Open Thread: A Mandate by Any Other Name
Since the beginning of the debate over Obamacare began, the left has taken to alternatively calling the unconstitutional "individual mandate" provision of the law a tax. In its briefs to the Supreme Court defending the law, the Administration has insisted that the penalty levvied against people who refuse to purchase medical insurance is a tax. Earlier this week, however, the Administration's top budget official was at great pains to avoid calling the mandate a tax:
For political reasons, O doesn’t want to be accused of having slapped a brand new tax on the middle class before the election, but he’s on much firmer ground constitutionally if he can argue that the mandate is an exercise of Congress’s taxing power. So we get this pitiful spectacle, in which he and his team insist to any reporter within earshot that the mandate’s not a tax while the DOJ turns around and tells the Supreme Court that it most assuredly is. (At least one federal appellate court agrees.)
The logic is simple: You’re being compelled by the state to pay a sum towards a public purpose, i.e. defraying the cost of health care for the uninsured. But instead of collecting your money and giving you certain benefits in return (a.k.a. FICA and Medicare), the state lets you pay your “tax” to, and receive your coverage from, the private insurer of your choice. It’s a tax, but a tax over which you have a bit more control than you usually do. If Congress has the power to simply take your money and toss it in the Treasury, surely they also have the power to take it while giving you a little extra leeway over where it ends up — or so the argument goes.
Do you think that the Administration's flip-flopping on the mandate will have any bearing on the Supreme Court's verdict? Or will the Court ignore it as political posturing? Should it?
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Comments
Depends on what the meaning of the word "is" is
Submitted by Blonde on Thu, 02/16/2012 - 11:58am.
Or some other specious argument. A la F'ing......It was a tax before it wasn't a tax before it was a tax.
I can't imagine how this administration's different posturing on the issue won't be an issue before the Supremes.
Handy Reference Guide to Obama's Gaffes and Goofs ~ Currently Numbering 200 (and Counting)
Wasn't there a big dust up???
Submitted by racefan on Thu, 02/16/2012 - 12:04pm.
They couldn't call it a tax because there was nothing to levy the tax on.......Couldn't call it a penalty cause they really don't have the authority to force us to buy a private product. Or something similiar to that??? I can't remember for sure but I remember a big debate over this portion when Obamacare was being debated....
This is too good
Submitted by Blonde on Thu, 02/16/2012 - 12:18pm.
I have to disagree with Javier, I think he did just fine. Leadership, baby. Our next VP, I hope.
LTC Allen West sings "Pretty Woman".
And I'll bet anyone here $50 that it wasn't over-rehearsed and staged, unlike someone else we know who sang a week or so back.
Handy Reference Guide to Obama's Gaffes and Goofs ~ Currently Numbering 200 (and Counting)
Too good....
Submitted by nanabanana on Thu, 02/16/2012 - 1:29pm.
Now that was cool. :-) Our next VP, then Prez. Everytime he 'opens his mouth' I love this guy.
The Obama tax.
Submitted by CobraMan on Thu, 02/16/2012 - 1:17pm.
It's the Obama Economic Stimulation Tax, a reverse consumption tax, a tax on what you don't buy. With this newly invented tax category, non-purchased goods and services (coming soon to your 1040A), new taxes will invariably be levied against people for not buying things like "eco frendly" products, or hiring minority babysitters.
The Citizens of each State shall be entitled to all Privileges and Immunities of Citizens in the several States. The US Constitution
Unless you're a fetus. The US Supreme Court
Or Anwar al-Awlaki.
The gay lobby
Submitted by CO2Maker on Thu, 02/16/2012 - 1:13pm.
The gay lobby really likes mandates.
But the Obama surrogates are really between a rock and a hard place: It's not a tax on people earning less than $200K (screw the 1% above that level), it's a mandate in the law ... except when it's not a mandate at SCOTUS but an exercise of the taxing authority of the U.S. (and the only thing taxing about it is the burden on logic).
Silly me,
Submitted by Ashrak on Thu, 02/16/2012 - 2:15pm.
I thought taxation was an enumerated power that went to the congress, meant to facilitate operation of government toward those specific ends.
I must have missed the Amendment where it became a tool of the judiciary, or in this case the Executive, to employ as a measure of penalization. I guess that would have to bring about the fact that fines are then taxes. How about fees too then, eh?
Can we please stop the lying and tell the truth so we can fix the foolishness? Please?
Individual mandate for Obama-care
Submitted by Steve Cakouros on Thu, 02/16/2012 - 2:58pm.
Social Security passed into law because it was called a tax. This is why the proponents of the Individual Mandate in Obama-care have to call their arm twisting mandate a tax when it is nothing of the kind.
Lyndon Johnson would have liked to call the premiums used for Medicare a tax but he was not able to do so.
Interestingly, Johnson pushed thru Medicare knowing that it would have to be insolvent. Paul Ryan has shown that Obama is doing the same thing when it comes to Obama-care with the only difference being that Obama-care is more coercive than Medicare which is a voluntary program.
Frederick Hayek said, “Liberty is the absence of coercion.” Apparently Obama does not believe in liberty because the Individual mandate is nothing short of coercion. Why not call it what it is?
This means that if Obama-care makes it thru the Supreme Court this spring the Constitution will have taken another hit. Right now it is gasping for life.
President Reagan was right when he said that Medicare would eventually lead to Socialism.
Wake up America! Socialism has arrived on our doorstep.
More Muslim nonsense
Submitted by jon_torlin on Thu, 02/16/2012 - 3:23pm.
What the hell is going on with all this Muslim stuff I'm hearing about in our country's schools?
On one hand, we have a school in Colorado where a student quit a high school choir over a song praising Allah(Good on him btw). Knowing what I know about Muslims, I don't believe the excuses the school's excuse for it.(for those of you in RIo Linda, that means Muslims are the sworn enemies of anyone who wishes to be free of them or doesn't want to join with them which Islam defines those as Infidels)
On the other hand, we have someone from CAIR speaking to students in Tampa and of course, they accuse everyone of Islamophobia, ignoring the fact that they have ties to terrorists in the Middle East.
I see this as invasions and they need to be run out on a rail.
-Jon
As I expected, Fox News Bill O'Reilly Defended Stephanopoulos
Submitted by Rush Fan on Thu, 02/16/2012 - 4:10pm.
and pooh-poohed Dick Morris' contention that Stephanopoulos is working with the Obama Administration to push the notion that Republicans are attempting to take away women's birth control. Here is the VIDEO of the O'Reilly/Morris exchange, and this is a portion of what O'Reilly said to Dick Morris:
So why did Bill O'Reilly defend Democrat hitman George Stephanopoulos, when it seems perfectly clear that Stephanopoulos' strange and obsessive questions regarding contraception during the debates was in sync with Obama and his cohorts attempt to create a straw man on the Republican position on birth control?
The answer is simple: Bill O'Reilly wants to be loved and adored by the mainstream media. When he defends Stephanopoulos, or defends Ellen DeGeneres, O'Reilly receives positive and somewhat fawning praise from the Leftist media. O'Reilly can than appear on mainstream media television shows (Letterman The View, etc.) and promote his latest book
There may be another reason why O'Reilly, and perhaps other Fox News hosts may appear even more fair and balanced as time goes on. Fox News may be moving toward the LEFT.
Swamp Loggers-Discovery split
Submitted by ricklail on Thu, 02/16/2012 - 4:23pm.
If you were a fan of Swamp Loggers on Discovery the show has ended. Bobby Goodson of Goodson's All Terrain Logging as had his fill of Discovery. They wanted him to be more dramatic when things when wrong and he said he couldn't. I am starting to wonder how much of the stuff on the other Discovery shows like Deadliest Catch, Gold Rush and Sons of Guns is put on. Bobby is going to be one of the speakers at the East Carolina Safety Forum at the end of March. I am trying to get the state to spring for he $400 to go. To me he was the most down to earth of any of the reality shows on Discovery. I may be a bit biased on that because I have met serveral of his drivers. Sure would like to met him
What I'm going to tell you will break your heart
Submitted by CO2Maker on Thu, 02/16/2012 - 10:59pm.
Television wrestling is faked, too. I know, I know, it must come as a shock!
Everything on TV is TV, and it's all fake except sports—actual, live sports. Everything else is scripted, hyped, overproduced, special-fx-ed, CGI-ed, edited, etc.
And Survivor is the worst, because it's racist as well as totally faked. Yeah, "racist" is overused all the time. But think about this: affluent Americans are plopped down in a far-away island (read: primitive; read: uncivilized, unmodern) and all of the stagey bullshit artifacts, like the meeting place where the contestants are voted off the island, is faux-native, faux-thatched roof, faux-tiki torches, all that crap. And just who are or would be the typical inhabitants of such a place, if the rich white and darker-white Americans weren't there? Well, nonwhite people, probably with nonround eyes.
I watched part of the first episode of the first season of Survivor and instantly realized that (1) right outside the view of the cameras were people in blue jeans with coolers of bottled water, food, music, and mosquito repellent; and (2) it was an exercise in "let's pretend we're living like the darkies (slopes, slant-eyes, whatever) on this neat-o island that we can leave in three weeks, because, like, hey, we really don't want to stay here. It's just for fun. What? You think we're Gauguin?"
Survivor is entertaining.
Submitted by Dan The Man 2 on Fri, 02/17/2012 - 2:30am.
Survivor is entertaining.
Here's a frightening prediction from Yahoo!
Submitted by Mary Louise Turner on Thu, 02/16/2012 - 8:07pm.
I just logged onto Yahoo! tonight and saw this alarming thing. Its "exclusive" prediction engine says that Obama will win a second term! Folks, be afraid. Be VERY afraid. If Yahoo! is right, then millions of American sheeple are even more idiotic and/or ignorant than I thought...
Ms Turner*
Submitted by cajun2 on Thu, 02/16/2012 - 8:20pm.
Don't lose hope. Read some of the comments on that article. Not everyone is stupid....;-)
Yeah, I just read that when I
Submitted by killa37 on Thu, 02/16/2012 - 11:08pm.
Yeah, I just read that when I came home...........Yahoo has 'called' the election allready - on the 16th of February!!! Game over!! Nothing left but the cryin'.........................
I asked my magic 8 ball and
Submitted by Dan The Man 2 on Fri, 02/17/2012 - 2:34am.
I asked my magic 8 ball and it said the same thing.
RIP Gary Carter
Submitted by Dave. on Thu, 02/16/2012 - 11:28pm.
Yeah, I know as an Atlanta resident and Brave's fan I'm supposed to hate anything and everything related to the Mets with a purple passion.
But Gary Carter was one of my favorite baseball players of all time, one one damned fine human being.
57 is way too young.
-Dave
Vote for the American in November
Wow, Dave - Gary Carter
Submitted by killa37 on Thu, 02/16/2012 - 11:32pm.
Wow, Dave - Gary Carter died?? I've just come home....................he was a helluva ball player - real consistant - and he always seemed like a 'normal' guy, which is a compliment. Heart attack????
We're seeing signs of a movement in North Dakota of Dems/libs...
Submitted by PrairieSky on Fri, 02/17/2012 - 12:24am.
that are planning to vote in large numbers for Santorum in the Republican caucus here in an attempt to help him get the nomination, with the thinking that Santorum will definitely lose to Obama.
"Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction...It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them (our children) to do the same." ~President Ronald Reagan
They never let it go!!
Submitted by jon_torlin on Fri, 02/17/2012 - 9:48am.
I was having a conversation the other day with someone at work about vacation spots and etc. That someone was giving me all these interesting suggestions(interesting in that I wouldn't do them on principle) like New York, Chicago, LA(I said HELL NO to that one), Washington DC(that also got a HELL NO) and a few other big cities overloaded with liberals.
I even said one of my favorite things to do was road trips, but haven't done much of that ever since Our Lord and Savior Obeyme because you made enough money usurped the WH thanks to the stupid American voters and gas prices have gone up 100% or more since then, depending on where you are. When it costs $100 to fill your tank(used to cost $25-30), road trips become VERY prohibitive, not to mention that other expenses on a road trip have gone up too like food and entertainment and etc. I used to get oil changes 3-4 times a year. Now it's 1 or even 2 times a year for the last three years. Oh and the predictable solution suggested? Get a small car with "great" gas mileage.....yeah, so on top of paying high prices for gas, you want me to have car payments and higher insurance costs on a new car.......Smart thinking there!(I'm leaning real heavily on the sarcasm button here)
Predictably, the blame was given to Bush and the Republicans in the end despite evidence laid out by me about what happened now with the oil moratorium versus the speculators and etc between 2005 and 2009. I even pointed out that this person HAD to have noticed the grocery bill going up because it's a family of 5 and explained why.(cost of delivery, decrease in value of dollar, etc) And that's the statement that was given in the end, blame the GOP.
The whole conversation was predictable and to be honest, I'm COMPLETELY bored with those given the way things are going in this country. It's not as fun anymore to see how goofy thinking so many people have developed over the last three-four years, and if anything, it's maddening and makes me angry as hell and makes me wonder what will happen in this next election......assuming our Lord and Savior DuhOne "allows" them to happen.
It's maddening because it's not just the poser going around touting lies about the economic recovery, the employment(lack of) and etc, and the so-called 50% approval ratings but the people who believe that crap. The information of what's REALLY going on is out there for anyone to see if they even TAKE a few minutes to find out, but they won't. And I blame them for where we are today. I don't blame just Congress, I blame the people who were voted them in. But in the end, the wrong people get blamed and the country gets more screwed.
And the helluvit is, this was so predictable just a few short years ago that I've made a few predictions, some of us here made a few predictions, and THEY CAME TRUE. Nothing magical about it, it was just common sense telling us what will happen in the end of those who don't use common sense.
And it ain't over yet. God help us.
-Jon
jon...I completely agree...
Submitted by PrairieSky on Fri, 02/17/2012 - 2:18pm.
I have a growing uneasiness about this election. A few months ago, I felt pretty good about our chances of winning, given what a colossal failure Obama has been in virtually every way. But given the obvious and continuing restlessness and apparent disatisfaction of the Repub and the general electorate concerning our candidates, and Obama's slowly rising numbers in the polls, I worry that the people in this country may be about to repeat the mistake they made in '08. As bad as Obama has been, there appear to be many who just don't seem to grasp that...Are they blind to what's happened in the last 3 years? How Obama can manage to poll in the mid 40's to around 50% is completely beyond me...Who are these people? How can they be satisified with him and his presidency? I'm very concerned that if we do not give people a good enough candidate and clear enough reason to vote for the Repub nominee (whoever that might turn out to be), people will decide to go with the devil they know, versus the devil the don't, and Obama will be re-elected, which I believe will be even more catastrophic for the country than his first term. I am praying that I'm wrong.
"Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction...It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them (our children) to do the same." ~President Ronald Reagan