Puterbac News Network and Political Discussion Thread

[Jungle Rat]

"(and this is according to many doctor friends that I know...so they see what is ACTUALLY going to happen like you)"

The guys who work on your tractors aren't really doctors Wiz. You do know this right?

[AlabamAlum]

Obamacare will not be nearly as bad as its detractors fear; conversely, it will not be nearly as good as its supporters hope.

[puterbac]

Tick it was about 1.86 when he took office. Woo hoo!

[Jungle Rat]

Obamacare will not be nearly as bad as its detractors fear; conversely, it will not be nearly as good as its supporters hope.

So we get something that is better/good but not great. Fair

[puterbac]

Aa,

I fear all the boards and bodies that are created by this that have yet to put pen to paper and create thousands or regs with the force of law that nobody ever have voted for if it was in the original legislation.

Uncertainty is going continue to reign for years and the economy will not hit its potential because of it.

[puterbac]

A Vast New Taxing Power

The Chief Justice's ObamaCare ruling is far from the check on Congress of right-left myth.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142 ... s_comments

The commentary on John Roberts's solo walk into the Affordable Care Act wilderness is converging on a common theme: The Chief Justice is a genius. All of a sudden he is a chessmaster, a statesman, a Burkean minimalist, a battle-loser but war-winner, a Daniel Webster for our times.

Now that we've had more time to take in Chief Justice Roberts's reasoning, we have a better summary: politician. In fact, his 5-4 ruling validating the constitutional arguments against purchase mandates and 5-4 ruling endorsing them as taxes is far more dangerous, and far more political, even than it first appeared last week.

This is a minority view. By right-left acclaim, at least among elites, the Chief Justice has engineered a Marbury v. Madison-like verdict that camouflages new limits on federal power as a reprieve for President Obama's entitlement legacy and in a stroke enhanced the Supreme Court's reputation—and his own. This purported "long game" appeals to conservatives who can console themselves with a moral victory, while the liberals who like to assail the Chief Justice as a radical foe of democracy can continue their tantrum.

It's an elegant theory whose only flaw is that it is repudiated by Chief Justice Roberts's own language and logic. His gambit substitutes one unconstitutional expansion of government power for another and rearranges the constitutional architecture of the U.S. political system.

***
His first error is the act of rewriting the plain text of a law, instead of practicing the disinterested interpretation that is the task of the judiciary, regardless of the partisan outcome. The second error is converting the health insurance mandate's penalty into a tax. Ninety years of precedents have honed precise and widely divergent legal meanings for taxes and penalties for violating laws or regulations, and they are not interchangeable.

The Chief Justice did not simply change a label—as if Congress said something was a penalty when it was really a tax. Rather, these categories are defined by their purposes and effects, by how they operate in practice. Taxes are "exactions" whose main goal is raising revenue, while penalties punish individuals for breaking the law. The boundaries can blur—legitimate taxes may also have strong punitive aims—but scarcely so in this case. ObamaCare's mandate was designed to regulate individual conduct to help achieve universal coverage. If it succeeds perfectly, it should collect $0.

Even if Democrats had passed the mandate tax as rewritten by the Chief Justice, and they did not, the Supreme Court until Thursday has never held that Congress can call anything it wants a tax. The taxing power like the Commerce Clause is broad, and the courts are generally deferential. But all powers the Constitution enumerates are also limited, and these limits—unique to each power—must be meaningful and enforceable by the Legal system.

The Chief Justice's compounding errors deprive the taxing power of any viable limiting principles. Article I, section 8 gives Congress an independent grant of power to "lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States." Taxes must originate in the House, the political body designed to be most responsive to voters. There are also important additional safeguards on the type of exactions known as "direct taxes."

Indirect taxes—"duties, imposts and excises"—are taxes on activities and products. They are passed on by a seller, triggered by a transaction and more or less optional: Consumers don't have to buy taxed goods and services. Direct taxes, on the other hand, are those that the federal government is empowered to impose on individuals as citizens. They cannot be avoided because they are levied on the existence of people.

America has its origins in a rebellion against arbitrary and pernicious taxation and the Framers wanted to make it extremely difficult to impose or raise direct taxes. These can easily morph into plenary police powers, the regulation of private behavior and conduct that the Constitution vests in the states. For this reason, while the taxing power in addition to raising revenue can achieve regulatory results, those regulatory results must be constitutional themselves.

***
That boundary held for 225 years until Thursday's ruling, as the Court had repeatedly struck down Congress's efforts to arrogate to itself police powers under either the Commerce Clause or the taxing power. The Chief Justice ruled instead that the mandate was an unconstitutional exercise of federal police powers under the Commerce Clause, only to transform the taxing power into a license for the federal government to impose taxes whose defining feature is commanding people as members of society.

Chief Justice Roberts concedes that "Congress's ability to use its taxing power to influence conduct is not without limits" and that in the 19th and early 20th centuries the Supreme Court "policed these limits aggressively, invalidating punitive exactions obviously designed to regulate behavior otherwise regarded at the time as beyond federal authority." But then he writes that "more recently we have declined to closely examine the regulatory motive or effect of revenue-raising measures."

His error—or more likely, his deliberate sleight-of-hand—is that this modern jurisprudence does not deal with direct taxes but indirect taxes and income taxes. Income taxes were authorized in 1913 by the Sixteenth Amendment, which was necessary to bypass the other important limit on direct taxes, called apportionment.

The Constitution says that "No Capitation, or other direct, Tax shall be laid, unless in Proportion to the Census or enumeration herein before directed to be taken." Colloquially, direct taxes are known as head taxes and they must be spread among the states according to population. Apportionment's onerous limits were meant to protect against abuse and sectional favoritism. If Congress uses direct taxes, the residents of South Carolina will pay the same overall share as Massachusetts, and so forth.

But apportionment would defeat the mandate tax's "whole point," the Chief Justice writes, since every state will have a different percentage of citizens that are uninsured. So he cryptically rules that "A tax on going without health insurance does not fall within any recognized category of direct tax."

But if not a direct tax, then what kind of tax is it? It is not an indirect tax because it applies to a failure to purchase something, what the Chief Justice calls "an omission," not an optional transaction. It is not a tax on income because that merely hits "accessions to wealth," not what people choose or choose not to do with those accessions.

The result is that Chief Justice Roberts has created the only tax in U.S. history that exceeds its own constitutional limits and is meant to execute powers that the Court otherwise ruled were invalid. His discovery erases the limiting principle—apportionment—that constrains the taxing power for everything besides income and excises.

In the process, Chief Justice Roberts has hollowed out dual federal-state sovereignty and eviscerated the very limit on the Commerce Clause that he posits elsewhere in his opinion and that has some conservatives singing his praises. From now on, Congress can simply regulate interstate commerce by imposing "taxes" whenever someone does or does not do something contrary to its desires.

The Chief Justice seems to understand this, so he tries to articulate his own new limiting principle for the tax power. His mandate tax isn't a mandate but merely a suggestion: choose to buy insurance or "pay money into the Federal Treasury, no more," an act he likens to a tax on gasoline. He also temporizes that "taxes that seek to influence conduct are nothing new."

True enough, but the punishments in the tax code for inactivity come in the form of not being able to claim benefits that Congress in its graces bestows. Such as: If you don't borrow to buy a home, you don't get a mortgage interest deduction.

Congress has never passed a tax on a lack of gasoline or a tax on a failure to buy gasoline, any more than Congress can regulate inactivity under the Commerce Clause by telling people to buy gasoline or else pay a penalty. The reality is that Washington would love to regulate the ordinary economic choices that used to be beyond its purview, and now it will be able to abuse the ad hoc "tax" permit that the Chief Justice has given it.

***
The John-Roberts-as-Daniel-Webster school argues that the long-term limits on the Commerce Clause and other aspects of the ruling are a good trade for the loss of upholding ObamaCare, and government excess has now reached its high-water mark and will recede over time. That false hope seems unlikely given the subversion of the taxing power and unleashing a general federal police power. This is equally harmful to liberty and dual sovereignty.

One possible saving grace is that this center-right country remains suspicious of taxation, and therefore the Chief Justice increases accountability somewhat through truth-in-labeling. But note how Democrats are already claiming that the ObamaCare mandate is not really the tax that is the only reason it was upheld.

White House chief of staff Jack Lew said Sunday that "The law is clear. It's called a penalty." Neither sentence is true. On Friday, the Obama re-election "truth team" was even less subtle in a memo titled "They're lying about ObamaCare" that made the same claim. Chief Justice Roberts has created a creature that is not a tax for political purposes but is a tax for constitutional purposes.

Chief Justice Roberts's ruling is careless about these bedrock tax questions, and they are barely addressed by either the Court's liberal or conservative wings. His ruling, with its multiple contradictions and inconsistencies, reads as if it were written by someone affronted by the government's core constitutional claims but who wanted to uphold the law anyway to avoid political blowback and thus found a pretext for doing so in the taxing power.

If this understanding is correct, then Chief Justice Roberts behaved like a politician, which is more corrosive to the rule of law and the Court's legitimacy than any abuse it would have taken from a ruling that President Obama disliked. The irony is that the Chief Justice's cheering section is praising his political skills, not his reasoning. Judges are not supposed to invent political compromises.

"It is not our job," the Chief Justice writes, "to protect the people from the consequences of their political choices." But the Court's most important role is to protect liberty when the political branches exceed the Constitution's bounds, not to bless their excesses in the interests of political or personal expediency or both. On one of the most consequential cases he will ever hear, Chief Justice Roberts failed this most basic responsibility.

A version of this article appeared July 2, 2012, on page A10 in the U.S. edition of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: A Vast New Taxing Power.

[Jungle Rat]

Too long. Sorry

[puterbac]

A tea party battle cry

By Yates Walker   10:01 PM 07/01/2012

http://dailycaller.com/2012/07/01/a-tea ... y/?print=1

Some pundits are drawing comparisons between our current political climate and that of America just before the civil war. They’re wrong.

This isn’t 1859. It’s 1775.

A government is a reflection of its people. At the founding, Americans saw freedom as a birthright. To protect that freedom, they designed an accountable government tethered by negative rights and constrained by competing powers. For the past century, Americans have been surrendering, little by little, their freedom for a little promised comfort. A century from now, the emergence of the tea party movement will be seen as one of two things: the death throes of liberty or the moment when Americans began to remember who they were.

If Obamacare is implemented in a second Obama administration, America will never recover. Once an entitlement is granted, it’s impossible to take away. By 2016, the word “repeal” will be considered politically toxic. Some insufferable moderate Republican of the future will label our current insufferable moderates as “right-wing.” Somehow the new normal is always to the left of where we were yesterday.

So what happens?

Two American versions of socialized medicine already exist. We can take a peek into our future by looking at the Veterans Administration and Indian reservations. Despite wonderful, faithful volunteers, the VA is forever undermanned and underfunded. Soldiers get worse waiting in long lines for essential surgery and treatment. Every few years, Americans are horrified by stories revealing how poorly we treat our vets. As for our Native American friends, they have a saying on the reservation that encapsulates their dilemma: Don’t get sick after June.

In brief, neither system can meet its patients’ needs, so they have to ration care. And with government-run anything, bigger is worse.

But that’s just health care. Independence is at stake. Half our citizens now receive some form of government assistance. And President Obama wants to help a whole lot more. His administration is advertising the dietary benefits of food stamps. He wants to pay off America’s mortgages. He wants to buy our cars, insulate our homes, pay for our educations. Barack Obama believes in what he’s doing. He thinks the dismal, pathetic Life of Julia is good enough for Americans. He wants more of our citizens on the government dole. Why? Because dependent people are easier to manage. If he’s re-elected, the mandates won’t end at health insurance.

As a nation with 50% of its citizens on the government dole, we’re about to make a decision. We have two options: one active, one passive. Without radical action, our current nanny-state inertia will choose our future for us. The active option is to kick the tea party into hyper-drive and elect Republicans. Once they’re in office, we have to hound them incessantly to cut spending, slash programs, balance the budget and reduce the deficit. There’s no coasting after a successful election. The mission lasts forever. As George Washington said, the price of liberty is eternal vigilance.

Sadly, this decision can’t be put off for another day. Once 55% of the country is dependent on the government, our trajectory is fixed. Majorities don’t vote away “free” money.

We’re at the tipping point of vast societal change. Another Obama term would tip the balance, and there’s no going back.

Republicans need to fight and fight to win. To be honest, the odds are against us. To have any chance, we need to begin with a reality check.

We always lose. Conservatism has a pristine losing streak for the last hundred years. Pristine. This must be understood. One of the biggest and most repeated lies about politics is that Democrats capitulate to Republicans. In the past three months, every late-night host has joked about Obama and his progressives caving into their GOP masters. That has never happened. Not once. For two reasons, Democrats always win: 1) because elected Republicans are wimps, cowards and/or idiots — usually all three; and 2) because the Democrats have a secret trick.

Here’s how it works.

Sally the Democrat wants to teach sign language to baby seals. She asks Bob the Republican for $8 billion to fund a pilot program. Before he can answer, Sally calls Bob a heartless baby seal-hating Nazi sympathizer. Bob publicly denies the charges. He then praises Sally’s program as a worthy cause and asks if she can get by with $2 billion. Sally settles begrudgingly with Bob for $4 billion.

And we let the Democrats call this compromise.

The government always grows. New programs crop up. Old programs get bigger. Inch by inch, billion by billion, Washington Republicans have been capitulating forever. In the battle for limited government, the GOP is filled with weak stewards. The road ends in serfdom unless Republican voters demand something different from their elected leaders.

Many Republicans were counting on Obamacare being struck down. It seemed a sure thing. The law was immensely unpopular. Its mandate was repellant, foreign and an obvious assault on individual liberty. In oral arguments, Solicitor General Donald Verrilli revealed himself to be a double agent, coughing and stammering his way to catastrophe in a pitiful defense of the law. And to put a cherry on top, Justice Kennedy asked all the right questions.

Many were certain of the outcome. Nearly everything else this president has attempted has failed in dramatic fashion. Over the past three years, Barack Obama’s Change Leviathan has been so clumsy, faltering and poorly managed — the signature of big government — that another failure seemed a sure thing. Most conservatives were shocked by the ruling. All were horrified. But as odious as the Supreme Court’s decision is, it will be providential if it reignites American passion for individual liberty.

Nothing is cresting over the horizon. The point of no return is not approaching. It’s here. It’s now. It’s victory or death time. Ronald Reagan said that freedom is never more than one generation from extinction. Like it or not, if you’re reading this, you’re that generation. The duty is yours and if you fail, your children’s America will be a faint and doddering shadow of the land of opportunity you once knew.

Sound the trumpets. Load for bear.

Yates Walker is a conservative activist and writer. Before becoming involved in politics, he served honorably as a paratrooper and a medic in the U.S. Army’s 82nd Airborne Division. He can be reached at yateswalker@gmail.com.



Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2012/07/01/a-tea ... z1zVOmHlBk

[puterbac]

Too long. Sorry

Rat a comic strip is to long for you.

[Jungle Rat]

Actually those are the only books I buy at Half Price Books. Pearls Before Swine, Baby Blues, Far Side, Zits. Only a few pages at a time though because my attention span blows.

[Big Orange Junky]

Yet another article hilighting that yes indeed he was a wimpy weasel that cared more about getting his feelings hurt than doing the right thing and upholding the Constitution.

[GBJs]

Insurance...I purchased a private policy on my wife in 2007, $454 per two months...BCBS of Florida.

Last month was the 5 year anniversary of the policy. How do I remember such. Because each anniversary the price increases. No changes to coverage. No difference to the deductable. $834 per two months.

What can I expect with "Obamneycare"?

[hedge]

My eyes!!!

[10ac]

Pluck 'em out!

[hedge]

How very hebrew of you...

[Professor Tiger]

"Out, out vile jelly!"

[Professor Tiger]

What can I expect with "Obamneycare"?

Costs rising even faster than before. Caregivers and hospitals getting paid less per procedure, so they will have to make up in volume, which will mean you get 3 minutes with your doctor when you visit. Fewer doctors entering the profession and PA's and NP's taking over a lot more primary care. Less choice in doctors and fewer standard procedures covered. More regulations, restrictions, etc. More lawsuits with rules of evidence stacked in favor of plaintiffs. More elderly forced out of Medicare and onto ObamaRomneyRobertscare. More and more sick old people being sent home to die with no recourse.

And then, widespread calls by liberal politicians that the only way to fix the health care crisis (caused by Bush) is to go for single payer, which was the plan all along.

[puterbac]

Excuse me there pt, but I believe you just violated trademark as I own that prediction from 2009.

Now keep up the good fight.

[puterbac]

Seeing an actual md will become a rarity as yes you will see a huge push for more pa's and np's to help cover the lack of docs.

[bluetick]

I'd like to hear the puter/prof plan that will stop GBJ's wife's insurance policy from doubling again in five years under our current deeply-flawed healthcare system.