The Patriot Post Brief 7-2-2012

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The Patriot Post Brief 7-2-2012
From The Federalist Patriot
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What Constitutional Limits Are Left?

July 2, 2012

The Foundation

"The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground." --Thomas Jefferson

Government

"At the risk of being a broken record [on ObamaCare], we remain focused on the wrong issue because conservatives and Republicans do not want any part of the right issue. Congress would not be able to tax anyone a penny if the subject matter on which lawmakers sought to spend the money raised was not within Congress's constitutional authority to address. Health care and health insurance are precisely such issues. So why does Congress get to raise taxes for and spend money on them? Because the country -- very much including Republican leaders and many conservatives -- has bought on to the wayward progressive premise that the General Welfare Clause of the Constitution empowers Congress to spend on anything it wants to spend on as long as their is some fig-leaf that ties the spending to the betterment of society. That, and not an inflated understanding of the Commerce Clause, has always been the problem. Republicans are afraid to touch this because, if you follow the logic, you'd have to conclude that Congress has no constitutional authority to set up a social security system, a Medicare or Medicaid program, or most to the innumerable Big Government enterprises that Republicans support while, of course, decrying Big Government. Republicans occasionally want to limit what government spends, but they don't want to acknowledge any constitutional limits on what government could spend -- that's what has gotten us to this point." --columnist and former DoJ attorney Andrew McCarthy1

Essential Liberty

"In the wake of the Supreme Court's decision upholding the constitutionality of Obamacare, the principal choice now facing Americans on November 6 will be whether to keep Obamacare or to repeal it. The question is a binary one, and the answer -- expressed almost entirely through their presidential vote -- will go a long way toward determining the future course of this great nation. Yes, the economy is extremely important; and, yes, Obamacare is hurting the economy. But the reason why this election is the most important since the Civil War is not because Mitt Romney would make a far better steward of the economy than President Obama (though he would). Rather, it's because we are about to decide whether to put what will soon be one-fifth of our economy under the control of the federal government; whether to funnel previously unthinkable amounts of power and money to Washington; and whether this nation conceived in liberty will continue to prioritize liberty. It is understandable why President Obama has no interest in framing this election as a referendum on Obamacare. His party already suffered perhaps its worst defeat since the 19th century thanks to his centerpiece legislation. With the Supreme Court's ruling now behind him, he will have even less incentive to remind voters about Obamacare going forward. As far as he's concerned, the less the American people think about it, the better." --columnist Jeffrey H. Anderson2

Political Futures

"Twenty new or higher taxes across-the-board [in ObamaCare] are bad for economic growth, bad for job hiring, bad for investors, and bad for families. A tax is a tax is a tax, according to Judge Roberts. But he forgot to say that if you tax something more, you get less of it. Presumably Mitt Romney will make this case in a major way. Hopefully he won't forget that Obamacare is not just a huge tax hike. It's also a major new spending entitlement that's already pegged at $2.5 trillion and will increase the federal debt burden much faster than the GDP expands. In other words, tax, spend, regulate, borrow. The Obama mantra. Romney must go after it -- time and time and time again. Bankrupting the economy is not exactly a job-creator." --economist Larry Kudlow3

Opinion in Brief

"[Chief Justice John] Roberts' concern was that the court do everything it could to avoid being seen, rightly or wrongly, as high-handedly overturning sweeping legislation passed by both houses of Congress and signed by the president. How to reconcile the two imperatives -- one philosophical and the other institutional? Assign yourself the task of writing the majority opinion. Find the ultimate finesse that manages to uphold the law, but only on the most narrow of grounds -- interpreting the individual mandate as merely a tax, something generally within the power of Congress. Result? The law stands, thus obviating any charge that a partisan court overturned duly passed legislation. And yet at the same time the Commerce Clause is reined in. By denying that it could justify the imposition of an individual mandate, Roberts draws the line against the inexorable decades-old expansion of congressional power under the Commerce Clause fig leaf. Law upheld, Supreme Court's reputation for neutrality maintained. Commerce Clause contained, constitutional principle of enumerated powers reaffirmed. That's not how I would have ruled. I think the 'mandate is merely a tax' argument is a dodge, and a flimsy one at that. ... Perhaps that's not how Roberts would have ruled had he been just an associate justice, and not the chief. But that's how he did rule. Obamacare is now essentially upheld. There's only one way it can be overturned. The same way it was passed -- elect a new president and a new Congress." --columnist Charles Krauthammer4

The Gipper

"One of the traditional methods of imposing statism or socialism on a people has been by way of medicine. It's very easy to disguise a medical program as a humanitarian project. Most people are a little reluctant to oppose anything that suggests medical care for people who possibly can't afford it. ... Let's also look from the other side. The freedom the doctor uses. ... First you decide the doctor can have so many patients. They are equally divided among the various doctors by the government, but then the doctors are equally divided geographically, so a doctor decides he wants to practice in one town and the government has to say to him he can't live in that town, they already have enough doctors. You have to go some place else. And from here it is only a short step to dictating where he will go. This is a freedom I wonder if any of us has a right to take from any human being. ... All of us can see what happens once you establish the precedent that the government can determine a man's working place and his working methods -- determine his employment." --Ronald Reagan7