The U.S. Supreme Court ruled Thursday to uphold Obamacare’s individual mandate (indictment) to collect more taxes from you and me. President Obama’s taxation shell game, which flies in the face of the founding fabrics of our country and the freedoms we celebrate this week on the Fourth of July, is just one more reason his presidency and Obamacare need to be overturned this November.
Chief Justice John Roberts wasn’t kidding when he offered the commentary about their ruling, “It is not our job to protect the people from the consequences of their political choices.” Obamacare is taxation unleashed!
Despite that in 2009 President Obama repeatedly denied to ABC News correspondent George Stephanopoulos that Obamacare’s individual mandate was equated with increased taxes, the U.S. Supreme court defined the legislation as just that: more taxation.
When Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., was asked by a reporter if the financial penalty for not complying to Obamacare’s individual mandate was in fact a tax, she retorted, “Call it what you will. … this is a very good thing for the American people!”
President Obama and Rep. Pelosi, who helped him ramrod the legislation, were frolicking like two kids in a candy store when they learned about the hallmark SCOTUS decision. But I doubt middle-class taxpayers will be so ecstatic when they are footing the bill every year for another government socialized medicine program.
On Thursday, CNN even confessed, “In 2014, the penalty [for not having medical insurance] will be no more than $285 per family or 1 percent of income, whichever is greater. In 2015, the cap rises to $975 or 2 percent of income. And by 2016, the penalty would be up to $2,085 per family or 2.5 percent of income, whichever is greater.”
Bloomberg reported, “Some of the largest levies and fees in the 2010 law take effect in 2013. In all, the law is projected to raise an estimated $813 billion in revenue over 10 years to help pay for the expansion of insurance coverage, according to the Congressional Budget Office. That figure includes penalties under the individual mandate, which the court ruled is constitutional under Congress’ taxing power.”
The fact is, behind closed doors with the U.S. Supreme Court justices and out of view of the public, the legal teams from the Obama administration pitched Obamacare as a tax. Obama and his legal eagles lied to the public to get the legislation passed on Capitol Hill, and then described it as a tax to pass it before SCOTUS. They knew that the Court knew that the Constitution gives Congress the power to tax in order to carry out its duties, and that was their ticket to manipulate their way to victory.
Several months ago on March 26, 2012, the first day of Obamacare arguments before the Supreme Court, Fox News reported that a top Obama lawyer was chided by the justices for calling the fine for not purchasing insurance as both a “penalty” and a “tax.”
Even U.S. Solicitor General Donald Verrilli repeatedly used the phrase “tax penalty” to describe noncompliance to the individual mandate. Then Justice Samuel Alito rebuffed, “General Verrilli, today you are arguing that the penalty is not a tax. Tomorrow you are going to be back and you will be arguing that the penalty is a tax.”
Verrilli answered to Justice Elena Kagan’s question whether noncompliance to the individual mandate resulted in breaking the law by saying, if people “pay the tax, then they are in compliance with the law.” That reference caught the attention of Justice Stephen Breyer, who interjected, “Why do you keep saying tax?”
A requirement forcing people to buy health-care insurance or pay a penalty is a tax. And I vehemently disagree with Nancy Pelosi that Obamacare’s new taxes are “a very good thing for the American people” in or out of a recession, simply because more government regulations and taxations restrict our freedoms and pocketbook.
The actions of Obama’s federal government are diametrically opposed to those of America’s founders and framers who adopted the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution. Thomas Jefferson, who penned the original draft of the Declaration of Independence, wrote roughly 40 years later in 1816 to Samuel Kercheval:
“We must make our election between economy and liberty, or profusion and servitude. If we run into such debts as that we must be taxed in our meat and in our drink, in our necessaries and our comforts, in our labors and our amusements, for our callings and our creeds, as the people of England are, our people, like them, must come to labor sixteen hours in the twenty-four, give the earnings of fifteen of these to the government for their debts and daily expenses, and the sixteenth being insufficient to afford us bread, we must live, as they now do, on oatmeal and potatoes, have no time to think, no means of calling the mismanagers to account, but be glad to obtain subsistence by hiring ourselves to rivet their chains on the necks of our fellow-sufferers.”
Does that not describe Obama’s fundamental transformation of America to a tee?
President Obama and his administration apparently missed Jefferson’s lesson in their civics classes. The lesson is basic: America is all about freedom, not fleecing taxpayers! America is about your and my freedom: the freedom from the tyranny of a king, the freedom from a tyranny of taxes, the freedom from vassals and landlords, the freedom to choose, the freedom to believe, the freedom to speak without fear of repercussion, etc.
Standing for Americans’ rights and freedoms described in the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution was even at the heart of my Boy Scouts of America column last week and the clarification about it I posted my Facebook page: “Let me clarify what I meant by my article. I was not criticizing the gay community. What I tried to convey in my article is that no private organization operating within the bounds of the law should be forced to change its principles and traditions based on outside pressure. The Boy Scouts of America is over 100 years old. It has a set of traditions its members live by. They should be able to continue to live by traditions that have worked and served the organization well for a century.”
Thanks to the work of America’s Founding Fathers, as long as they are within the law, every citizen and private group has the freedoms and constitutional rights to establish their criteria and comprise their members and leaders as they see fit. Remember, in 2000, the U.S. Supreme Court also ruled that the Boy Scouts of America policy to include whomever they preferred in their private club was constitutional, just as other groups can do the same in theirs.
What should be of grave concern to every American citizen is that President Obama has described the Constitution as “an imperfect document. … a document that reflects some deep flaws … reflected an enormous blind spot … and that the framers had that same blind spot.”
In so doing, the president established a rationale and justification for disregarding, disavowing and disposing the Constitution from oversight and obedience in his administration and decisions. To add insult to injury, Obama places himself above the Constitution and those “blind framers” who just couldn’t see the big picture as he does today. After all, he’s the constitutional scholar, and the framers were just, well, the creators of the document!
Today, the Constitution tragically conforms to and serves White House and Washington’s political whims, not vice versa. It’s time we stop that constitutional chaos and return to the founding principles, limited government and taxation, and freedoms of our early republic, whether we like them or not. And no better time to do so than this week during our Fourth of July celebrations.
On the day our founders commemorated the signing of our Declaration of Independence, John Adams wrote to his wife, Abigail, on July 3, 1776, that the date would “be the most memorable Epocha, in the History of America. I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated, by succeeding Generations, as the great anniversary Festival. It ought to be commemorated, as the Day of Deliverance by solemn Acts of Devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with Pomp and Parade, with Shews, Games, Sports, Guns, Bells, Bonfires and Illuminations from one End of this Continent to the other from this Time forward forever more. You will think me transported with Enthusiasm but I am not. I am well aware of the Toil and Blood and Treasure, that it will cost Us to maintain this Declaration, and support and defend these States. Yet through all the Gloom I can see the Rays of ravishing Light and Glory. I can see that the End is more than worth all the Means. And that Posterity will triumph in that Days Transaction, even although we might rue [or regret] it, which I trust in God We shall not.”
Happy birthday, America! We’re still celebrating and fighting for your founding principles and freedoms!
(Another great summer patriotic gathering is the Patriot Academy, which is a six-day leadership and political training camp for students – from age 16 – and adults, too. Patriot Academy is held each summer in Austin, Texas, and the 2012 session – its 10th anniversary – will be will be held from July 30-Aug. 4. Patriot Academy is hosted and sponsored by my friends, Rick Green and David Barton from Wallbuilders and Wallbuilders Live radio show, and is also taught by other insightful, inspirational leaders from around the country. Space is limited to only 100 students and 100 adults for the new adult track. For more information or to register today, go to PatriotAcademy.com.)
Chuck Norris is the star of more than 20 films and the long-running TV series "Walker, Texas Ranger." His latest book is entitled The Official Chuck Norris Fact Book." Learn more about his life and ministry at his official website, ChuckNorris.com.
