Obamacare’s doom (George Will)

Washington Post ^ | May 2, 2014 | By George Will

[Brad from Tennessee]

If the president wants to witness a refutation of his assertion that the survival of the Affordable Care Act is assured, come Thursday he should stroll the 13 blocks from his office to the nation’s second-most important court, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals. There he can hear an argument involving yet another constitutional provision that evidently has escaped his notice. It is the origination clause, which says: “All bills for raising reveornue shall originate in the House of Representatives; but the Senate may propose or concur with amendments as on other bills.”

The ACA passed the Senate on a party-line vote, and without a Democratic vote to spare, after a series of unsavory transactions that purchased the assent of several shrewdly extortionate Democrats. What will be argued on Thursday is that what was voted on — the ACA — was indisputably a revenue measure and unquestionably did not originate in the House, which later passed the ACA on another party-line vote. . .

[CaptainK]

As nauseating as the ACA is, how the Senate was able to gut a House bill and re write it takes it to new heights of criminality.

This is the first I’ve heard about this trickery. The media was certainly quiet about it.

[FredZarguna]

Unfortunately, I suspect that John Roberts will rule along with the four liberals, that the Origination Clause is nothing more than one of the rules of the legislature, and that Supreme Court precedent is that neither the Judiciary nor the Executive may interfere in that area.

It would be a bad argument, and an inapt application of the precedent, but such trivialities did not stop him from thoroughly up-f*cking the understanding of necessary and proper, general welfare, or taxing authority.

[Usagi_yo]

I read it earlier. It contradicts my theory that that moment, the moment for appeal has passed.

Based on the only entity with standing is the House. And anybody suing that’s not a house member will eventually be found to have no standing.

And that the House by not appealing immediately after the ruling that it was a tax, has tacitly approved (which is allowed).

[BunnySlippers]

... and? ...

[Cyman]

Damn that George Will is smart. He is writing gotcha columns on facts that were brought up here in FreeRepublic forums within weeks of Obamaracare passage.

Cutting edge, just four years late, Georgie boy. I am sure picking out bow ties for ones ensemble is very time consuming and distracting.

[zeestephen]

Re: Case law establishes that the origination clause does not apply to two kinds of bills. One creates “a particular governmental program and . . . raises revenue to support only that program.” The second creates taxes that are “analogous to fines” in that they are designed to enforce compliance with a statute passed under one of the Constitution’s enumerated powers of Congress other than the taxing power. The ACA’s tax, which the Supreme Court repeatedly said is not an enforcement penalty, and hence is not analogous to a fine, fits neither exception to the origination clause.

The quote is from Will's essay.

I don't have Will's confidence that the Appeals Court will find that ObamaCare must originate in the House.

Will cites two exceptions to the “origination” rule, and both exceptions sound a lot like ObamaCare to me.

[dila813]

Next thing you know, there will be an oxygen tax.

[Smokin' Joe]

Roberts rewrote the ACA to call a penalty a TAX (he insisted).

He can't have it both ways.

His "tax" originated in the Senate, not the House, and that isn't Constitutional. With no severability clause, this either voids the whole thing--or it voids the SCOTUS.

[jdsteel]

From what I understand someone has to be subject to the tax before they can bring suit. This year is the first tax year that can happen.

[lepton]

That wasn’t the only “trickery”. There were also some skipped steps in the reconciliation processes that were officially deemed to have been done.

[cynwoody]

His "tax" originated in the Senate, not the House, and that isn't Constitutional. With no severability clause, this either voids the whole thing--or it voids the SCOTUS.

Supposedly, Roberts's fear of voiding SCOTUS was what caused him to switch sides (ignoring the various tinfoil-hat blackmail theories, amusing though they may be).

Now it's down to the Constitution's fine print, and the sheeple have had a chance to see what a mess ObamaCare is. And John Roberts is about to get a mulligan. How will he play it?

[FredZarguna]

Your problem is that you're thinking logically.

Roberts' opinion for the majority is a typical liberal opinion: a hash of disconnected verbiage that really doesn't make any sense except to arrive at the conclusion he wanted.

You also apparently weren't paying attention when Roberts' wrote the first opinion on the PPACA. The majority found the mandate Constitutional, but it found other parts Unconsitutional. The lack of severability did not vacate the law then, and it will not vacate the law now.

Roberts' wanted the ACA to stand, and it's going to stand.

[USCG SimTech]

From what I understand someone has to be subject to the tax before they can bring suit. This year is the first tax year that can happen.

Correct. There must be standing whereby a party has been violated according to the law. This being the first year anyone has standing, now is the time. The strategy was to run out the clock and get the ACA ingrained into society and everyone love it too much to logically and politically allow the suit to be viable. After 34 illegal delays by presidential fiat trying to do just that, there still is no love.

[spokeshave]

That wasn’t the only “trickery”. There were also some skipped steps in the reconciliation processes that were officially deemed to have been done.

...also something about severability...where if one part of the bill fails it call fails.

[xzins]

What I don’t understand is WHY the Senate did it??? Pelosi and the democrats were in charge of the House. Why did they do this in the Senate rather than just write it in the House?

Will it turn out that the Pelosi/Reid egos were so huge they just ignored sound practice because they just thought they were above it?

[RedMDer]

The Dirty Deed exposed.

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[Timber Rattler]

This is the first I’ve heard about this trickery.

We knew all about Baucus' "shell bill" when Dingy Harry rammed it out of the Senate and Pelosi'a House Rats rubber stamped it in the middle of the night on Christas Eve, 2009, without a single Republican vote. But low information voters and the lame-stream media, as usual, didn't care.

[Fear The People]