Posted on 06/29/2012 7:23:47 AM PDT by Kaslin
The U.S. Supreme Court handed down two decisions this week that cry out for Congressional action. In upholding the constitutionality of most aspects of President Obama's health care reform legislation and in reaffirming the federal government's role in immigration policy, the Court's decisions should be a call to action for Congress to pass new legislation on these two vital issues.
It's important to recognize that the decisions were narrowly tailored to deal only with constitutionality of the two laws at issue: the federal Affordable Care Act and Arizona's S.B. 1070. Neither decision spoke to the wisdom of existing policy in either area. In fact, both health care and immigration laws are in desperate need of major revisions.
The health care decision, announced Thursday, affirmed the constitutionality of the major provisions of the law. While striking down one provision having to do with Medicaid, the Court upheld the most controversial part of the law, which mandates that individuals buy health insurance or pay a penalty to the federal government.
Five of the justices, including Chief Justice Roberts and the other four conservatives on the Court, said that the Commerce Clause could not be read to allow the federal government to require individuals to buy health insurance -- the argument advanced by the Obama administration. However, Roberts voted to uphold the law's constitutionality based on his interpretation that the federal government's taxing authority permits it to penalize those who choose not to buy insurance -- thus ensuring a 5-4 victory that in effect preserves the means to finance universal health care as envisioned by the law. In essence, the chief justice said that Obamacare is a tax imposed on those who do not wish to purchase health care.
If conservatives are smart, they will use this point to hammer home to Americans that the Obama administration has imposed a hefty tax on every American who is not covered by health insurance and has probably raised premium costs for those who already have insurance by mandating policies to cover new services. In an election season when many, if not most, Americans are feeling an economic pinch, this could be a huge problem for the president. And especially so because the president has consistently maintained that his health care bill was not a tax, nor would it raise the costs of health care. Republicans in Congress should use the opportunity to offer bills to repeal this regressive tax.
The other important decision handed down this week had to do with the power of states to impose their own sets of rules and penalties with regard to illegal immigration. While many conservatives are upset that the Court struck down key provisions of Arizona's tough anti-illegal immigration law, SB 1070, they should be more angry at Congress for failing to pass legal immigration reform that would end up to 90 percent of illegal immigration by expanding legal immigration and temporary work visas. But instead of adhering to their basic understanding of free market principles when it comes to immigration policy, many conservatives have jumped on the bandwagon of intrusive big government to solve immigration problems.
There is no question that Americans have a right to be concerned about border security and the large number of illegal immigrants that are living in the United States. But the solution is not for states to try to impose their own versions of immigration law -- which are the exclusive provenance of the federal government -- but for Americans to push Congress to act on meaningful changes to our immigration laws. The answer to combatting illegal immigration is to base legal immigration laws on the country's economic needs and to make it flexible. The best policy would be to increase immigration when there is high employer demand and not enough domestic workers to fill the need, and decrease it when there supply exceeds demand.
Unfortunately, those on both sides who have dominated the debate in the last few years have been hostile to a free market approach. Liberals favor higher immigration under all circumstances, motivated in large part by their desire to enlarge their own constituency, which they believe will happen naturally if more immigrants from Latin American countries come.
Just as problematic, many conservatives who oppose expanding legal immigration have lost faith in the ability of the United States to assimilate new immigrants, despite overwhelming evidence that current immigrants -- including Latinos -- are assimilating at rates that are as high or higher than previous immigrants from Europe. Instead of adhering to basic conservative principles, these anti-immigration conservatives end up favoring bigger government to patrol our borders and increased regulations for everyone who wants to work in the U.S, including American citizens. We've tried these methods now for more than twenty years, and they haven't done the job.
The Supreme Court's ruling on immigration should motivate conservatives to demand genuine immigration reform at the federal level -- but most importantly, reform that preserves conservative principles on individual liberty and the free market.
When it comes to both decisions this week, conservatives need to follow their own advice: don't rely on the Courts to fix policies that have gone astray.
The so called silver lining” is what separates the republicans from conservatives.
Good News for republicans politically
Bad news for conservatism and America
That’s how I see this
“...despite overwhelming evidence that current immigrants — including Latinos — are assimilating at rates that are as high or higher than previous immigrants from Europe.”
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1) Define “assimilating”.
2) Post your SPECIFIC “evidence”.
There is a silver lining to the court decision if (a) the voters of the US wake up and move in the direction of freedom and (b) elected officials actually move in the direction of freedom.
Roberts put a major roadblock in the way of the Left by preventing the use of the commerce clause as a basis for further encroachment.
He also exposed ObamaCare to future action by the people and congress.
But will we take action? That is the question.
There's a better chance of the Chicago Cubs winning this year's World Series, than that happening.
A turd sandwich by any other name, is still a turd sandwich, enjoy the chit.
He didn't prevent the use of the commerce clause; he made its use totally superfluous. What he said is, anything Congress *cannot* do via the Commerce Clause, it *can* do via coercive and punitive taxation.
The Roberts opinion is the Wickard of our generation.
You will recall that Wickard v. Filburn, 317 U.S. 111 (1942) “vividly re-imagined” the Commerce Clause so that it covered a farmer growing a crop for his private use on his own land. In this case the fact that he was growing grain to feed to his own livestock and because he was not going to put that grain on the market, he was somehow possibly going to have an effect on interestate commerce and that gave the federal government the nexus for regulating the crop.
Wickard plagues us today. Most recently in Gonzales v. Raich (2005), where a the Court ruled that a person, growing marijuana on her own property with her own soil somehow was engaged in interestate commerce.
In Raich, the court said, “Congress can regulate purely intrastate activity that is not itself ‘commercial,’ in that it is not produced for sale, if it concludes that failure to regulate that class of activity would undercut the regulation of the interstate market in that commodity.”
Now we have an expansion of this treasonous logic, for if government can wrap anything in an activity that can be taxed, then it too is legitimate, no matter how extreme.
I would point out that taxes must only be levied for legitimate government functions, and those come from the enumerated powers. In this ruling, the Court stated that ObamaCare could not be justified under the ever-elastic Commerce Clause. In doing so, they admitted it was not found in the enumerated powers. But since it was suddenly a tax, the tax could be levied and the law could stand.
So, in my opinion, this ruling is treasonous because it devises an end run around the Ninth and Tenth Amendments. Every Justice who approves of that reasoning must be impeached. (but of course, nothing will happen)
We now need to call a Convention to redefine the relationship of the self-funding, self-legalizing Leviathan State with its citizens. We must throw this Beast back in the chains from which it has now escaped lest we end up being swallowed by it.
There is only a “silver lining” if at this point, the Republicans choose to do the right thing and get out there to WIN in November. Not only the White House, but the US Senate as well, and as many state and local races as can be done out there.
If ever there were a fetch upside the head, wake-up call, it was made known yesterday. I was surprised by the unusual interpretation of the meaning of the “Obamacare” law, now declared a “tax”, despite the denials concerning that same designation back during the time it was being rammed through the House and Senate.
Now, the ball is back in the conservative Republicans’ court. There will be no help from nominal “blue dog” Democrats, as party discipline is stronger than good common sense. And there is for sure very little help to be expected from the establishment Republican elite, who have spurned the various overtures from the T.E.A. party again and again.
What we face, is not merely a rival for power (which is how the establishment Republican elite sees this) but a completely antithetical and contrary point of view. Theoretically, in the syllogism, there is the thesis, the antithesis, and after compromise, the synthesis. Only, the third step never occurs. The antithesis demands total surrender without compromise, so thesis is never actually tested.
This has been what we have getting from the “progressives” for the past hundred years so, going back to at least the time of Teddy Roosevelt, and perhaps longer than that. It is time and past time to end this belief that the change only can ratchet one direction.
Just because there was a “change”, does not mean the change was good or beneficial in any lasting way.
You want to know what the silver lining is?
We are slaves.
WOOHOO ENJOY YEAH LET’S THROW A ****ING BLOCK PARTY!
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