The White House is completely beside itself. It’s like watching a high wire act. The balancing of lies on top of one another is truly breathtaking and disgusting. First, Barack Obama came out and said that Obamacare was not a tax, but that there were penalties. The Supreme Court has declared it is a tax, a mega tax in fact, and now the White House is attempting to spin it as a penalty again.
Though the court ruled that the fine imposed for not buying health insurance would be otherwise unconstitutional, they also said it is legal under the authority of Congress to tax. Therefore, it is officially a “tax”, not a fine and not a “penalty.”
The White House is unwilling to call it a tax for obvious reasons, especially in an election year. Barack Obama promised people making under $250,000 would not see an increase in their taxes and yet his signature piece of legislation is nothing more than a “big freaking tax” on the American people.
“It’s a penalty, because you have a choice. You don’t have a choice to pay your taxes, right?” Carney said.
Carney wanted to play word games and say, “Call it what you want,” but the fact is the Supreme Court declared it a tax. That was the only way they were going to allow Obamacare to stand. They said Obamacare could not stand under the commerce clause, but had to be defined as a tax in order to rule it Constitutional.
There is no doubt that this will be a huge campaign issue, even bigger than it was before the high court’s ruling.
Obama is not backing off of the healthcare law either. They already have been looking for 4,000 IRS agents to man oversight to make sure everyone is paying into the system and have spent $20 million on public relations in regards to the new healthcare law. Ugg, sometimes I get frustrated with myself calling it that. It is not healthcare. It is a mandatory purchase health insurance law.
Barack Obama though is completely “out to lunch” on this issue. “Whatever the politics, today’s decision was a victory for people all over this country,” Obama said on Thursday following the ruling.
“It should be pretty clear by now that I didn’t do this because it was good politics,” he said. “I did it because it was good for the country.”
Riiiight. Sure you did it for the good of the country. This man wouldn’t know what was good for the United States of America if it put on a latex glove and gave him a prostate exam.
