“Politics” and the Mandate
In comments in Ohio late last week, President Obama criticized Republicans for “playing politics” by recognizing the fact that the Supreme Court upheld Obamacare’s individual mandate ONLY AS A TAX INCREASE. He criticized the idea that political pressure would compel someone to change their position on the status of the mandate. He claimed he would “make no apologies” for the individual mandate in Obamacare, and also went so far as to say the following: “One of the things that you learn as president is that what you say matters and your principles matter.…And sometimes, you’ve got to fight for things that you believe in and you can’t just switch on a dime.”
Which is interesting, because in 2009 the President said that “For us to say that you’ve got to take a responsibility to get health insurance is absolutely not a tax increase….George, the fact that you looked up Merriam’s Dictionary, the definition of tax increase, indicates to me that you’re stretching a little bit right now. Otherwise, you wouldn’t have gone to the dictionary to check on the definition.”
But two years later, in January 2012, here’s what the Obama Administration argued in federal court – take a look at the headings on page 52 of the government’s appeals court brief in the case of HHS v. Florida (emphasis in the original):
THE MINIMUM COVERAGE PROVISION IS INDEPENDENTLY AUTHORIZED BY CONGRESS’S TAXING POWER
The Minimum Coverage Provision Operates As A Tax Law
Why did President Obama and his Administration change positions – twice – on the individual mandate, saying the mandate was not a tax increase before passage, arguing before federal courts it was a tax increase after the law passed, and then arguing for the past week-plus the mandate isn’t a tax increase? Well, George Stephanopoulos knows why. In an exchange with House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan on his show last week, the Democrat journalist admitted that such flip-floppery was the only way to get the law passed in the first place:
RYAN: The president on your show said this is not a tax. Then he sent his solicitor general to the Supreme Court to argue that it is a tax in order to get this past the Supreme Court….Believe me, if this was brought to the public as a tax, there’s no way this law would have passed into law in the first place. That’s what’s so frustrating and disappointing with this law.
STEPHANOPOULOS: I think you may be right about that.
So you tell me: Who’s the one playing politics here?