klsouth
Issues & Argument
6/21/2010
Issue
In order to protect the new national Health Care law from legal challenges, the Obama administration has been forced to argue that the individual mandate represents a tax — even though Obama himself argued the exact opposite while campaigning to pass the legislation.
The HC dispute revolves around the individual mandate of the health care plan that states every U.S. citizen would have to have health insurance. The Thomas More Law Center believes this violates the commerce clause of the Constitution.
Argument
You mean Barry lied?
No, he mis-spoke, wait, no, you mis-understood him, no, wait, let me get back to you!
A good lawyer would call Obama as a witness and demand, “Were you lying then, or are you lying now?”
The law invoked the commerce clause as the specific Constitutional authority for the mandates. It will be difficult to morph this into a ‘tax’ because unlike Medicare or SS it lacks uniformity and would vary depending on which state you live in.
It’s not a Constitutional tax. Constitutionally, it must be one of the following: 1) a uniform excise tax (a tax on transactions at a uniform rate,) 2) an income tax or else 3) a “direct tax” that must be equally apportioned among the States. It’s clearly not any of those…
This article continues at Issues & Arguments.
