Each day I have a decision to make.
Actually, I have a lot of decisions to make, including the first one—to get out of bed, and then what to have for breakfast. But some time after that I have to decide what to write.
I do that in any number of ways. Sometimes there’s a pressing story that’s new and hot; gotta write about that, even though everyone else is doing so, too. Sometimes there’s something more general that I’ve been working on already and I finish it and publish it. Sometimes (much less commonly) I recycle an old post, especially for the holidays. Sometimes some quirky thing just happens to strike my fancy that day. Sometimes there’s a comment on the blog that cries out for a response. Sometimes I go to a bunch of favorite websites for inspiration and find something that another writer has churned out that’s a must-read, either because it’s so insightful or so stupid or so deceptive.
Right now I’m still reeling over the SCOTUS Obamacare decision, the one I can’t quite bring myself to call NFIB v. Sebelius although that’s its official name. There are so many huge issues involved: the ruling itself, how it fits into history, its likely future effects on the federal government’s power, whether Obamacare will be repealed, whether the ruling will enhance or reduce the chances of that happening, the law of taxes and how it fits into Roberts’ decision, the workings of Roberts’ mind and psyche, the internal machinations of the Court and the interrelationships among its justices, and whether political threats and/or considerations influenced what Roberts did. And those are just the things that immediately come to mind.
As I surf around the MSM and the blogosphere and read the work of others on these subjects, however, I get quite weary. I’ve got long drafts for about five or six pieces myself, on closely related subjects. But by the time I finish them (if I do) this will be old news, important though I think it may be. However, my real weariness comes from noticing how predictable so much of the commentary is, and how shameless the spin.
I like to think that I’m interested in finding out the truth, wherever it takes me. I’m sure a goodly number of people who disagree with my conclusions would laugh at that idea of mine about myself, but then they’d also have to explain my political conversion, which was the result of my doing just that: following the closest thing to the truth that I could discover, and going where it led me—although it led me to a place where I became somewhat of a social pariah, so the cost was rather high.
I’m still trying to learn the truth and then reflect on it. For example, right now I’d like to ask liberal pundits the following question (or in fact anyone asserting as much): if the Obamacare charge for non-purchase of health insurance is a tax, what sort of tax is it? Because I don’t see that it’s any sort of tax at all, whether that assertion would be good for Obamacare or good for the Republicans campaigning against him.
It’s not a consumption tax and it’s not a direct tax. The direct tax question was specifically addressed by the majority in the Obamacare case, who found that it was not a direct tax (although the issue was hardly discussed in oral arguments; I would say, however, that if it’s any sort of tax at all—which I do not think it is—that it would be a direct tax of a type that violates the Constitution). It’s not an income tax subject to the 16th Amendment, although it’s collected through the IRS (as the dissenters pointed out, there are quite a few non-tax payments that are collected that way); an income tax is levied on the broad group of people who have a certain income, and this is only levied on those who fail to purchase health insurance. It’s not an income tax exemption, either, although that certainly could have been done if Congress wanted to. But Congress chose not to do it that way for political reasons. It’s not a property tax, or a poll tax, or a tariff, or any sort of tax at all. And although I’ve read most of the SCOTUS opinion on the subject, I couldn’t find where Roberts and the majority say what sort of tax it is, either.
So I think that the recent statement by a Romney spokesman* that Romney agrees with the SCOTUS dissenters that it’s a penalty and not a tax is correct and consistent with his previous position on Obamacare. No doubt it would be far more expedient politically now to leap on the “it’s a tax” bandwagon—and no doubt many Republican ads will do so. But if that represents a reversal of a person’s pre-Sebelius position on the subject, then it’s just as much spin as when Obamaphiles now embrace the idea that it is a tax when earlier that notion was anathema to them.
Now, I don’t know how many Republicans and conservatives were saying that it was a tax in the first place, back when it was passed. And it’s hard to get that information, even by Googling (which I tried). But anyone who did say that then, and says different now, is a hypocrite.
I don’t think it would make it impossible to shape effective anti-Obama ads on this by telling the truth. They would start with something like, “The US Supreme Court said that Obamacare is a tax, and yet Obama promised not to raise taxes on…” and continue in that vein. Perhaps I’m asking much too much of politicians and politics when I wish they would do so. But the dilemma is always whether it’s a good idea to descend to the level of the other side in order to fight it.
[*If you want to know what spokesman Eric Fehrnstrom actually said, rather than just the isolated sound bite that it’s a penalty and not a tax, here’s more of it:
“[Romney] disagreed with the [SCOTUS] ruling. He disagreed with the findings of the ruling. He disagreed with the logic that supported those findings. He said that he agreed with the dissent, which was written by Justice Scalia, and the dissent clearly stated that the mandate was not a tax”…
Fehrnstrom, seeming to understand the awkward position the Romney campaign is in, parsed his words carefully. He criticized Obama for “celebrating” the majority opinion while he and members of his administration still dispute that the penalty for not having insurance is a tax. Romney, by contrast, has “consistently described the mandate as a penalty.”
He also argued that the law “raises a series of taxes” elsewhere, “including on our medical device companies…[T]he president also needs to be held accountable for his hypocritical and contradictory statements, because he’s described it variously as a penalty and as a tax.”
IMHO, if Obama has actually said that (and I’d love to see some quotes, because to the best of my recollection Obama has been consistent in saying it’s not a tax, as well), calling him on his hypocrisy without being hypocritical oneself is the way to go. And there’s absolutely nothing that stops a truthful person from making hard-hitting ads highlighting the fact that the Supreme Court has called this a tax, and Obama is capitalizing on that while insisting it’s not a tax. Nor is there anything that would stop the GOP from driving home the fact that, whatever it’s called, it most likely will have negative economic consequences for most middle-income people and not just the rich.]
