The only consolation left to conservatives after Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts’ puzzling decision to uphold ObamaCare was that Republican nominee Mitt Romney could have used the labeling of the bill’s individual mandate as a tax to hammer the president this fall on what many in the GOP have labeled as a huge tax increase on the American people. But yesterday, top Romney advisor Eric Fehrnstrom, the man who gave the Democrats the epithet “etch-a-sketch” with which to label his boss, stepped in it again. Fehrnstrom told MSNBC that the former Massachusetts governor doesn’t think the mandate is a tax, a point that dovetails nicely with Democratic talking points about the issue and flatly contradicts what most Republicans have been saying about it.
In his defense, Fehrnstrom was saying that Romney agreed with Justice Scalia’s dissent which, had it been joined by Roberts, would have struck down ObamaCare as unconstitutional and which dismissed the argument that it was a tax. But by rejecting the opening offered to the GOP by the Court, Romney has undermined the contrast between the two parties on the issue. If, as the Weekly Standard wrote, ObamaCare offered the Republican challenger “a hanging curveball waiting to be hit out of the park,” Romney may have just whiffed on it.
This is the first genuine misstep by the Romney campaign after months of behaving like a smoothly run machine destined for victory. But even worse than that is the obvious suspicion that the problem here is a desire on Romney’s part to cover his tracks on his Massachusetts health care bill — because the “penalties” in Romney’s bill can also be branded as a tax — and a sign he won’t be able to take advantage of the president’s vulnerability.
Last summer many if not most conservatives dismissed Romney’s chances of winning the Republican presidential nomination because of his personal baggage on the one issue that appeared to be the most important at the time: ObamaCare. If Romney confounded those critics it was not because he convinced most Republicans by his arguments that RomneyCare was a completely differently animal than ObamaCare. Rather, it was because the sinking economy and what seemed to be a real chance the Court would strike down the president’s bill rendered health care a secondary issue.
If the Court’s upholding of ObamaCare on the grounds that it is a tax is the equivalent of an engraved invitation to the Tea Party to wake up and “refight the political battles of two years ago,” as the president fears, it is also an unwelcome reminder this is an issue on which Romney is not going to be able to hit the home run that conservatives rightly expect from the GOP standard-bearer.
Though this unwillingness to use the word tax doesn’t necessarily doom Romney, it does call into question his ability to rally his party on the issue. Those Republicans expecting their candidate to use last week’s decision to generate some momentum this summer may be sorely disappointed. As much as the unpopularity of ObamaCare presents the GOP with a golden opportunity to exploit, it may well be that the only way for Mitt Romney to be elected president is via general dissatisfaction about the economy and not via a wave of disgust about the president’s health care dictat.
Your last sentence is the only one that has mattered for a long time now: the economy will matter far more than the SCOTUS decision. Yes, some more conservatives will now get off the couch and come out and vote, and quite a few have already contributed money since the decision. Remember also that surrogates, PACs, and others can make the case that the biggest single tax increase on the middle-class ever is the result of Obamacare. n nAnd I hope as well that Romney will beat the drum not just on Obamacare but on the utter lawlessness just handed us by Roberts and his four statist colleagues on the Court. That issue will resonate far more than whether we call it a tax or a penalty. Romney can even tie in the connection between the rule of law and economic growth, b/c the two are inseparable.
Reading what Romney actually said, I think he's right. He's also in sync with the editorial in yesterday's Wall Street Journal dissecting the decision. The mandate enforcement mechanism is to all intents and purposes a penalty. Romney said it's an UNCONSTITUTIONAL penalty, which is consistent with both the dissenting SCOTUS opinion and Roberts' reading of the Commerce Clause. Roberts called it a tax as an excuse to uphold the law, but that interpretation flies in the face of all past definitions of the term "tax" and numerous writers have shown that his reasoning is internally inconsistent. So despite the rhetorical advantages in the term tax, Romney's logic is sound in calling it a penalty. That doesn't make the individual mandate any less problematic; it makes it more so. And it doesn't lessen the opposition's rightness in opposing Obamacare, which is offensive to freedom and fiscal sanity in ways far beyond the individual mandate.
I don't believe the fact/argument of calling Obamacare a tax was striking a chord — at least not now or not yet. It's nuance and semantics instead of KISS. It's a small argument to make concerning a horror of a program (and with the MSM filtering the message, all that's coming through is "crybaby Republicans say …"). And, hey, foxtrot and company who, I know think anyone who believes it's a horror is a negative-misinformed-fill-in-the-blank, but the American people have been against this consistently even before it was jammed through and never wavering ever since — 53 to 67% for repeal. A stronger argument than the pitiful yippy one that the Obami lied about taxes is that it's a penalty, that it's Democrats dictating what you're allowed to do, what your doctor is allowed to do, and then making you pay if you do not conform to their will (because we, the people, are nothing). Repealing Obamacare can be a winning battle cry, but only because it's typical of "fundamentally transforming America" into an impoverished banana republic.
Well said. And Jonathan should keep in mind that the "ObamCare is now a tax" argument is double weak because any principled person who reads the Dissent will agree with Scalia, Thomas, Alito and Kennedy. Certainly any conservative will! The better argument is that ObamaCare is a monstrosity in all its aspects: constitutionally (for the reasons laid out by the Dissent), policy wise (for the reasons laid out on this website many times) and values-wise (for the damage it will do to America as a whole). There are plenty of great arguments against this beast, but I happen to agree with the finest scholars on the U.S. Supreme Court that "tax" is not one of them, even if John Roberts foolishly says otherwise.
You're missing the forest for the trees, a typical inside-Washington mistake. n nIt doesn't matter what the Obamacare mandate is called, a majority wants it gone (and most want the entire law gone as well). They didn't like it when it was called a mandate, they wouldn't have liked it had Romney called it a tax, and they're not going to start liking it if Romney doesn't call it a tax. n nRomney has been pretty consistent in his claim to make it go away. That will satisfy the public.
The SCOTUS ruling has thrown a light on GOP lies. There is no huge tax increase on the middle class in ACA. The penalty on those who refuse to carry any health insurance will affect less then 2% of the population. The increase on payroll tax contributions to Medicare will affect only those earning more than $200,000 a year. The total amount of taxes in ACA comes to less than 1/10 of TEFRA, the tax increase enacted under President Reagan in 1982. In addition, ACA does not dictate what doctors are allowed to do, or impose procedures on patients. It is the GOP that is dictating medical procedures, such as trans-vaginal ultrasounds. Romney is in a bind because he is choosing a lie whichever way he turns.
Even though I agree with you it is not a Tax–for the reasons laid out by people you hate (Scalia, Thomas and Alito), it is a constitutional monstrosity (for the reasons they explain). And policy wise it is an absolute disaster. So, yes, the tax talking point is inaccurate. But Obamacare is still a beast that must be killed.
It is interesting how demoralized conservatives can become over one comment. Reading other blogs this morning, and the comments on them, I can almost see hands fly up in defeat. nIt's July 3, though – we've got a long way to go and I predict that by September nobody is going to care a bit what Romney's spokesperson said yesterday. At any rate, Democrats can point to those comments all they want. Do we really think they want to have this discussion? After all, ACA survived because a majority of the Supremes said the mandate was a tax, something Obama denied repeatedly. I fail to see how getting in the mud with the pigs helps Obama more than Romney. nAnd then there's the other aspect of this that I find uplifting but that many conservatives will probably dismiss as naive. Romney, like George W. Bush, seems to be a rather uncommon politician. At some level he is incapable of misrepresenting his fundamental beliefs. The truth will out, because he is, at his core, an honest and decent man – a real contrast to Obama. Rather than whiffing a softball pitch, it appears Romney is making a more sophisticated point about the unconstitutionality of the law. nI'm not a complete fool – politicians have to play the game and make newsworthy sound-bite statements; they have to compromise and prioritize their values; they have to sometimes get involved with issues about which they don't really care (W. and gay marriage, for ex.). And sometimes they have to play dirty on the campaign trail. Still… nSome conservatives are angry that Romney thus far hasn't focused on this "tax" gift, but as others have pointed out, there are far worse things about ACA which Republicans should be talking about. Maybe Romney has done us a favor by foregoing the easy, populist route. (Let's call it the Obama Approach.) nOur nation is in a serious mess. We need leaders who respect our intelligence – not those who are so eager for our votes that they'll play on our most shallow emotions.
Don't worry about the Romney misstep. The lies being told by the GOP about ObamaCare will more than make up for it. It's part of a great Republican tradition. As Ronald Reagan once said, “If you don't stop Medicare, one of these days you and I are going to spend our sunset years telling our children and our children's children what it once was like in America when men were free.” n n
If Ronald Reagan did say this, I don't see why you feel it is so damning. Medicare is a very bad program, and it is in fact leading to a loss of freedom, as ObamaCare proves.
Medicare is a "loss of freedom"? Yeah, freedom for millions of American seniors to go broke trying to pay for their medical expenses. And don't forget Bush's Prescription Drug Benefit that gilded the lilly, so to speak.
Yes it is a loss of freedom, and you posit a false choice: Medicare of seniors going broke. There are many outstanding conservative and/or liberatarian critiques of Medicare on this site and many others. If you are too lazy to read them and reply only after having taken their points into account I will not waste my time throwing pearls before swine (so to speak).
I tried to post quotes from an article and a site that had the audio of Reagan's speech, but so far it's still being "approved" and will appear sometime or has failed to be and won't be approved. n nIn 1961, Reagan suggested that the American people would never embrace socialism, but that attempts to introduce it into the American bloodstream could come through socialized medicine, and that, therefore, the program before Congress (Medicare) would lead to his "one of these days … " quote, which Dems always take out of context.
As loathsome as ObamaCare is, and though it contains taxes, the Mandate is not a tax. The brilliant dissent convincingly demonstrate this. The proof. A tax is something designed to raise revenue. The Mandate is designed not to raise one penny. If it works perfectly, it will raise $0.000, as the Wall Street Journal editorial said yesterday. Romney was simply being intellectually honest to note this. I'm not sure that politically it is the wrong move, either, because it would be so easy for Obama to say "You mean you AGREE with Roberts and DISAGREE with Scalia and Thomas that this is a tax??" Obama is right: It is not a tax. Antonin Scalia proves it. But that does not mean ObamaCare is constitutional. It is not. And that does not mean it is not a monster. It is.
I also think that virtually everyone has missed an absolutely vital point- and Chief Justice says it explicitly in his opinion- the states can do things the Fedral government cannot! We are so blinded by all the powers of the Federal government that we forget that states have- constitutionally- vastly more powers than the Federal governemt. (Just read the opnion and understand the the amendment). Romney can, and will, say that the individual states can impose such a penalty and the Federal government cannot,because it is unconstitutional.
Wake Up ! nRomney as his so called Political Consultants are taking about the "Wrong Subject " ! nThey should be telling the nation there are 23 new taxes in Obama care plus 14 New taxes that cover all Americans who work and are on a fixed income and retirement funds . And there Panels that decide our health care . nNot to mention the Obama Death Redistribution Tax of 55 % !!!!!!! . nThere is even a 3.3 % extra tax in Obama care when you sell your house over $ 300.000.00 to go alone with the already president taxes on Home selling .
C'mon folks. Romney INVENTED the individual mandate. To question the ACA would be to admit that his time as governor of Massachusetts was just one big LIE.
Who came up with the headline that Romney might have struck out? That is overwrought and surely demoralizing. One aide messes up and you are woebegone? This campaign has just begun, and the news about the taxes and health care rationing are just starting to emerge.
Nice to see you slam Romney for a change. President has the upper hand on this one. Republicans have consistently failed to recognize health care as a national issue. They deserve the egg on their face the court plastered them with. Let Romney stew in the omelet he cooked himself in Massachusetts.