Liar in Chief.The New York Times is reporting that now that the Health Care individual mandate is being constitutionally challenged in court; the administration has decided it is a tax after all. (The NYT article is here, but requires registration.) The Volokh Conspiracy also has commentary. From the NYT:
When Congress required most Americans to obtain health insurance or pay a penalty, Democrats denied that they were creating a new tax. But in court, the Obama administration and its allies now defend the requirement as an exercise of the government’s “power to lay and collect taxes.”
And that power, they say, is even more sweeping than the federal power to regulate interstate commerce.
...
“For us to say that you’ve got to take a responsibility to get health insurance is absolutely not a tax increase,” the president said last September, in a spirited exchange with George Stephanopoulos on the ABC News program “This Week.”
So another Obama lie unravels. I had always thought that a constitutional challenge on the individual mandate would fail if the Congress worded the mandate as a tax, with a rebate if one bought the required insurance. BUT THEY DIDN'T PASS THE LAW THAT WAY. Sorry to shout, I am a tad angry that the Ruling Class (more on that in another post) lied so completely, broadly and deeply to pass this obamanation.
Congress anticipated a constitutional challenge to the individual mandate. Accordingly, the law includes 10 detailed findings meant to show that the mandate regulates commercial activity important to the nation’s economy. Nowhere does Congress cite its taxing power as a source of authority. . . .
The money quote comes at about 1:19 into the video. "For us to say that you've got to take a responsibility to get health insurance, is absolutely not a tax increase."
For any supporter of Obama who may have stumbled across this blog, I ask: How does this double-cross square with his promises of openness, transparency and all that hopey-changey crap?
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