Texas’ most prominent elected Democratic officeholder speaks. The subject: When a penalty isn’t a punishment. Or something.
“I would make the argument, one, that instead it is an incentive to do right–that it is not penalizing because penalty is punishment,” Jackson-Lee told the Judiciary Committee.
“You’re not punished if you have health insurance, in fact. And so you are, in fact, incentivized to have health insurance, rather than take the negative which is to suggest that because we have a penalty you are being punished,” Rep. Jackson-Lee said.
Rep. Jackson Lee, may I introduce you to Inigo Montoya? The actual language of ObamaCare does call for a fine levied against citizens who elect not to buy health insurance. The law does in fact use the word “penalty.” Because it is a punishment. That word still means what we all think it means. But never mind that.
Folks, you don’t often find anyone born with Lee’s level of incoherence. It must be cultivated over the course of many years of study at our best institutions of higher learning, places like Yale and the University of Virginia Law School, both of which have shaped and produced Jackson Lee. And Rep. Jackson Lee has gone on from her university studies to elevate incoherence to an art form. Bravo!
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