Big Dogs Weblog

Did Obama Win The Battle Only To Lose The War?

by Big Dog on Jun 30, 2012 at 17:21 Political

Last week the Supreme Court ruled that Obamacare can stand but only after the Judicial Branch majority became legislators. The Court basically rewrote the law that Congress passed and inserted the word TAX to replace the word PENALTY. This flies in the face of everything the left has been saying about the law. Obama emphatically denied that the penalty was a tax. Now that the Court has changed the law the reality is that Barack Obama broke his promise not to raise taxes on the middle class.

When all is said and done Obamacare will impose nearly a TRILLION dollars in taxes on Americans. Keep in mind, this is not an income tax it is a tax on something other than income. Some of the tax increases will pay for the massive expansion of government but the most onerous tax is the one where a person pays a tax for doing absolutely nothing. I have seen in several places an imaginary exchange that highlights how this works:

CUSTOMER: No thank you, I would NOT like a pack of gum.
CLERK: OK, the tax on that will be $2.35.

If Americans ever went to a store and declined to buy something and were forced to pay a tax for doing so they would be marching on DC with pitchforks and torches and lynching those in Congress.

But the very same thing has taken place under the health care law. If you report that you do not have health insurance (whether you can’t afford it or declined to buy it) you will have to pay a tax. This is a nightmare for Obama and I think he would have rather had the mandate ruled unconstitutional than have it upheld as a tax because now he has to defend breaking his promise. Remember, the taxes on the middle class would not be raised one dime, per Obama.

Obama and his sock puppets are already trying to rewrite the SCOTUS decision that involved rewriting the law. They are out saying that this is not a tax and is a penalty. Sorry liberals, you cannot have it both ways. If you are going to implement Obamacare because the Court ruled in your favor then you have to implement it based on the ruling.

This is not an accident. The New York Times has described this as a penalty and made the claim that the SCOTUS upheld the penalty.

WRONG. IT IS A TAX – PERIOD.

It is the largest tax increase in our history and it demonstrates that Barack Obama is a tax and spend liberal and nothing more.

While he is out saying the ruling is a win for the middle class the reality is that the middle class will get hit hard by the taxes. Wealthy people, by and large, have health insurance so they will not be affected by the tax for not having it. Those who cannot afford it will get screwed and they will pay other taxes to fund the monstrosity as well.

This is by no means a win for the left no matter what they claim because the ruling allows several things to take place. It allows states to opt out of the Medicaid expansion (which will leave a lot of poorer folks with no insurance and a tax for not having it) which is a big deal. The ruling also allows any future Republican majority in the Senate to repeal the law with a simple majority of 51 votes. Because this is now a TAX issue it will only take 51 votes to repeal it.

The ruling also had some intangible benefits. It has motivated a huge segment of society that now knows the only way to repeal Obamacare is to get rid of Obama and get a majority in the Senate (assuming the majority in the House holds). Around 66% of Americans disapprove of Obamacare and those people will be out in force on election day. They will be out to repeal Obamacare via the ballot box because the system of government that the Founders gave us failed them when an activist Court rewrote a law to make it Constitutional.

John Roberts might have felt he had to do this to preserve the integrity of the Court (though I fail to see how that happened) but he was wrong in what he did. I know, he has the law degree and he is the highest judge in the land but he is WRONG. And if he does not think it was wrong to rewrite the law then he does not belong on the bench. I am open to him demonstrating where the power he exerted is authorized in the Constitution but I doubt he can find it. The Legislative Branch WRITES the laws and the Judicial Branch interprets them to see if they are Constitutional. There is no provision that allows them to rewrite the laws.

Roberts might have done this in an effort to force Obama to defend a huge tax increase and to show he is a liar. He might have done it to make it easier to repeal it. He might have done this to keep the Court from being viewed as political (too late, the ruling was political and not Constitution based) and then again, he might just be a coward.

I don’t know. I think that if he did all these things he might just be a genius by giving Obama defeat while making him think he achieved a victory.

I don’t think this is what courts are supposed to do but the deed has been done and we have to drive on from here.

In 2010 the major issue was Obamacare. The Democrats took a beating because of that ONE issue. They will claim that the economy is what matters to everyone and while that is true does Obama really want to run on that issue?

Those who were not inclined to vote or who were not reliable voters might not have voted based on the economy but they will get out and vote based on Obamacare.

Americans can go through bad times and we know this is part of life. What we will not do is allow government to overreach and to make us slaves to them. That was the message in 2010 and it is the message in 2012.

In November we will take out the trash.

As a last thought, it has always been a joke that if the government could figure a way to tax you for breathing it would. Since we now have to pay a tax for being an American who does not participate in a certain activity it would appear as if government figured out how to tax us just for breathing.

Cave canem!
Never surrender, never submit.

Tags: constitution, john roberts, lies, november, obamacare, scotus