HillBuzz.org
3/15/2010
Here’s a question for legal minds out there, that we’ve been unable to resolve here at Buzzquarters.
It took a constitutional amendment to allow the federal government to collect income tax.
It couldn’t just decide one day it wanted to take money away from people. It had to amend the Constitution to do that.
Because, otherwise, what it was trying to force upon people was illegal.
Nowhere in the Constitution is a provision that allows the federal government to force citizens to buy products. The government can’t make you buy corn, no matter how much Iowa might want you too. The government can’t require you to purchase 75 pounds of sausage annually, no matter how much Chicago might want you to, or how much Rahm Emanuel lays awake at night drooling for thick, juicy, enormous sausage. The government cannot make you buy kittens, no matter how adorable they are, or how many of them out there need good homes.
The government cannot force you to purchase health insurance.
As we understand the Constitution, it would as illegal as the government trying to force you to buy Coke or Pepsi, or spend your money on anything else it wants you to spend it on.
But, we wonder, if the government WAS allowed to force you to buy the product that is health insurance, what else could it force you to buy?
Could it mandate specific items…manufactured in the home districts of Democrats up for re-election…or put onto store shelves by companies who were big-time Democrat donors?
The owner of the Pittsburgh Steelers is a big Obama supporter. Could the federal government require everyone in Pittsburgh to buy Steelers tickets, with everyone else in the nation required to own at least one Steelers ballcap?
Martha Stewart is a big Dem donor. She has a line of cheap crap at K-Mart. Will we all have to buy that as well?
Penny Pritzker, of Hyatt Hotels, is besties with the Obamas. Will Democrats require us all to stay at Hyatts, instead of Republican-supporting (and Mormon!) Marriotts?
Where would this slippery slope end?
What are your thoughts on this?
