I’ve lost track. Is this health care lie number 76 or 176? And how do the boobs at Boo Hoo Hamphsire feel now that the individual mandate rules and fines written into the Health Care bill are being defended by their glorious leader and his Depatment of Injustice as not just a tax, but a right to tax to advance policy?
Oh you hadn’t heard?
From that right-wing rag the New York Times…
In a brief defending the law, the Justice Department says the requirement for people to carry insurance or pay the penalty is "a valid exercise" of Congress’s power to impose taxes.
Congress can use its taxing power "even for purposes that would exceed its powers under other provisions" of the Constitution, the department said.
Wait a minute. That’s not what the Half-Cracker In Chief said… (still NYT)
"For us to say that you’ve got to take a responsibility to get health insurance is absolutely not a tax increase[.]"
""When Mr. Stephanopoulos said the penalty appeared to fit the dictionary definition of a tax, Mr. Obama replied, "I absolutely reject that notion."
So it’s not a tax. But it is a tax.
""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.""
Under the Constitution, Congress can exercise its taxing power to provide for the "general welfare."
So according to democrats, government can seize any amount of your property under it’s power to tax, to advance any policy aim, as long as they can claim it is for the general welfare. So democrats can mandate the tax and regulate the activity as interstate commerce even when no activity is taking place. That like forcing someone to hit you at gun point just so you can hit them back. You’ve deemed commerce that does not exist for the purpose of taxing the inactivity.
Do you think Paul Hodes and Carol Shea-Porter will run for re-election on any of that, or will they run and hide from it?
Resources: NYT, Heritage, H/T to Moe Lane at RedState
Photo Credit evcn.com
