Posted on 07/01/2012 9:15:07 AM PDT by Kaslin
One of the key parts of Thursday's Supreme Court ruling regarding the President's healthcare bill was that the fine for not complying with the individual mandate must be considered a tax in order for it to be constitutional.
On CNN's State of the Union Sunday, host Candy Crowley didn't think this was a very important distinction (video follows with transcribed highlights and commentary):
CNN's Candy Crowley Doesn't Think It Matters If the Individual Mandate Is a Tax or a Penalty
In the middle of a discussion about the ruling, Crowley said, "Another tactic that Republicans used coming out of the Supreme Court decision, this is Minority Leader, Republican leader Mitch McConnell on the floor right after the vote."
A video clip was aired of McConnell discussing the fact that the Court ruled the penalty under the individual mandate was a tax, and that this went completely against what the President promised when it was proposed as well as how it was sold to the Congress and the American people.
“This was one of the Democrats’ top selling points because they knew it never would have passed if they said it was a tax…The bill was sold to the American people on a deception,” McConnell told Senators.
After the clip, Crowley asked guest CNN White House correspondent Dan Lothian, “Is there any resonance to this? I just, fine, penalty. I love Nancy Pelosi’s reaction, ‘Call it an aardvark, it’s constitutional.’ You know, essentially what she said. Is there resonance here?”
“I think we’ll have to wait and see,” Lothian answered. “The President clearly said, I mean, there was an interview I think was it ABC News where he said that it was not a tax, but immediately after the Court ruled, Republicans jumped all over this, and I think they’re going to continue pushing it.”
Lothian was correctly referring to a September 2009 interview Obama gave to George Stephanopoulos when he "absolutely" rejected the penalty being a tax.
Crowley didn't seem to care.
“It fits into the storyline that Republicans want to push which is he’s going to raise taxes on the middle class,” Crowley said. “But it just seems like we’re dancing on the head of a pin here. It’s a tax, it’s a penalty, it’s a fine.”
Really? So how a piece of legislation was sold to Congress and the American people is "dancing on the head of a pin?"
Even if the bill wouldn't have passed if it had been properly conveyed by the President?
Do you think Crowley would have the same opinion if a Republican president got an unpopular bill enacted under false pretenses?
Quite the contrary, she and virtually all of her colleagues would be screaming from the rooftops about the deception.
But when a Democratic president does it, not so much.
Witness her other guest USA Today’s Washington bureau chief Susan Page who completely agreed with Crowley saying, “It’s not what people hate about the healthcare law. They hate that it’s such big government, and they hate that it’s a, it’s a mandate, it’s the federal government telling them what they have to do. So it seems to me that’s not the big issue and the reason that people don’t like the healthcare law.”
No, a president lying to the American people to get a bill passed isn't "a big issue" even if it breaks his campaign promise of not raising taxes on folks earning less than $250,000.
You see, everything's acceptable no matter how deceitful as long as that president is a Democrat.
Pelosi said, with a straight face as usual since she can’t help it, “Call it an aardvark.” But would it have passed if they’d presented it as an aardvark.
This point should be running in ads right now. Man, why don’t republicans have a damned brain.
“That is correct, plus the fact that the administration argued before the USSC that it was a tax.”
That is the main point.
On the one hand, politically, Obama and Co. went all-in on declaring the mandate as being not a tax and that should rightly be assailed. But when it came down to arguing in a legal setting they CONSISTENTLY argued that it was indeed a tax.
The MSM is purposely focusing on the one hand while keeping the other hidden. Therefore when discussing the tax declaration by the Supreme Court with your favorite Democrat make sure you show them quote after quote from the transcript in regards to the argument before the SC to allow the bill to pass SC judicial review under the presumption of the mandate as a tax.
BTW: No matter whether the Dems try to argue against the taxing powers designation, the bill was passed via reconciliation. Live By Reconciliation, Die By Reconciliation.
Landmark judicial activism like the decisions in Roe v. Wade and Lawrence v. Texas never pass the smell test.
As with Obamacare, they start with the conclusion they seek to reach FIRST and figure out how to arrive at it even if they have to ignore past court rulings, rewrite/reinterpret existing law, and generally ignore all sense of objectivity.
Thank you! I couldn't agree more!
CNN's Candy Crowley Doesn't Think It Matters If ObamaCare Mandate Is a Tax or a Penalty
There! Fixed it!!
All they care about is that the state may now grow unimpeded and unchecked by quaint old fashioned notions like the Constitution.
Oh, Candy,
There’s so much of you to love...
Obama lied.. (and the 5 people watching CNN cried)
Hard to believe, but when Candy was an anchor for the Mutual Radio Network back in the ‘70s, she was a babe. I worked at a Mutual affiliate back in those days, and the network sent out biographies and promotional photos of their newscasters and she was by far the most attractive among their female anchors.
Years later, when I saw Ms Crowley on CNN, I was stunned by her appearance. As one of John Candy’s characters used to say on SCTV, “she blowed up real good.”
It doesn’t matter to them as long as they punish strong independent type people. These progs are blood-sucking vampires.
They love taxes because so much of their “coalition” style voting blocs do not have to pay very many. They just suck up the entitlements the productive people are coerced into forking over. They seem unable to understand that they are going to run out of other people’s money, and that people are getting fed up with working and doing the right thing just to have their earnings stolen from them. This can’t last. It seems as if Cloward-Piven is being enacted right before our eyes.
Fundamentally, she is correct. If it’s a government expenditure that is paid with your tax dollars, it’s a tax. It doesn’t much matter what they call it.
Or a tax. Oh, wait...
But, she's fat.
FAT BITCH
In other news: Candy Crowley LOVES Obama!!!
She fills the person of size quota in the diversity rainbow. The MSM ruthlessly puts women her age out to pasture. The only reason she is on TV is her POS status so it is fair to point that out.
All she needs to know is that regardless of what it’s called, her fat a** is gunna get taxed off if Mooch takes over her healthcare.
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