During the long, drawn-out debate over the Obama Administration’s health care reform legislation, we were repeatedly promised that there would be no new tax on the middle class. What the bill did do is create a new health care mandate that all Americans have to pay for. That sure sounds like a tax to me.
ABC’s George Stephanopoulos, himself a former Democratic strategist and aide to Bill Clinton, challenged Obama on this very point. Obama’s response? He said it “is absolutely not” a tax increase.
This mandate is not only unfair to hardworking Americans, who know better how to make their own health care decisions than the government, it is unconstitutional. Because of that, several states including Texas joined a lawsuit against the bill. They argue that the mandate simply isn’t covered by the commerce clause of the constitution.
Now, facing a very real possibility that they might not win, the administration is shifting tack. Rather than defend the mandate under the commerce clause, they’re defending it as a tax. In fact, they’re making that the key to their defense of the bill.
That kind of cynical power play is exactly what is wrong with this administration. Whatever happened to laying out your vision, being honest with your proposals, and then defending them on their merits?
In this economy, we don’t need more taxes, and we certainly don’t need more mandates on individuals. Many small businesses – farmers and ranchers among them – are already burdened by taxes, overregulation, and government mandates. They’re trying to stay in business. They’re trying to hire new workers, or struggling to keep the ones they have.
What Americans demand is a government they can trust, not one that talks out of both sides of its mouth. They don’t need a government to tell them how to live their lives, they need one that will get out of their way and let them live it how they know best.
