Like King George II

Investors Business Daily

Posted 06:57 PM ET

Big Government: Like King George III, ObamaCare has erected a multitude of new offices and sent hither swarms of IRS agents and regulators to harass our people and eat out their substance. A second revolution is needed.

We paraphrase these words from the Declaration of Independence as a reminder of what spawned this country's independence — an oppressive governance that would give rise to the original Tea Party in Boston — and as a reminder of President Reagan's dictum that the demise of the liberty we fought for and cherish is never more than a generation away.

The price of liberty today is eternal vigilance and the oppressiveness of ObamaCare, which got a stay of execution from the Supreme Court, is proving every day that the devil is indeed in the details. The individual mandate, ruled a constitutional tax, is only a part of the regulatory and tax iceberg we're about to hit.

The Health and Human Services Department "was given a billion dollars (of) implementation money," Republican Rep. Denny Rehberg of Montana notes. "That money is gone already on additional bureaucrats and (information technology) programs, computerization for the implementation."

ObamaCare, the legislation that replaced the "We the People" of the Constitution with the insidious phrase, "the Secretary shall determine," which appears in the bill a mind-boggling 1,563 times, is still being written.
"There's already 13,000 pages of regulations, and they're not even done yet," says Rehberg.

The Orwellian-named Affordable Health Care Act is a "delegation of extensive authority from Congress to the Department of Health and Human Services and a lot of boards and commissions and bureaus throughout the bureaucracy," adds Matt Spalding of the Heritage Foundation. "We counted about 180 or so."

"The fact of the matter is the mandate is about 2% of the whole piece of the legislation," says Spalding. "It's a minor part."

Indeed, as we've written, ObamaCare, now called ObamaTax after the Supreme Court decision, contains 21 new or higher taxes. Seven of those taxes apply to individuals making $250,000 or less.

The Medical Itemized Deduction Hurdle, a direct hit to the "greedy free-riders" of the middle class, is now set at 7.5% of adjusted gross income. ObamaCare raises this hurdle to 10% starting in 2013. This must be the "affordable" part of the Affordable Health Care Act.

Is ObamaCare really a tax? As Grover Norquist of Americans for Tax Reform notes, the individual mandate, "the tax on your failure to cooperate, is collected by the Internal Revenue Service. The rules are written in the Internal Revenue Code. The tax is paid on your 1040 federal income tax return. And the Congressional Budget Office takes the money and counts it as tax revenue pouring into the general fund."

The new tax mandates and penalties in ObamaCare will require up to 16,500 new IRS personnel to collect, examine and audit new tax information mandated on families and small businesses, according to an analysis by the Joint Economic Committee and the then-minority GOP staff of the House Ways & Means Committee in 2010.

Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi famously said that we had to pass ObamaCare to find out what was in it. The terrible truth is that we still do not know and may never finally know as more new regulations are added with each new day.

What will the next HHS secretary "determine?"

As we recently celebrated the 236th anniversary of our liberation from the taxation of King George III without representation, we find this new, hidden taxation with representation not much better.

A second American Revolution is needed in November as it is clear the only way to repeal ObamaCare is to repeal Obama.

Don't Bet Against It

Tale of Two Doctors

Two patients limp into two different medical clinics with the same complaint. Both have trouble walking and appear to require hip surgery.

The FIRST patient is examined within the hour, is x-rayed the same day and has a time booked for surgery the following week.

The SECOND sees his family doctor after waiting 3 weeks for an appointment, then waits 8 weeks to see a specialist, then gets an x-ray, which isn't reviewed for another week and finally has his surgery scheduled for 6 months from then pending the review boards decision on his age and remaining value to society.

Why the different treatment for the two patients?

The FIRST is a Golden Retriever taken to a vet. The SECOND is a Senior Citizen on Obamacare...

In November, if Obama and his Czars get another term, we'll all have to find a good vet.

Liberals Must Lie to Sell Their Agenda

Who CARES What It's Called

Call it a tax or call it a penalty, for the first time in our history, Americans are being told to do something or they will be penalized by their federal government for not doing it.

But be sure about one thing, supporters of ObamaCare are in a box:

If they call it a penalty, they are saying what most Americans know in their gut and what the Supreme Court affirmed: that it is unconstitutional.

If they call it a tax, they are saying goodbye to any chance of Obama being reelected and of the Democrats holding the Senate majority.

So, either way, in the short term Obama and the Democrats lose. And in the long-term they lose too because no congressman, senator or president in their right mind is going to propose any more massive government intrusions into our lives if they have to call it a tax.

I'm also confident that ObamaCare will be dismantled or rendered impotent after the November election.

Why Lobbyists Love John Roberts

Written by Jack Abramoff

Wednesday, 04 July 2012

Lobbyists tend to see opportunity in what others view as calamity. I know, because I did. During the decade I was a lobbyist in Washington, I would often examine legislation to discover hidden business opportunities. When Congress forbade an activity, some businesses would inevitably prosper providing an alternative service. Sometimes, ambiguity in legislative language would create loophole advantages for entrepreneurs. As a lobbyist, one of my jobs was to be one step ahead of the game; to discover the opportunities created, sometimes by congressional error, and provide that valuable information to those in the business or foundation sector that could benefit. Usually, the opportunities were minor and somewhat ambiguous, but sometimes a lobbyist would strike gold.  Last week, Chief Justice John Roberts published the lobbyist equivalent of an El Dorado treasure map. It may not have been the intention, but his majority opinion in the Obamacare case could ignite some of the most aggressive lobbying campaigns America has ever seen. In what many consider to be Roberts' attempt to make his court more popular with the mainstream media and the liberal establishment, the chief justice channeled Harry Houdini and delivered an opinion so replete with legalistic legerdemain that many constitutional scholars are still scratching their heads in wonder. At its core, the Roberts decision declared the health-care mandate to be a tax, ignoring the histrionic palpitations of the Obamasphere to the contrary. Indeed, out of sheer political panic, the president's minions continue to insist that the mandate is a penalty, not a tax, but to no avail. Obama's political consultants understand that, if and when the American people come to realize that the health-care tax is likely to impact many in the so-called "99 percent," Obama could suffer at the polls in November. Indeed, since this tax is almost laser-focused on the group least likely to afford or purchase these insurance policies - healthy young people - the political implications for the president could be devastating. If he is unable to replicate the enthusiasm that drove youth turnout in 2008, he will have lost a vital voter bloc. But, if young people wake up too soon to the crushing financial blow the Obamacrats have sent their way, the messianic political figure of 2008 could be facing electoral Gotterdammerung in 2012. The political machinations of a presidential campaign are interesting to lobbyists, but not really vital to their business calculus. In fact, when I was a lobbyist, I marveled as to how many of my competitors could not have cared less who was president of the United States. Their focus was on Congress. So, whether Obama sinks into the abyss or not is really only of sporting interest in most of the lobbying world. Sure, there are some who importune the executive branch with great effect - Solyndra's efforts in this regard are the envy of chicanerous lobbyists everywhere. But, for the most part, lobbyists lobby Congress. Moreover, if the executive branch is relatively unimportant in the lobbying world, the judicial branch is positively irrelevant. Thanks to the Affordable Care Act decision, however, that could change. Inherent in the decision to render the mandate a tax is an ominous implication. For the first time in our nation's history, the court has given sanction to the notion that the government can tax inactivity. In the past, our tax laws were aimed at the fruits of our labors. When we prospered, the state prospered. Putting aside the morality and efficacy of these fiscal extractions, they were based entirely on our citizens efforts and production. Our actions. Now, thanks to the Roberts decision, the state no longer needs to wait for activity to take its cut. It can now tax inactivity. In the past, Congress could not enact penalties for inaction under the Commerce Clause of the Constitution, and that is still true. But, mirabile dictu, it now has the ability to tax a citizen for inaction. The first to suffer these new taxes will be the young and healthy, but, folks, in the immortal words of Al Jolson, you ain't seen nothin' yet. Malicious bureaucrats and esurient lobbyists have long craved the ability to regulate and control the ordinary economic activity of our nation, those money pots previously beyond their jurisdiction. As a consequence of Chief Justice Roberts' magnus opus, their party begins. Gone will be the days of constitutional objections to the expansion of government control. Feckless and reckless congressmen, on the payroll of diabolical lobbyists, need merely to avail themselves of the newfound taxing authority to justify a greatly expanded invasion of our lives. Lobbyists sapient enough to understand the consequences of the Roberts decision are already conferring with clients that desire to use the federal government as a competition-stifler and market-protector. You don't have to be a Nostradamus to predict taxes for those not installing certain kinds of solar panels on their roofs, particular security software on their computers or specific GPS devices in their cars. How high will be the tax for not enrolling in Acme Diversity Training seminars? How about a federal tax on those loafers not installing the favored low-flow shower head? The possibilities are endless. And when government possibilities are endless, the lobbyists swarm. There is a reason three of the top five wealthiest counties in our nation border our nation's capital. It's because the federal government is the only entity in our nation that grows under any and every circumstance. Until Chief Justice Roberts decided to cross to the dark liberal side of the Force, there was a limit to this growth. Sure, since the court misinterpreted the Commerce Clause in 1936 to comport with Franklin Delano Roosevelt's desire to control everything that moved across the fruited plain, the feds have been busy arrogating to themselves all power possible; but now, for the first time, they have the power to tax and regulate us into action. In creating this new capacity, John Roberts has become an unwitting hero on K Street. Perhaps he'll be their consensus candidate for the 2016 nomination? Jack Abramoff is the author of Capitol Punishment: The Hard Truth about Washington Corruption from America's Most Notorious Lobbyist.

What Chief Justice Roberts said with his ruling...

In essence...

Roberts is saying that if Congress, to stimulate the economy, orders every middle-class American to buy a new car or face a $5,000 fine, such a mandate is within its power. 

Now, Congress can indeed offer tax credits for buying a new car. But if a man would prefer to bank his money and not buy a new car, can Congress order him to buy one – and fine him if he refuses? 

Roberts has just said that Congress has that power.