The GOP comedy routine continues. Romney announced today that the health care mandate is a tax. He therefore, presumably also:
- Asserts that he raised taxes as Governor in Massachusetts, thus shattering a central plank of his campaign (it will be beautiful to watch his staff argue that the Massachusetts mandate he signed into law is not a tax, while the national mandate is a tax),
- Agrees that Obamacare has been constitutional all along, and
- Thinks the liberal justices on the Supreme Court are better constitutional analysts than Scalia, Thomas, Kennedy, and Alito — activist legislators to a man, no doubt.
Interestingly, evidently aware that the unelected, life-appointed Court — its members drawn from a tiny economic and social elite of attorneys who constitute just 0.3 percent of the population — is institutionally the most conservative branch of the government, he also strongly endorsed the idea that The Five are final legislators for the nation: “Well, the Supreme Court has the final word and their final word is that Obamacare is a tax. So it’s a tax.”
In reality, the Court is at most a co-equal branch, and does not have the final word on anything.
Of course, all of this is probably more amusing than meaningful to the Romney campaign, because from the start it has been predicated on the assumption that it doesn’t matter what he says on the campaign trail, or what positions he takes on the issues of the day, because the election will be determined by who has the most money to spend on advertising and public relations.
And so far, they’ve been right.
Discuss
6 Comments . Leave a comment below.A majority of the population avoids the tax simply b/c most have some sort of health insurance. Would not a tax be an unavoidable charge, such as the MA sales tax or vehicle excise tax or property tax for homeowners?
I don’t see the big deal with Obamacare besides the fact it keeps the insurance companies fat, dumb, and happy.
It is a forced purchase of services from private suppliers. That may be tax-like, but it is not a tax, which is a payment to the government. I agree that the main problem with Obamacare is that it stuffs more money into the insurance companies, who have already demonstrated they can’t run a cost-effective national health care system.
The Obamacare mandate is a tax because the US Supreme Court says it is.
The Romneycare mandate isn’t a tax because the US Supreme Court hasn’t said it is.
If anyone asks a followup question, tossing a handful of $100 bills in the air works wonders.
no it’s a candy mint, no it’s two, two, two mints in one.
Wasn’t he the one that said it’s not a tax per se, but falls under the power to tax? It is after all a penalty arising from the tax code and I think it was centralmassdad who pointed out that it’s only a tax in the sense that not giving to charity or owning a home is a tax.
Yes, Bob, SCOTUS does get the final word, at least on the law as it currently is. There are a few ways around it, but they take time: rewrite the law to satisfy the Court, amend the Constitution, select judges with different views when vacancies arise. If we don’t give the Court this role the idea of constitutional supremacy over mere politics and statute law is meaningless.
Apparently, Romney himself is already on the case. Via Twitter, from the Globe’s Matt Viser (this is 4 tweets):
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