Two Years On: Obamacare

Barack Obama speaking against health insurance mandates:

http://hotair.com/archives/2011/02/01/video-guess-who-predicted-the-obamacare-ruling/

 

Yes, they are. If they don't buy a Prius, they pay $4,000 (or whatever the amount is). If they buy a Prius, they don't pay that $4,000.

 

Yes.

 

It should be mandated that we all have to buy horses to end foreign dependance on oil.

 

"We are not censoring this New Yorker article about corruption in the administration. We're ... 'improving' it!"

 

Your mistake here is "should."

"Should" and "could" are very different concepts.

Don't get hung up on whether we "should" have a mandate. That's a policy argument.

There "could" be a mandate that we all have to buy horses. I have no doubt about that. Again: This is why we hold elections. The political process keeps lawmakers in check.

 

That principle of limited government and Constitutional democracy is supposed to limit them, too. I get that you are arguing they shouldn't, but some of us aren't quite ready to give that up.

 

But isn't that one of the concerns of court, that if they rule in favor that "could" becomes more possible for whatever legislatures come up with?

 

Again: Not "should."

"Could."

 

They have raised that question. I vehemently disagree that the Court should make that a factor in its decision. It's a policy question, left to the political process.

 

I'm not sure it's as big a difference as you'd like to believe - at least philosophically.

And politically, you're now in the position of telling me that the government, acting as middleman, knows better than I do how to spend the tax money it collects from me.

 

Boom - Court conservatives frequently rule that the executive branch has wide latitude, a position I tend to agree with, because the political process works to restrain the executive branch. It causes some cognitive dissonance for me if now, suddenly, they feel like they have to make a policy decision to protect people from their elected representatives.