The Brilliance Of Roberts’ Vote
Dov Fischer begins his “American Thinker” commentary June 29 with a startling assertion: “Chief Justice John Roberts has handed a remarkable victory to American conservatives by threading the judicial needle with perfect precision.” He clarifies, “the initial disappointment collectively felt by Americans who had hoped for a Supreme Court ruling that would overturn Obamacare, soon will be replaced by the excitement that will come with a fuller appreciation for what the Chief Justice has wrought.”
With his four conservative colleagues, Roberts has drawn an “unprecedented red line,” which will thwart any use of the Commerce Clause “to justify any federal intrusion into the personal lives of Americans.” This decision also specifies that although the government may not wield the Commerce Clause to force Americans to buy health insurance, it does have the power to levy a tax on those without health insurance. This precedent “will restrict American Presidents and Congresses for a generation and more.”
Fischer could be an avid NFL fan, as he uses a football analogy for his second point: “with the expertise of a professional football kicker whose team has the ball on its own eight yard line,”
Roberts punts the ball 90 yards pinning the other side “on their own two yard line.” Had he sided with his four right-leaning teammates completely, as most conservatives had hoped, “Obamacare now would be off the political table for the November elections. But now Romney not only has Obamacare, which polls show the majority of Americans hate, to campaign against, he also can hold Obama (who promised no new taxes conclusively, especially for those making less than $250,000 a year) accountable for imposing “the biggest tax on middle class Americans in a generation.”
The spotlight has now been redirected back to the Democrat-run U.S. Senate just a few months before the November elections. Under the rules of “reconciliation,” Senate repeal of Obamacare under a Romney administration will require only a simple majority rather then a super majority, because it is now just a simple tax issue!
Republicans in the House will quickly “beat down Obamacare like a piñata at a children’s party. It is an easy target; excessive and intrusive. It is financially devastating, will cause employers to drop health coverage … and will force millions to lose their preferred doctors, and instead require them to settle for government-supplied alternatives.” Seniors will soon feel the bite of a $500 million reduction in Medicare, and employers – still facing an uncertain business climate – will keep resisting an expansion of their work force, ensuring “stagnating unemployment numbers through November.”
Finally, Roberts and his conservative clique, while allowing Washington to offer states more money to expand their Medicaid rolls beyond their fiscal capabilities, is “banning Washington from penalizing states that turn down the federal inducements to march toward bankruptcy. As a result, the “working poor” – as the government taxes them for not buying health care coverage – have been left without a mechanism to compel others to pay for Obamacare, i.e., the state insurance exchanges. “So now the feds will have to pay for it in the non-cooperating states that are more fiscally prudent. Only more taxes can pay these costs.”
Fischer concludes: “Harry Reid will be trying desperately to prevent a vote on Obamacare repeal from reaching the Senate floor, even as national news coverage focuses on the two national parties conventions. Obama’s staff may be renting Greek or Roman columns (again), but the Republicans will be toppling the pillars of a failed Obama Presidency.”
One wonders if Chief Justice Roberts, obviously a man of considerable intellect and historically conservative principles, had this all scoped out ahead of time, to simply change just one of the tens of thousands of words in the bill from “penalty” to “tax.” According to Dov Fischer’s logic, perhaps it’s the judicial coup of all time.
I guess Nancy Pelosi was right after all when she said that we have to pass this bill in order to know what’s in it.
