The Supreme Court ruled today that the individual mandate in ObamaCare is in fact a tax and therefore within the power of congress to enact. This despite that President Obama insisted that the individual mandate which requires everyone to buy health insurance was "absolutely" not a tax increase. Obama's Solicitor General argued before the court that the mandate was a tax. The ruling today means that Obama violated his "firm pledge" not to raise "any of your taxes." Obama also made a mockery of his campaign pledge that health care should "never be purchased with tax increases on middle class families." Today's ruling means middle class workers who do not currently have health insurance will pay thousands in new taxes.
Apparently the deceptive argument presented to the Court was fine with Chief Justice Roberts who joined the four liberal Justices and upheld the constitutionality of ObamaCare. In his decision Robert's writes: “Because the Constitution permits such a tax, it is not our role to forbid it, or to pass upon its wisdom or fairness.”
But the issues at stake here are much greater than just a new tax. The twisted decision by the majority of the Court left the dissenting four Justices: Kennedy, Alito, Scalia and Thomas deeply troubled. All four found the entire law unconstitutional. From their written dissent [PDF]:
The Court’s disposition, invented and atextual as it is,does not even have the merit of avoiding constitutionaldifficulties. It creates them. The holding that the IndividualMandate is a tax raises a difficult constitutional question (what is a direct tax?) that the Court resolves with inadequate deliberation. And the judgment on the Medicaid Expansion issue ushers in new federalism concerns and places an unaccustomed strain upon the Union. Those States that decline the Medicaid Expansion must subsidize, by the federal tax dollars taken from their citizens, vast grants to the States that accept the MedicaidExpansion. If that destabilizing political dynamic, soantagonistic to a harmonious Union, is to be introduced atall, it should be by Congress, not by the Judiciary.
The values that should have determined our course today are caution, minimalism, and the understanding thatthe Federal Government is one of limited powers. But the Court’s ruling undermines those values at every turn. In the name of restraint, it overreaches. In the name of constitutional avoidance, it creates new constitutional questions. In the name of cooperative federalism, it undermines
state sovereignty.
The Constitution, though it dates from the founding ofthe Republic, has powerful meaning and vital relevanceto our own times. The constitutional protections that this case involves are protections of structure. Structural protections—notably, the restraints imposed by federalism and separation of powers—are less romantic and have less obvious a connection to personal freedom than the provisions of the Bill of Rights or the Civil War Amendments. Hence they tend to be undervalued or even forgotten by our citizens. It should be the responsibility of the Court toteach otherwise, to remind our people that the Framers considered structural protections of freedom the most im- portant ones, for which reason they alone were embod-ied in the original Constitution and not left to lateramendment. The fragmentation of power produced by thestructure of our Government is central to liberty, and when we destroy it, we place liberty at peril. Today’sdecision should have vindicated, should have taught, thistruth; instead, our judgment today has disregarded it.
For the reasons here stated, we would find the Act invalid
in its entirety. We respectfully dissent.
Classless Response from DNC
President Obama loves to wag his finger and lecture Republicans on civility. But once again, people on his side are apparently exempt from that standard. Two Tweets from officials at the Democrat National Committee revealed the crass mindset of the people working to re-elect Obama:
Greg Greene, DNC’s new media director chimed in with "TAKE THAT MOTHER******S!!"Funny how even when Democrats win they still find a way to be crude and vile!
Patrick Gaspard, Executive Director DNC "it's constitutional. Bitches."
Senate GOP Leader McConnell Sums Up Case Against ObamaCare
In a speech on the Senate Floor in the wake of the decison the Senate GOP Leader said:
“Two and a half years ago, a Democrat president teamed up with a Democrat-led Congress to force a piece of legislation on the American people that they never asked for, and that has turned out to be just as disastrous as many of us predicted.Romney Responds: Replace Obama and Repeal ObamaCare!
“Amid economic recession, a spiraling federal debt, and accelerating increases in government health spending, they proposed a bill that has made these problems worse.
“Americans were promised lower health care costs. They’re going up.
“Americans were promised lower premiums. They’re going up.
“Most Americans were promised their taxes wouldn’t change. They’re going up.
“Seniors were promised Medicare would be protected. It was raided to pay for a new entitlement instead.
“Americans were promised it would create jobs. The CBO predicts it will lead to nearly 1 million fewer jobs.
“Americans were promised they could keep their plan if they liked it, yet millions have learned they can’t.
“And the President of the United States himself promised up and down that this bill was not a tax.
“This was one of the Democrats’ top selling points — because they knew it would have never passed if they said it was. The Supreme Court has spoken. This law is a tax.
“This bill was sold to the American people on a deception. But it’s not just that the promises about this law weren’t kept. It’s that it’s made the problems it was meant to solve even worse.
“The supposed cure has proved to be worse than the disease.
“So it’s not just that the promises about this law weren’t kept. It’s that it has made the problems it was meant to solve even worse.
“The supposed cure has proved to be worse than the disease.
“So the pundits will talk a lot today about what they think today’s ruling means and what it doesn’t mean. But I can assure you this: Republicans won’t let up whatsoever in our determination to repeal this terrible law and replace it with the kind of reforms that will truly address the problems it was meant to solve.
Presumptive GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney didn't waste any time in defining the decision as the central issue in the fall campaign:
[T]his is now a time for the American people to make a choice. You can choose whether you want to have a larger and larger government, more and more intrusive in your life, separating you and your doctor, whether you're comfortable with more deficits, higher debt that we pass on to the coming generations, whether you're willing to have the government put in place a plan that potentially causes you to lose the insurance that you like, or whether instead you want to return to a time when the American people will have their own choice in health care, where consumers will be able to make their choices as to what kind of health insurance they want.House GOP to vote for Repeal on July 11
This is a time of choice for the American people. Our mission is clear: If we want to get rid of Obamacare, we're going to have replace President Obama. My mission is to make sure we do exactly that: that we return to the American people the privilege they've always had to live their lives in the way they feel most appropriate, where we don't pass on to coming generations massive deficits and debt, where we don't have a setting where jobs are lost.
As a demonstration of their resolve, the House GOP has scheduled a vote to repeal Obamacare. The recorded vote will put Democrats on record once again as the election approaches.
Replace Obama! Repeal ObamaCare!
No comments:
Post a Comment