Where Do We Go From Here?
I believe we are at a watershed moment in American history. On the one side, you have our current government, which has just enacted the most contentious and momentous piece of legislation in two generations, a piece of legislation they freely admit to not having read and one which may or may not pass constitutional muster. On the other side, you have the vocal opposition of a large portion of the American people, an opposition which continues to grow now that the bill has become law.
This is a true "Irresistible Force vs. Immovable Object" moment.
So...where do we go from here?
posted by VermontGuy @ 7:26 AM
6 Comments:
I don't think there's a serious argument that it's unconstitutional. The government forces us to spend our money all the time to do thing allegedly for us. It's called the income tax. How is this any different?
I saw that exact same quote after the Patriot Act was passed
One of the questions is whether the government has the right to compel you to purchase something or pay a fine if you don't. In this case, the individual mandate would require you to purchase insurance coverage or pay a fine of up to 2% of your income if you don't.
No one is calling it a tax - yet.
There's no doubt states can do so. See, e.g., car insurance, RomneyCare, etc. It will be a watershed moment for federalism if the courts distinguish all of that precedent as permissible for states but not the feds. As to your original question, I think this contest will give us a good idea of the short-term direction.
I think the constitutionality issue could go either way. The courts have long held that driving is a "privilege, not a right". But more importantly, there is no reason to suppose that a federal law mandating auto insurance would be constitutional.
The commerce clause has gotten more elastic every year, and if this were the 1990s the law would surely be found constitutional. (To take one example of elasticity: in 1919, we passed the 18th Amendment because everyone agreed that Congress didn't have the power to ban alcohol. But since the New Deal, Congress has banned all sorts of substances without anyone saying it needed constitutional sanction to do so.)
Regarding VG's main point: If the midterm elections were next month, the Republicans would win big and the health bill would be clearly repudiated (although still law). The question is, what happens between now and November? Obama is in full Clinton mode now: coming up with clever ploys and "gotcha" bills whose primary purpose is to get Republicans to take public positions that will lose them points with swing voters. He has cleverly arranged the deficit commission to report after the election... and therefore I doubt that worry about the deficit will become MORE widespread between now and November.
The most ingenious move was to make the health bill seem "deficit neutral" (more or less) by including cuts in Medicare and re-routing Social Security taxes to the new programs. Medicare and SS are already projected as long-term budget busters. Insofar as cuts were possible, they should have been made to make those programs solvent, not to fund new entitlements.
But here's the genius of it all. In 2011, the deficit commission will announce a looming HUGE deficit, which Obama can now blame on Social Security and Medicare, not his own bill! Then the solution: they will recommend a national sales tax (VAT) to address the deficit.
(Krauthammer predicted this, not me.)
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