OBAMACARE UPHELD

The mandate has survived.  Except now, it's being called what it has always been but was not allowed to be named - a tax.  Technically, since no one has been taxed yet, it stands - but that's not to say once the tax kicks in it won't be challeneged in the courts all over again.  This is a big win for democrats in the short term, but long term, this decision might well end up favoring Mitt Romney even more.

The House of Representatives have announced a repeal vote for July 11th.  A wasted effort that will not get to the floor of the Senate as long as Harry Reid is in charge, but the optics of continuing the fight should rally the base a bit.  It will also remind them of the importance of the twenty-four democratic senate seats up for reelection in the fall.  Obamacare has now officially become a major campaign issue.


First and foremost, Romney can now spend the next four months running on repealing Obamacare.  After all, you can't get rid of Obamacare unless you get rid of Obama, right?  Not only will this decision fire up the base enormously but, considering 54% of Americans want the law repealed, it's a good bet that more than the base will be voting on this issue.  Obama has to hope the 39% who support the law are far more motivated to get to the ballot box than the 54% who oppose it. 

While the ruling is a bit complicated, at least there is some much-needed clarification on one major question.  It's finally official - the mandate is a tax, according to the Court.  This is pretty big, because for the three years this has been an issue, democrats have been saying that the mandate is most definitely not a tax.  After all, who wants to be known as the party that raised taxes in a recession (or depression, if you're talking to VP Biden)?  Well, it's official - taxes they are, and up they're going.  There are more than twenty new or increased taxes in Obamacare, and eight of them will be hitting those making under $250,000 per year.  If Romney's team has their ducks in a row, they will hit this fact hard and often on the campaign trail. 

This law raises taxes by more than $400 billion over the next ten years and guts Medicare by $500 billion.  Everyone is getting taxed, including, insanely enough, the federal government.  It has been now confirmed by the Court that the cost to businesses of hiring employees is going to go up substantially.  The question now is, how long before these things start really affecting employment and the economy?  Who better to talk about the impact of a 3.8% increase in the capital gains tax rate than a businessman who knows from his many years in the business sector the real effect that one tax alone will have on the economy and jobs?

In fact, making the taxes in Obamacare a centerpiece of his campaign is imperative.  After all, hardly anyone has read the damn thing, so the public probably has no idea how many taxes there are or whom they will affect.  There should be a page on his website dedicated to the tax increases, and he should be hammering the issue on the stump. .

For those on the right who are angry with Chief Justice John Roberts, here is a little nugget that might take some of the sting away.  According to RedState's Erick Erickson, because Roberts has now deemed the mandate to be a tax, democrats will not be able to filibuster its repeal due to the sneaky reconciliation process used to pass it in the first place.  Republicans only need to take four Senate seats from democrats to take the majority, and there are more than twenty up for grabs.  With President Romney installed in the White House, Obamacare could conceivably be a thing of the past by February.  Worst case scenario: even if Obama retains the White House, taxation is solely the purview of the House, and the Republican majority could take a page from Obama's book by just...refusing to enforce it.  No revenue means no implimentation.  Precedence can be a bitch sometimes, eh liberals?

Speaking of precedence, the main thought that has been running through my mind on this decision is the predecence that has now been set.  Even if the law is repealed, the camel's nose is now firmly under the tent and Americans can now be taxed for not just what they consume, but also what they don't.  The implications of this decision will be far reaching.  What power doesn't Congress have over the people it's supposed to serve?

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OBAMACARE UPHELD

WHAT NOW?

Now that the arguments both for and against ObamaCare have been made, it is in the Supreme Court's hands.  Going into the fight, the law's supporters were cocky and arrogant.  Coming out the other side, it's a different story, to say the least (actually, the term "panic" seems to be the go-to phrase).  While we wait for the Court to make it's decision, I'd like to see some ideas from Republicans about what to replace the law with in the event it is struck down.

It is important to note that while oral arguments went badly for ObamaCare, oral arguments are only a small part of the overall process.  It may seem that the law went down in flames, but we won't really know for sure until the Court's session ends in June and they issue their verdict.  They vote today on the issue and will spend the next few months writing their opinions.   Keep in mind, too, that their vote today might not be the final verdict we see this summer.  Justices have been known to change their vote upon reading a particularly persuasive opposing argument.  So we really won't know for sure until the published opinions are released over the summer.  Anything released before then is mere speculation and should be regarded as such.

Solicitor General Donald Verrilli is taking the brunt of the blame from the left for the judicial beating the law took over the last few days.  Poor guy.  His inability to defend the mandate's alleged constitutionality wasn't due to incompetence, it was due to the indefensible unconstitutionality of the mandate.  Simply dismissing talk of constitutionality out of hand as the left has consistently done is just not a convincing argument outside of the echo chamber. His stumbling over whether it was a tax or a penalty wasn't because he is too inept to figure out the difference, it's because he has been put in the difficult position of trying to, at times, make it not just both, but also neither.  I'd say he did a pretty damn good job, considering. 

The law, as conservatives have been saying for two years now, is fatally flawed.  That has now been made quite clear by the probing questions of the Justices that cut through to the constitutionality (or lack thereof) at the heart of the matter.  The question now is severability.  How do you strike down the mandate without causing an insurance industry "death spiral"?  How do they decide what stays and what goes (my favorite comment on it was Scalia's invocation of eighth amendment protections from cruel and unusual punishment in regards to having to read the bill)?

While we wait for the verdict of the court, due sometime this summer, Congressional Republicans need to take the opportunity to talk about their free market solutions in the event the law is struck down.  Having a series of small bills that would implement those solutions at the ready would be a wise decision as well, particularly since the White House has decided to forgo a contingency plan, preferring to keep all of their eggs in the ObamaCare basket. 

Any talk of a "comprehensive" republican approach should be shunned.  If we didn't want a 2,700 page monstrosity from the left, why in heaven's name would we want the same from the right?  Small, targeted bills that address health insurance issues point by point are the way to go, not colossal, byzantine laws that will require judicial intervention to interpret. 

The "goodies" former Speaker Nancy Pelosi promised us have already been rolled out, and lots of people have felt the benefits of them, particularly those with pre-existing conditions (like myself).  Many liberal pundits have  argued in support of the law by talking about the pain that would be felt if it was struck down.  But keeping the whole confusing, cumbersome, ever-more-expensive law because of a few perks is not a good idea. 

What we need to keep in mind is that striking down the law in toto won't create a vacuum, it will return us to the pre-obamacare system.  A system that was cheaper, and covered more people, by the way.  This doesn't mean republicans shouldn't have a game plan ready, though, because while ObamaCare made things worse, they weren't that great to begin with.  It should be obvious that among the solutions republicans need to offer is a continuation of the two most popular "goodies" - abolition of pre-existing conditions and an option for parents to keep their 26 year-old adult children on their insurance.  The costs for these perks will be passed on to the consumers who opt for them, of course - but then, you're only fooling yourself if you thought they weren't going to under ObamaCare. 

Republicans also need to start making the argument for severing the ties between health insurance and employment, as well as relaxing the regulations governing interstate commerce that keeps the more than one thousand insurance companies in this country from practicing in all fifty states.  Toss in a little torte reform and and a few other free market ideas, and the disastrously lumbering behemoth that was ObamaCare can be replaced with a consumer-oriented free market that can be tailored to each individual customer according to their needs, not government diktat.

Isn't it amazing that Congress wasn't allowed to read the bill before they voted for it, the president didn't bother to read it before he signed it, and now some members of the Supreme Court are calling reading it an eighth amendment violation?  Considering the way it was written, it seems even those who were tasked with writing it didn't bother read it.  But we're all supposed to be overjoyed and filled with gratitude for having to living under it.  Yeah, right.

 For all we know, the Court could decide to uphold the law. God forbid. But in the meantime, doesn't it make sense to be prepared if they don't?


Oh, and that lame spin from the left about the law's repeal being good for democrats and bad for republicans?  Wow.  Proof positive of democratic over reach and the downfall of Obama's signature achievement due to it's being unconstitutional is going to be bad for republicans, eh?  Boy, they really are freaking out over on the left, aren't they?  They must be tied up in knots to come up with such ridiculously twisted logic.  It's almost a little sad, isn't it? 

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WHAT NOW?

CHURCH AND THE STATE OF IOWA

This week in Davenport, Iowa, the City Administrator, Craig Malin, sent a memo to city employees announcing that the term "Good Friday" would officially be known as "Spring Holiday".   This has ignited a firestorm of criticism that caused the city council (who were not given the opportunity to vote on the change) to overrule the decision and restore Good Friday.

The argument used for this change was, of course, the old liberal favorite - "separation of church and state".

It's time to set the record straight on this once and for all.  The liberals are fond of saying that the term "separation of church and state" is in the Constitution.  It is not.  The only mention of church and state in the Constitution is this:

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof."

What that means is that the State is not allowed to impose a state-run religion on the people. or regulate how, what or where they worship.  The reason they added this language was because in England, the State runs the Church.  The situation with the Church of England has been a bone of contention amongst the British for centuries - one need look no further than  Henry VIII  and his daughter, "Bloody" Mary for proof of that. There are plenty of examples throughout european history as well, such as a little thing called the Spanish Inquisition.   Throughout history, state imposed religion in european countries has caused bloodshed and power struggles time and time again.

Our founders wanted to avoid the rise of one particular religion over the others as well as avoiding having the state control or mandate worship.  But at no point in time did they want no religion whatsoever.  Our founders were almost all practicing christians of some form or another and believed that faith in God was necessary to good governance.  God is all over the founding of our nation, from the four times He was mentioned in our Declaration of Independence to the numerous mentions in our Constitution.  "In God we trust" was emblazoned not just on our money, but also over the Speaker of the House in the US Capitol.  God is in our Pledge of Allegiance.  Throughout our Capitol, there are countless references to God and the Bible on monuments and state buildings - the Supreme Court building has a relief of Moses and the Ten Commandments on the east entrance and throughout the building (no matter how they try to spin it).  One of the first books our new nation printed was a bible, which was sponsored by Congress and was actually printed to be used in schools as a textbook.  Our representatives must swear, on a bible, an oath of office that ends with "So help me God" before taking office.  The Supreme Court, in 1892, gave us the "Trinity Decision" which stated that "this is a Christian nation".  Over and over again, the Judeo-Christian ethic is shown to be a founding principle of this country.

The reason the left is desperate to rid the state of religion is twofold.  First, if God is in our government, it follows that there should be morality, accountability and ethics, too - things that are sorely lacking these days.  Second, the progressives want government to be god.  This desire has become quite evident.  When our Founding Fathers created our government, they understood that rights were things only God could bestow.  Our current government, however, in it's current incarnation as "god" has taken to bequeathing new "rights" on the people (more on "rights" in a minute).  They invoke the Constitution, even as they trample on it, in their arguments against religion; but, as usual, they misinterpret it.  Perhaps they should try reading it sometime.  In fact, it should be a requirement of federal office that a thorough knowledge of the Constitution be proved prior to being sworn in.  Many of our recent officeholders (on both sides of the aisle) find it easy to sidestep our founding document due to their complete ignorance of it.

As to "rights", a right is something inherent - endowed by our Creator, not by man or government.  It is something everyone has without having to deprive someone else of something.  The right to free speech is a God given right, as are the rights to life and liberty.  Owning a home or car, or getting a college education or health insurance are privileges.    Our government is trying to sell us on the idea that those things are rights, because then they can play at being the benevolent 'god' and dole those things out to us as they see fit.  And let's not forget - that which has been given by man can always be taken away.  It is about power and control, ultimately.

So the next time some lefty spouts off about "separation of church and state", set them straight.  Tell them to read the Constitution before they try to invoke it, and not spin it to fit their theories.  Suggest, too, that they research the backgrounds of our Founding Fathers - knowing the men who created our country and the times in which it was created are very important to understanding our founding documents.  Explain that the so-called "separation" was to protect the church from state control, not to protect the state from church control.  It's well past time to set them straight and stop their revision of our history.

In the meantime, is anyone up for a rousing rendition of "God Bless America"?

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CHURCH AND THE STATE OF IOWA

LET'S HEAR IT FOR JERSEY

A three judge panel just ruled in favor of a NJ Tea Party group stating that they have the right to try to recall one of their senators.  The ruling doesn't allow them to pursue recall just yet, however.  The case is pending appeal.  Up for debate is the constitutionality of recalling a federal elected official, Sen. Robert Menendez (D-NJ).  Apparently there is no provision for such an action in the United States Constitution, no matter whether the tea partiers get the state required 1.3 million signatures from constituents or not, so the court is expecting a challenge and will not allow the Tea Party to start proceedings.

One would like to think that the people of a state could recall their own representation, but it seems there's never been a need for that option before.  This is a major case that bears watching.  If the courts finally rule that recall is possible, there is the potential that some of the other 8 states that have recall legislation might follow suit. 

There is another school of thought that recall is, in fact, provided for - in the state's constitution.  According to the Recall Congress Now website, the people of New Jersey:

...reserve unto themselves the power to recall, after at least one year of service, any elected official in this State or representing this State in the United States Congress. The Legislature shall enact laws to provide for such recall elections.

The United States Constitution is silent on this matter.  Because there is no provision for recall in the US Constitution, deference will hopefully be paid to the will of the state in question.  If so, New Jersey's constitution certainly provides for it.

It is interesting that there is no provision for recall in the Constitution.  Considering how protective our Founding Fathers were of states rights, it seems odd that they are silent.  Could it be that they were continuing in the same vein of protecting the states rights by leaving it up to them to make legislation on the subject? 



Crazy talk, I know.   

The real question now is, will this case be resolved in time to make it worthwhile?  In the meantime, congrats Tea Partiers of New Jersey - keep fighting the good fight!

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LET'S HEAR IT FOR JERSEY