I guess that doesn’t surprise me.
Also, does Christie thread the needle on the tax/penalty issue? Or just muddle things even more? (not his fault, really)
Via Mediaite:
Sure. Yeah. I mean, listen, I thought all along that it was a tax. And I don’t think it’s exclusively a tax or a penalty. It’s both. And there’s no question in my mind about that, it’s both. They’re meaning to penalize people and they argue in the Supreme Court it was a tax. Now, of course, you argued in the campaign and forward that it wasn’t, but he’s now in a bind. He’s in a bind as to what this is all about. But I think there’s no question that it’s both. It’s meant to penalize people and it is a tax. There’s no doubt. Because
we have[it’s meant] to pay for the government program.
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Messaging: “It IS a tax. The Supreme Court declared it a tax, and the Deemocrats wrote it as a tax…a stealth tax. Falling on people Obama promised would not pay more taxes.
Is there a penalty? Oh, absolutely! If you don’t pay the tax, you will get to meet some IRS people. THEY will teach you about the penalty.
But THAT is just ONE kind of penalty in ObamaCare; let me tell you about some others…”
Seriously, how hard is that?
Bing Dictionary
TAX:
1. strain: a strain or heavy demand
2. money paid to government: an amount of money levied by a government on its citizens and used to run the government, the country, a state, a county, or a municipality
By either definition it’s a tax. It wouldn’t hurt to bring definition #1 into the discussion.
This should get their attention …
Let’s just call it a penalty tax.
Or a unicorn burp.
A rose by any other name, and all that.
I think the semantics are interesting to lawyers and those creating campaign commercials and Politifact.
To conservatives, I don’t care if you call it a unicorn burp. Its the largest unicorn burp in the history of the country, and its unsustainable transfer of money from the young to old, from one class to another, not based on wealth, means, or justice but an arbitrary status — such that in many cases the less well off will help subsidize the rich.
continuing along with what Rags suggests (I agree the message can be clear and simple)…”what a State might do on order to solve a problem is not the same as some national plan that makes IRS the enforcers of healthcare policy”. Reinforce the IRS roll in all this.
Then offer a simple way a less intrusive way to solve the uninsured issue.
Just want to inject an observation: How articulate is Christie? He’s right there with Newt in his believability and general persuasiveness.
This must be the same 41% that believes “Obama cares”
Friday Talking Points — Obama Cares
“I am struck in the entire fight over the Affordable Care Act that Republicans may look back and regret one tactical error — tying the president so closely to the legislation. They’ve used the term ‘Obamacare’ so often that now even the president accepts the label. But, years from now, this will only serve to remind people exactly who made their lives better and who was against it. In fact, I’d go even further and suggest a new campaign slogan for the president — a simple bumper sticker with two words on it: ‘Obama Cares.’ Obama does care, even if Republicans don’t. If I were the president, I’d be proud to run on that slogan.”
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/chris-weigant/friday-talking-points_b_1639193.html
Christie and Romney need to catch up – it was ruled a tax.
Even the low information-automatically-votes-democrats I am around are hopping mad at this giant tax. They understand that the Supreme Court just all allowed Obama and the Democrats to levy the largest taxes in history on them. Key words: On Them.
Obama’s executive order on amnesty for the under 30 crowd of illegals had them off the couch in anger. This ruling has steam coming out of their ears.
Why?
Because it is hurting their children and their spouses ability to find a job. It further hurts everyone with giant taxes while they destroy our perfectly fine healthcare, has them over the top. They are not voting for Obama. I think there are many more people like this all over the country.
It would be wise of our Republicans to grasp how much citizens hate to be taxes. And start blasting exactly what damage this “affordable” bill does to each family. Make it personal.
That 41% don’t know about the result of the SCOTUS Obamacare decision does not surprise me either. Americans take their freedom and relative prosperity for granted.
Their freedoms are slowly being usurped and half the country or more aren’t even aware. They’ve got more important things on their mind, like who they want to win American Idol. Three words: Bread and circuses.
Here’s an equally depressing poll just to drive home the point. 53% don’t know who the Chief Justice even is. An amazing 8% think Thurgood Marshall is the Chief. Never mind that Thurgood Marshall was never the Chief. Or that he’s dead. But he’s only been dead foor 19 years, so those 8% can be excused for not knowing.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/post/what-people-dont-know-about-the-supreme-court–in-one-chart/2012/04/18/gIQA5w6gQT_blog.html
The Founders understood that an uninformed electorate would lead to disaster. That’s why they designed it so the President was elected by the electoral college, state legislatures decided who to represent their state in the U.S. Senate, and judges were appointed. The Founders believed the general electorate could only be trusted to elect their Representative for their relatively small district to the House. Besides the House is only 1/2 of one third of the government, so how much damage could an uninformed elctorate do with so little say? I think the Founders were more right than wrong.
The farther we move away from a constitutional republic and become a pure democracy, the closer we get to a tyranny of the majority. Once the Democrats succeed in eliminating the filibuster, it’s over. Democrats will then be our defacto permanent rulers.
Should we have seen this coming? Last year’s Yale Law Journal opinion by Brian Galle is available on-line: The Taxing Power, The Affordable Care Act, and the Limits of Constitutional Compromise
Perhaps ‘tax or penalty’ is a false dichotomy. The individual mandate is a tax that penalizes.
My registered Democrat (but independent voter) wife, a woman deeply angry about the imposition of ObamaCare, tells me she thinks of the O-Care decision from the Court as the President’s “high water” mark.
In other words, she says, what can the administration expect to be good news between now and election day? The economy stinks and is getting worse, joblessness will likely grow (even with Hilda Solis doing the counts), the Fed is powerless, our allies feel abandoned, Egypt (an Obama production) is slipping into Khomeini-like anti-westernism, Syria is looking more and more like a regional tinder-box, Russia’s tin-pot dictator is mangling us all over the place, China is slipping into recession and will likely turn even more authoritarian along the way, Mexico is returning to outright corruption in order to reduce the drug gangs murderous ways…
It’s getting worse all over. Obama is the reason. The election is our way out of this mess, and Justice Roberts silly and arrogant attempt at “managing” the court will matter not a whit come election day.
Yesterday, Willard’s campaign refused to call the individual mandate a tax in an interview on MSNBC. Yes, MSNBC.
Now, McConnell appears to be unfolding the white flag of surrender before running it up the flagpole:
“McConnell: Odds against health care repeal”
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-250_162-57465541/mcconnell-odds-against-health-care-repeal/
Republicans appear to be giving up.
Public schools? Just a guess.
From the link: “McConnell still says he’ll do whatever he can to repeal the law.”
He said it is easier to stop a law than to repeal it. That is objectively and undeniably a true statement.
For people on our side to join in twisting his words and others’ is reprehensible.
its a taxalty (trademarked)
its whatever our dear leaders need it to be to bleed us dry to moisten their wet dreams.
No, it’s a penalax. (trademarked)
The “penalty tax” will hit more than 1%. As I understand it, my currently legal plan will be subject to the tax, and its rate is already skyrocketing. I have a $3000 deductible plan, never used for a couple decades. For being responsible in the face of frauds and lobbyist driven cost increases, I will now be penalty taxed every year, though I’ve never been a free rider.
And I only hope my plan is even available. Maybe Blue Cross worked a deal with the prez’ to kick all customers into expensive “comprehensive” plans. As with Obama’s green energy nirvana … “to get to single payer/socialized medicine, your old insurance plan rates must necessarily skyrocket”. He’s a one trick pony … tax to death what works, or make it illegal … then offer a government controlled replacement.
I assume TurboTax will be checking my insurance policy, and computing my penalty tax, for not having an Obama approved policy. But the clever fellow is delaying more noticeable downsides of Obamacare till after the election.
I thought that a tax had to follow a specific format in its passage through congress. If this is true, did this piece of trash follow that format and if not, what can be done?
It seems to me that good lawyers could stop it dead now.
As to Americans not knowing something, I am surprised the number is as low as 41%. Most don’t even know what country they are in.
A Tax Is a Tax Is a Tax
http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/tax-tax_648073.html?nopager=1
“It doesn’t quite matter whether Romney calls this a tax, a penalty, or a potato. Voters will call it a tax and so will every other Republican candidate running for every other office,” [Boehner] says. “It will be the most popular attack ad in Senate and House campaigns. Much like the president resisted the term Obamacare before he embraced it, we are two months away from even Romney calling it a tax. Gravity cannot be suspended.”
“Faster, please”, as Reynolds says….
To which Democrats say, “Only the free-riders will be penalized with this so-called tax!”
The GOP is forgetting to hammer the sh!t out of the fact that 0bamaCare puts 21 taxes in place, of which 75% of burden falls on families making less than $120K, according to the CBO!
Forget the stinking mandate, and hammer ’em on: (1.) the middle-class tax burden, and (2.) the fact that young people will be forced to buy expensive, HHS-compliant health insurance to enlarge the risk pool.
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ObamaCare is most cerainly a tax if you apply the proper definition.
From Merriam-Webster:
Tax – to make onerous and rigorous demands on
From Bing Dictionary:
Tax – a strain or heavy demand
So, anything that stresses the economy is a tax.
The ACA is a strain on the system, an onerous and rigorous demand on the economy.
The Obama Presidency is a tax. The cumulative effect of Obama’s policies have placed an onerous and rigorous demand on the U.S. economy. He has strained and increased demands on individual and national finances.
Get rid of Obama and the most onerous tax will be gone.
@david7134 | July 3, 2012 at 12:34 pm
It did follow the prescribed path. The bill was introduced in the House as the “Service Members Home Ownership Tax Act of 2009” (H.R. 3590) by Charles Rangel (D–NY) on September 17, 2009. Health care bills could not pass the House Republican majority so Senate leaders sought another way to get a House originated money bill. HR 3590 was scheduled into Senate debate where Democrats amended the hell out of it as well as its original contents and renamed it the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. It was sent back to the House where, for reasons incomprehensible, the House agreed with the changes and ACA went on its merry way to Obama’s desk for signing. The current law still carries the original H.R.3590 number.
Note: somewhere along the way “Patient Protection”was dropped from the conversation.
Roe v Wade is already toast.
The entire argument within Roe is that it is a private matter and the government has no interest, so they should stay out. Well, that isn’t the case any more with ObamaCare. The government is in there every step of the way.
Abortion is now a social-conservative President and an EO away from extinction.
ObamaMandaTaxedCare is a confiscation of private property for the sole purpose of feeding the bureaucratic system and making our government obese.
I read at National Journal that Romney has no interest in campaigning on healthcare. The speech the other day was a one-time deal. Also that Mitch McConnell has no interest in repeal. This is the reality of the modern GOP.
I’ll wager that these people are the products of our public schools and social welfare systems. To them, 0bamaCare means nothing. Nada. Zilch. It’s all free anyway, so why try to comprehend the incomprehensible and ponder the imponderable?
If you can’t eat it, spent it, play with it or sell it, what good is it?
Jus’ keep votin’ Dimma’crat.
Of course they are products of the public schools. 35 years of federal control via the Department of Education has contributed to declining literacy and achievement.
Our 8 year olds still test with the best in the world, but by the time they are 13 they fall to the bottom of the industrialized nations. Can’t blame the parents, the kids have the same parents they did five years before.
BUT they test at the very top of the world for self-esteem. We are teaching our kids they are great no matter how ignorant they are, and they are eating it up. It’s the only thing that keeps the Democratic Party alive.
Understanding will smack them in the face when they:
1. Pay the gov’mint
2. Or the IRS will remind them.
3. Fork over money to help grandma or momma, elderly thrown off the trian.
4. Pay more because their employers can’t pay all the benefits anymore
5. Can’t get access to medical care, see the doctor they want.
6. etc.
I’m going to paraphrase Lincoln’s riddle, said to somewhat similar circumstances:
If you call a tail a leg, how many legs does a dog have?
Four: a tail is not a leg.
And I would like to append to my post this question:
Which is more important, whether the mandate is a tax or a penalty, or whether the mandate is an encroachment upon our fundamental freedoms?
41% ignorant of SC Obamatax decision.
38.4% failed to vote in 2008 presidential election.
Same people?
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