Obama and Romney: In or Out of the ‘Penalty’ Box?
A campaign season traditionally pans out to be a choice between the words “left” and “right.”
Thanks to the summertime Supreme Court decision on the fate of ObamaCare, this run for the White House and Congress is shaping up to be about “penalty” vs. “tax.”
In upholding the individual mandate of President Obama’s healthcare law, the majority rejected the argument of ObamaCare challengers that it violated the commerce clause. Instead, wrote Chief Justice John Roberts in the decision, the fee assessed to those who don’t buy health insurance “looks like a tax in many respects.”
“The payment is not so high that there is really no choice but to buy health insurance; the payment is not limited to willful violations, as penalties for unlawful acts often are; and the payment is collected solely by the (Internal Revenue Service) through the normal means of taxation,” Roberts wrote.
And herein each side found their own small victory — and rhetorical challenges.
Obama and the left were overjoyed that their signature domestic project would stand. But the mandate stood on the basis that it’s a tax, and Obama had denied that the fee for violating the mandate was a tax: “For us to say that you’ve got to take a responsibility to get health insurance is absolutely not a tax increase,” Obama told ABC’s George Stephanopoulos in 2009. “Nobody considers that a tax increase. …My critics say everything is a tax increase.”
It’s a penalty, the White House has since argued in the court of public opinion, even to the point of campaign spokesman Ben LaBolt affirming on CNN today that his boss doesn’t agree with the Supreme Court that handed him a policy victory — if not in campaign-friendly terms, a victory nonetheless.
Congressional Republicans, while expressing their disappointment and acknowledging that the repeal of ObamaCare is now up to them, seized on the taxation language as proof of what they’ve claimed all along — it’s a blatant tax hike. A repeal vote should happen in the House on Wednesday.
But Mitt Romney’s campaign was a bit more wobbly on the messaging. Eric Fehrnstrom, a senior adviser to Romney, said Monday on MSNBC that “the governor has consistently described the mandate as a penalty.”
Fehrnstrom was also the source of the famous primary “Etch A Sketch” comment, the adviser on Romney’s gubernatorial campaign when he ran as a pro-choice candidate in liberal Massachusetts, and the spokesman who helped ease Romney back to pro-life territory.
Two days of GOP fury ensued over the comment before Romney sat down with a CBS correspondent and came out of the penalty box.
“The Supreme Court has the final word. And their final word is that Obamacare is a tax. So it’s a tax. They decided it was constitutional. So it is a tax and it’s constitutional. That’s the final word. That’s what it is,” Romney said.
The interview, though, highlighted another challenge the Romney camp faces since the Supreme Court decision: history. As governor, Romney’s healthcare plan, like ObamaCare, imposed a fee on people who could afford health insurance but chose not to buy it.
“The governor believes that what we put in place in Massachusetts was a penalty and he disagrees with the court’s ruling that the mandate was a tax,” Fehrnstrom said in that MSNBC interview, striking at the heart of the uncomfortable position in which the Romney camp now finds itself.
In the CBS interview, Romney was asked if the Massachusetts mandate then meant that he raised taxes as a governor.
“Actually the chief justice, in his opinion, made it very clear that at the state level, states have the power to put in place mandates. They don’t need to require them to be called taxes in order for them to be constitutional,” Romney said. “And as a result, Massachusetts’ mandate was a mandate, was a penalty, was described that way by the legislature and by me. And so it stays as it was.”
And the Obama camp is seizing on that like never before, touting the former governor as a healthcare mandate trailblazer who gave birth to the revolutionary reforms but is now keeping his head down in the clutches of the right.
Just to be clear, the Supreme Court did NOT conclude that the Mandate’s “penalty” for not purchasing insurance was a tax. They (the majority) said the government has the power to mandate the penalty under the taxing authority given to it through the constitution. Everything the government does under its taxing authority isn’t necessarily a tax. For example, if you don’t pay your taxes on time, then you are charged both interest and a fine (or penalty) for not paying your taxes on time. The interest and fine are constitutional under the governments taxing authority. But, the interest and fine are not a tax. they are the penalty for not paying your taxes. Just like the penalty you will be charged for not buying insurance. President Obama is on the correct side of the interpretation here. And Romney, well, he can’t make up his mind it seems.
So, yes this is a game of semantics, but clearly Romney is on the losing end because if he admits it’s a tax (like he is now) it means he raised taxes in Mass. Whatever you wish to call it (tax, mandate, penalty, etc.) it is an enforcement mechanism plain and simple.
Oh no. The Supreme Court did a lot more than that. They said that the government could penalize someone who did not have health insurance that met the government mandate of what adequate health insurance is. That essentially means they can tax you if you do have insurance but it does not meet the mandate. The government can now put in place a regulatory structure (which of course has to be paid for by taxes), enact exchanges rather than simply using the existing free market methods and of course change the nature of what insurance is in the future entirely through political persuasion.
Then Roberts in all his geniues says it is essentially a tax because if you don’t have insurance the penalty is too small to be punitive. Now we need to know what constitutes punitive, what the minimum insurance is needed to avoid the tax (think about that….there is now a penalty the terms of which we don’t know and could change and also since everyone has different income levels is punitiveness an absolute or relative concept.)
Yes we do have prior taxes and enforcement powers but the Constitution itself was very clear that the Federal government only had the powers clearly enumerated to it. Taxes were needed but you essentially knew what you paid for. Think about that when they say pass the bill so you can find out what is in it.
Jindal: It’s called the Declaration of Independence, not dependence POSTED AT 3:41 PM ON JULY 4, 2012 BY ERIKA JOHNSEN
http://hotair.com/archives/2012/07/04/jindal-its-called-the-declaration-of-independence-not-dependence/
An insufferable ass is an insufferable ass, of course, of course
And no one can talk sense to an insufferable ass, of course
And especially, of course, if the insufferable ass is the famous Barack Obama
Go right to the source and ask the insufferable ass
He’ll give you the answer that deceivers will endorse
He’s always on a dissemblers course
Talk to Barack Obama
Barack Obama just yakkity yaks a streak and wastes your time of day
Does any sane person even believe anymore a single thing he has to say?
An insufferable ass is an insufferable ass, of course, of course
And this one’ll talk in prevaricating circles til his voice is hoarse
You never heard of a talking insufferable ass?
Well, listen to this
He is Barack Obama!
Forget the semantics. Romney and congressional republicans needs to come up with something better than obamacare and sell it hard. You cannot fight something with nothing.
I agree. I’d like Romney to say “Tax, penalty, who cares? The truth is it’s GARBAGE and I’m gonna toss it out.”
If the election hinges on RomneyCare vs. Nationwide RomneyCare then Romney loses as Obama and the media do everything that they can to force Romney to simultaneously defend and attack his program. Obama will praise RomneyCare, and his expansion of it across the nation, while Romney will spin and spin and spin some more and the average voter will say “WTF? That Romney guy is a blithering idiot. He expects me to believe that red is green while also being red, white and blue. He’ll say anything to get elected. I’m going with Obama, I at least know where he stands.”
And Romney loses by a mandate, or a tax, or a man dating a tax, or something, it’s all so confusing.
Mittens’ response(s) to date show he has no clear, concrete concept of the issue, which strongly suggests he has no clear, concrete notion of determining a way to fight it.
Furthermore, while voters are much less likely to react (positively or negatively) to the notion of a “penalty” which affects in theory 1% of Americans…
…voters are *much* more inclined to react (negatively) against THEMSELVES being FORCED to pay taxes (the word *without* quotes) to pay for health insurance of that 1% who can’t/won’t pay for it themselves.
Read more: http://www.americanthinker.com/2012/07/take_off_the_gloves_mitt_comments.html#disqus_thread#ixzz1zqflmgtL
… this run for the White House and Congress is shaping up to be about “penalty” vs. “tax.”
Almost immediately after Obamacare prevailed, the Republicans did what they do best: they blew the argument by declining to do their duty. When they did this by framing the debate, and the subsequent lawsuits, around the Individual Mandate, I knew that the war was lost and we were doomed to socialist medicine.
This mistake, as with a long list of grievous errors brought upon us by the Republicans, was (and still is) sourced in the acceptance of the “living document” school of Constitutional jurisprudence. The Constitution means what it says and says what it means. It’s the rulebook for our governance, the same as an NFL Rulebook in a refs hip pocket, and its text clearly constitutes the rules. That’s why it’s called the CONSTITUTion. The fans can scream and yell all they want, but the refs wouldn’t dream of daring to interpret the rules in the NFL Rulebook, they confer and review replays to discover the facts of the matter and then apply the unadulterated rule, just as the text is written.
It clearly states in Article Section 7 that But in all such Cases the Votes of both Houses shall be determined by Yeas and Nays, and the Names of the Persons voting for and against the Bill shall be entered on the Journal of each House respectively. This was not done in the “passage” of Obamacare, because during the interim between passage and reconciliation the Senate had lost the deciding vote, which was upon the swearing in of Scott Brown. So Nancy and Harry “deemed” the final bill (as it stands now) to have been passed in both Houses. This verbal device was then used to avoid the rule stated above. There was a new name in the Senate, but his Nay vote was “deemed” to have been entered Journal of the Senate.
The Republicans, or better put, the RINOs, never raised a peep about this. Nor did any of the nine Supremes in its decision last week. This is an example of how at all times, even at the most critical times, the nation no longer has an opposition party, a must-have for any constitutional democratic republic.
So, as they argue penalty vs. tax, the reality is the lawsuit shoulda been legal vs. illegal.
Within a few days, the Supreme Court decided the Arizona immigration law unconstitutional and the Obamacare law constitutional on the exact same constitutional basis. It spoke, or rather screamed at the American voter. If you vote into office complete idiots who do not know the difference between a tax, and interstate commerce, do not look to us to pull your ox out of the fire. If you vote leaders into office who are simply incompetent at enforcing our long standing immigration laws, do not look to us to pull your ox out of the fire. We decide, based on the constitution, the limits of the federal Executive, Legislative powers vs the state’s authority. If you elect a worthless Executive and Legislators, that is your problem. We did our job.
The Obamacare tax will not fall on the wealthy; it will fall, in a near depression, on the middle class.
The only thing I ever agreed with Robert Kennedy was his repeated axiom about governance, “In a democracy, over the long term, the people get what they deserve.”
Congress has held a public approval rate of about 15% for decades, but there are many, many retired 40 year Congressman enjoying a fat retirement, while your grandchildren are almost certain to be beggars, or conquered slaves.
Chief Justice Roberts just gave the American voter a well deserved spanking.
Reality Check: Influence Peddling? Biggest Contributors To The 2012 Election Thus Far
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ce8GOOMYL8&feature=plcp
GAO Report: $400 Billion Wasted Annually On 1,500 Duplicative, Fragmented, Inefficient Government Programs
http://budget.senate.gov/republican/public/index.cfm/files/serve?File_id=5b942c34-d1e5-49de-be92-a85dad8aa191&SK=42ED5BBA6767481D74B2057AC359ACD4
The good news is that Romney has only played both sides of the issue so far. Soon he’ll discover other sides to play.
What a loser.
I hope everybody who worked so hard to get such a weak candidate nominated is happy.
But he sure was a ball of fire when it came to serially destroying all of his republican opponents, wasn’t he!!!
All this political mumbo jumbo about the political aspects of calling ObamaCare a penalty or tax fills my head with mush.
But there’s one practical point I’d like to raise which appeals to me.
First, you must know that I don’t have insurance because I don’t need it.
If I don’t get ObamaCare, they can’t tax me for my decision.
Why? Because nowhere in the 2700 pages of the law does it say my refusal to get ObamaCare will result in my being forced to pay a tax. Case closed. Thank you John Roberts.
Published on Jul 3, 2012 by Ben Swann Reality Check compares the stances of President Obama and Mitt Romney on the healthcare issue
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CyIXuce36gM&feature=plcp