We Blame George W. Bush

ObamaCare survives, but the Commerce Clause has limits.

James Taranto
The Wall Street Journal
6/28/2012

ObamaCare is still the law of the land, and we blame George W. Bush. In National Federation of Independent Businesses v. Sebelius, four associate justices adopted the position of Florida’s Judge Roger Vinson, voting to strike down the entire law–we read Anthony Kennedy correctly back in March–and the other four voted to uphold the individual mandate as a legitimate exercise of Congress’s authority to regulate interstate commerce.

That left Chief Justice John Roberts, nominated by Bush in 2005, with almost the full range of options before him. Except on the question of ObamaCare’s Medicaid expansion–on which Justice Stephen Breyer and Elena Kagan found it unconstitutional to withhold existing funding to states refusing to participate in the new program–Roberts was the decider…

…the result in this decision is likely to be hated by people who aren’t immersed in politics. The left hated Bush v. Gore for partisan reasons and hates Citizens United for ideological ones. People who aren’t particularly partisan or ideological had no reason to care about either of those rulings. But this one will affect their health care, and a large majority of the public has long been hostile, and rightly so, to ObamaCare.

What’s more, Roberts’s opinion has made a liar of President Obama, who in a 2009 interview with ABC News insisted that the mandate “is absolutely not a tax increase.”…

…The Washington Examiner reported the other day that Patrick Kennedy, son of Ted and a former congressman, “warned in a fundraising email for Congressional Democrats that if the U.S. Supreme Court upholds President Obama’s health care law, then ‘dangerous Tea Party extremists will go on a rampage.’  ” The Tea Party does not actually “rampage,” but it does something even more dangerous and extreme by Democratic lights: organize and vote…[emphasis CAJ]

…The next president is likely to replace some or all of these justices. Thus November’s election may prove decisive as to whether the current ineffectual 5-4 majority in favor of limited congressional power becomes a strong 7-2 majority or gives way to a majority that believes Congress can do anything it wants to citizens. If nothing else, Roberts’s ruling has clarified the stakes for November. Perhaps that was what he was getting at when he wrote: “It is not our job to protect the people from the consequences of their political choices.”…

Read the entire article at The Wall Street Journal.

UpdateSt. Louis Tea Party Holds Freedom Rally Following SCOTUS Obamacare Ruling 

We’re pretty sure there was carnage, but check the link anyway…

Update 2: Dear GOP: You Get One More Chance

Roberts’ Gauntlet What on earth was Chief Justice Roberts thinking?

EVEN THE NYTIMES ADMITS IT: “… the Supreme Court on Thursday effectively created a tax that people will pay only if they do not buy something…”

Election 2012: Romney versus Obama and the Largest Tax Hike in History. Obama smirks…

Watch David Axelrod duck questions about ObamaCare tax

Via Breitbart:

 

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