29 June 2012 –
It has been a while since I have written anything on my
blog. I actually tried to squelch my
desire to keep the blog going. The effort worked for
almost seven months. Now that I find
that events of this last week overwhelmingly corrosive to the Constitution, I
have to write something.
In the 1930s, when Social Security was first debated and
pushed through Congress, President
Roosevelt and his administration went to great lengths to sell
the program as a pay-in-and-take-out-program.
They sold the program by saying that it would be a government retirement fund that would
operate even better than a private retirement fund. What the public didn’t know was that it was a
tax from the beginning because it was never constructed to be, and certainly
was not confined later to be, a self-sustaining retirement-only fund. As history has shown, it was expanded to
become another way to redistribute income, funded through a tax. It has been sustained through payroll taxes
for decades now, with little attempt to hide the fact.
Obamacare was pushed through Congress and foisted on the
American people by calling it anything but a tax. Read the following excerpt from an interview
in Sept 2009 by President Obama and George Stephanopoulos.
Sep 20, 2009
Obama: Mandate is Not a Tax
ABC News Interview
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: ...during the campaign. Under this
mandate, the government is forcing people to spend money, fining you if you
don't. How is that not a tax?
OBAMA: Well, hold on a second, George. Here - here's what's
happening. You and I are both paying $900, on average - our families - in
higher premiums because of uncompensated care. Now what I've said is that
if you can't afford health insurance, you certainly shouldn't be punished for
that.
That's just piling on. If, on the other hand, we're giving tax
credits, we've set up an exchange, you are now part of a big pool, we've driven
down the costs, we've done everything we can and you actually can afford health
insurance, but you've just decided, you know what, I want to take my
chances. And then you get hit by a bus and you and I have to pay for the
emergency room care, that's ...
STEPHANOPOULOS: That may be, but it's still a tax increase.
OBAMA: No. That's not true, George. The - for us
to say that you've got to take a responsibility to get health insurance is
absolutely not a tax increase. What it's saying is, is that we're not
going to have other people carrying your burdens for you anymore than the fact
that right now everybody in America, just about, has to get auto insurance.
Nobody considers that a tax increase. People say to themselves, that is a fair
way to make sure that if you hit my car, that I'm not covering all the costs.
STEPHANOPOULOS: But it may be fair, it may be good public
policy ...
OBAMA: No, but - but, George, you - you can't just make up
that language and decide that that's called a tax increase. Any ...
STEPHANOPOULOS: Here's the ...
OBAMA: What - what - if I - if I say that right now your
premiums are going to be going up by 5 or 8 or 10 percent next year and you say
well, that's not a tax increase; but, on the other hand, if I say that I don't
want to have to pay for you not carrying coverage even after I give you tax
credits that make it affordable, then ...
STEPHANOPOULOS: I - I don't think I'm making it up. Merriam
Webster's Dictionary: Tax - "a charge, usually of money, imposed by
authority on persons or property for public purposes."
OBAMA: George, the fact that you looked up Merriam's
Dictionary, the definition of tax increase, indicates to me that you're
stretching a little bit right now. Otherwise, you wouldn't have gone to
the dictionary to check on the definition. I mean what ...
STEPHANOPOULOS: Well, no, but ...
OBAMA: ... what you're saying is ...
STEPHANOPOULOS: I wanted to check for myself. But your
critics say it is a tax increase.
OBAMA: My critics say everything is a tax increase. My
critics say that I'm taking over every sector of the economy. You know
that. Look, we can have a legitimate debate about whether or not we're going to
have an individual mandate or not, but ...
STEPHANOPOULOS: But you reject that it's a tax increase?
OBAMA: I absolutely reject that notion.
President Obama used all sorts of justification—but clearly
saying it wasn’t a tax—to push his mandate through Congress and on the American
people. But, when the people and the
states pushed back and the case went before the Supreme Court, what did
President Obama’s legal team use as a justification for the forced
mandate? They knew they couldn’t get it past
the court through the use of the Constitution’s commerce clause; therefore, in
the tried and true methods of congenital doublespeakers, they suggested that the program also acted as a tax. Yup, they called it a
tax and justified the program under the government’s right to tax the
people. Unbelievably to sensible and
honest people, it worked on the Chief Justice.
Here’s problem number one, in my view—to say nothing of the cost
this program will cripple the economy with:
Either President Obama lied to the American people in 2009 when he
clearly denied allegations that Obamacare was a tax or his team lied in front
of the Supreme Court when they argued that Obamacare’s mandate could be called
a tax. Or, what is more probably the
fact of the sad situation: President
Obama and his team have used whatever lie, excuse, terminology, shading, and stilted
collection of statements necessary to get what they want, even if the majority
of the American people want otherwise. Why
else would they have passed a law that would not be implemented until 2014,
after the 2012 elections? It has been
proven to that they are like military recruiters; whatever they say is a lie
because it comes from their mouths. Another way to say it: Two
plus two equals four is a fact. But, when
they use that fact, it turns into a lie because their motives and methods for using the
fact are underhanded.
Problem number two resides in the Supreme Court. Didn’t Chief Justice Roberts know that he was
being played like a flute by this nefarious team of left-wing hucksters? Didn’t he know that his court’s reputation as
a guardian of the Constitution and his court’s place as the supreme land of the
land have been sorely wounded by his codifying of a set of arguments that the
administration used to get through the day and will change again tomorrow if
the President thinks it will get him through the next day? If the Supremes lead singer was so enamored
with making his opinion sound good as to be seduced into validating the administration’s
newly minted arguments, then we are in dire straits in this country. We can get rid of this president in November;
the court is a permanent product of power and hubris. Maybe the singing group by the same name
would do a better job as the ultimate arbiter in the land. At least their self-important lyrics would probably
come with a catchier tune.
