed not because he lacks legal skills. He is part of a political culture that has never thought seriously about the Constitution, has never thought that our masters in Washington need to beg the people for any permission beyond their vote every two to six years, and has regarded the doctrine of enumerated powers as a pre-New Deal relic. The Washington conventional wisdom has long been rooted in constitutional contempt...
But no matter how the Court rules, the bedrock assumptions of constitutionally limited government have returned to the mainstream of American political discourse. The Constitution is back...
There is a remarkable groundswell of Americans who intend to restore limited Constitutional government and the rule of law to our country.
And we are very serious.
Serious? But luckily for everyone, dumber than a sack of hammers.
ReplyDeleteThis is all political. The same people arguing against the individual mandate today are the very same people who proposed it in the first place. The notion of the individual mandate originated with the Cato institute as an alternative to “Hillary Care”, and was championed by Bob Dole and Newt Gingrich when Clinton was President. Romney’s raison d’être for his presidential bid was supposed to be that he’s the man that sucsesfully implemented conservative market-based health care reform.
ReplyDeleteNow that Obama has implemented Republican healthcare reform the hypocritical opportunists of the Republican Party have turned on a dime to criticize own plan. Lucky for them their followers are either too dumb to notice, or partisan enough that they don’t care as long as they deny Obama a win.
I have no doubt that if the implementation of healthcare reform with the individual mandate where perceived as a Republican victory we would not have seen the avalanche of court challenges by Republican attorneys general, and if by chance the law was challenged all the way to the Supreme Court we would be looking at a 7-2 or 6-3 decision in favor of the law.
-KW
Is the individual mandate Constitutional?
DeleteThat is the question that matters.
Nobody’s forced to buy anything. They simply must live with the fact that they will have to pay a “tax” penalty to partially compensate for the burden they have placed on the rest of us when they almost inevitably need healthcare.
DeleteThe basic penalties are whichever is higher, $95 or 1% AGI in 2014, $325 or 2% AGI in 2015, and $695 or 2.5% AGI in 2015. These amounts are darn near trivial for allot of people. There is no doubt some will pay the penalty instead of buying insurance for either ideological or financial reasons.
Imagine that instead of “tax penalties” if you don’t have insurance, the legislation simply raised everyone’s taxes by the amount that would be their penalty for not having insurance, and then offered people that have insurance a tax deduction or credit that cancels the tax increase. If the law had been written with this different yet effectively equivalent language I doubt it could have been challenged. Unfortunately the politics and semantics of tax increases dictated the sort of language the bill required to get passed.
-KW
$695 or 2.5% AGI in 2016
Delete[Nobody’s forced to buy anything.]
DeleteObviously people are being forced to buy insurance. That's the whole damn point. The government will make you pay if you don't, which is a form of force.
[They simply must live with the fact that they will have to pay a “tax” penalty to partially compensate for the burden they have placed on the rest of us when they almost inevitably need healthcare.]
There are countless ways people can "burden" others through their free actions. Your reasoning would allow practically any activity to be penalized under law, using the excuse that it "burdened" someone.
The irony is that you argue fervently for the "right" of a woman to kill her child in the womb, but you assert that she has no right to not purchase insurance. You're sick.
[Unfortunately the politics and semantics of tax increases dictated the sort of language the bill required to get passed.]
Yea. You slimebags couldn't call the scheme a "tax" because you would have lost votes and your scheme wouldn't have passed.
Now you want to claim its a tax, because you can't pass Constitutional muster if it is a penalty. You've been trapped by your own lies.
Back to the real question: which enumerated power granted to the Congress by the Constitution empowers Congress to require that private citizens purchase insurance?
Directly from the constitution:
DeleteThe Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;
The Obama administration repeatedly denied that the Obamacare penalty was a tax. Those innumerable denials are a matter of public record. That was necessary to get it passed.
DeleteSo now it is a tax.
You libs are just gangsters.
In addition, Scalia has made the rather obvious point that the Power of Congress to Tax is predicated on the legitimacy of the power of Congress to regulate the activity taxed.
DeleteFor example, would it be Constitutional for Congress to pass a "tax" on liberal speech? Perhaps Congress could pass a federal law that every word spoken/written in favor of a liberal political viewpoint would be taxed for $100. You blog comment is now taxed for $4900. Make your check payable to the IRS.
"Oh!" you exclaim "that would be a violation of Freedom of Speech!".
No. By your logic, it's just a tax, which Congress has the power to levy.
Scalia and many other conservative (ie sane) commentators have pointed out that Congress can't do unconstitutional things by calling them a "tax". The project of taxing something has to be consistent with the Enumerated Powers granted to the Congress by the Constitution.
So I'll repeat the question:
Which enumerated power granted to the Congress by the Constitution empowers Congress to require that private citizens purchase insurance?
That was pretty wild to have her not comprehend the notion that the government isn't allowed to force us to buy things. She clearly lives in a different world than we do.
ReplyDelete