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US Politics XXXVIII


Ser Scot A Ellison

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As far as the individual mandate being unconstitutional or not, does anyone think Washington and Co. acted unconstitutionally here:

Only a few years after the nation's Founding Fathers ratified the Constitution, Congress approved the Militia Act of 1792, which was duly signed by George Washington, then the president and commander in chief.

Establishing state militias and a national standard for their operation, the Militia Act explicitly required every "free able-bodied white male citizen" between the ages of 18 and 45, with a few occupational exceptions, to "provide himself with a good musket or firelock, a sufficient bayonet and belt, two spare flints, and a knapsack, a pouch with a box therein to contain not less than twenty-four cartridges, suited to the bore of his musket or firelock, each cartridge to contain a proper quantity of powder and ball; or with a good rifle, knapsack, shot-pouch and powder horn, twenty balls suited to the bore of his rifle, and a quarter of a pound of powder.."

Within six months, every citizen enrolled and notified of his required militia service had to equip himself as specified above. There was spirited debate in Congress as to whether the state ought to subsidize the purchase of arms for men too poor to afford their own, so that everyone could serve his country.

http://www.salon.com/news/healthcare_reform/index.html?story=/opinion/conason/2010/03/25/militia
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We're just calling them out for being biggoted morons.

As to that, I imagine the truth is somewhere in the middle. More than the few jackasses FLOW contends and less than the entirety of the movement. Like Jeff Foxworthy said, they just can't seem to keep the most ignorant amongst them off the TV. They need a credible leader or two in the worst way.

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http://balkin.blogspot.com/2010/01/apparently-senator-hatch-has-not-read.html

The Senate bill is a penalty tax. If you don't want to purchase health insurance, you pay the tax. The penalty is assessed for as long as you don't buy insurance. Such taxes are quite common-- think, for example, about the penalties imposed for failing to pay your income tax on time, or a tax on polluters who fail to purchase and install anti-pollution equipment. The Senate bill can also be classified as an excise tax on an event-- failure to pay premiums in a given month.

Congress's powers to impose an income tax, a penalty tax, or an excise tax are unproblematic. The House and Senate versions of the individual mandate are clearly within Congress's powers to tax and spend for the general welfare. Nor are they direct taxes that must be apportioned by state. Under the 16th Amendment taxes on income need not be apportioned no matter what the source of the income; excise and penalty taxes are not taxes on real estate and they are not capitation or "head" taxes, taxes that are levied on the population no matter what they do. Therefore they are not direct taxes within the meaning of the Constitution and existing precedents.

so if the "I-have-health-insurance-I-get-a-deduction" is unconstitutional because it compels you to contract for it at a private level to receive the deduction does that mean that the "I-have-a-mortgage-and-I-pay-interest-on-it-deduction" is unconstitutional because it compels you to contract for a mortgage at a private level?

WHY DOES THE GOVERNMENT COMPEL ME TO GET A MORTGAGE IN ORDER TO RECEIVE A MORTGAGE DEDUCTION?! EVIL!! UNCONSTITUTIONAL!!! THE END OF DAYS!!!!

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Also, remember Frum? Bush guy, called the GOP's strategy on Health Care stupid the day after HCR passed?

While, he's already fired from his Think-Tank/whatever job: http://www.frumforum.com/aei-says-goodbye

More on Frum and AEI (American Enterprise Institute), the Conservative Think Tank he just got his ass fired from:

http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2010/03/frum-is-fired-by-aei.html

He asked if I had noticed any comments by AEI "scholars" on the subject of health care reform. I said no and he said that was because they had been ordered not to speak to the media because they agreed with too much of what Obama was trying to do.
But now I see that I was just the first to suffer from a closing of the conservative mind. Rigid conformity is being enforced, no dissent is allowed, and the conservative brain will slowly shrivel into dementia if it hasn't already.

Sadly, there is no place for David and me to go. The donor community is only interested in financing organizations that parrot the party line, such as the one recently established by McCain economic adviser Doug Holtz-Eakin.

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Hasn't Massewhatsit (the unspellable state) already decriminalized marijuana?

And Obama has already told the DEA to stop worrying about marijuana stuff too.

While the DEA will probably throw a hissy-fit, the administration will probably just ignore the whole thing.

Shryke, yes, Massachusetts has decriminalized marijuana possession, but it's nothing like what CA is proposing. The bill that passed here (which I voted in favor of :P) makes it a ticketable offense if you are caught with less than an ounce of marijuana. The fine I think is something like up to $100.

My brother (a cop), was all up in arms about this passing, because it meant that when police now pull over someone for speeding, they can't necessarily use possession of marijuana as a reason to further search someone's car/person. :rolleyes:

What CA has proposed is way cooler than what we have here. It's making me almost want to move back out there. :P (I'm not a smoker anymore - kid and all. Back in the day, though... :P)

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More on Frum and AEI (American Enterprise Institute), the Conservative Think Tank he just got his ass fired from:

http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2010/03/frum-is-fired-by-aei.html

Well..I think someone on the board already said Frum wasn't a real conservative. I know they used to be called RINO. But CINO? No, sounds too foreign.

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As far as the individual mandate being unconstitutional or not, does anyone think Washington and Co. acted unconstitutionally here:

http://www.salon.com/news/healthcare_reform/index.html?story=/opinion/conason/2010/03/25/militia

Can't think of the exact section/clause offhand, but the Constitution expressly gives Congress the broad authority to "raise and equip armies". Given that specific grant of authority, I'd say Congress didn't exceed its authority with that particular mandate.

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Can't think of the exact section/clause offhand, but the Constitution expressly gives Congress the broad authority to "raise and equip armies". Given that specific grant of authority, I'd say Congress didn't exceed its authority with that particular mandate.

I've also run into this being cited:

In July, 1798, Congress passed, and President John Adams signed into law “An Act for the Relief of Sick and Disabled Seamen,” authorizing the creation of a marine hospital service, and mandating privately employed sailors to purchase healthcare insurance.

This legislation also created America’s first payroll tax, as a ship’s owner was required to deduct 20 cents from each sailor’s monthly pay and forward those receipts to the service, which in turn provided injured sailors hospital care. Failure to pay or account properly was discouraged by requiring a law violating owner or ship's captain to pay a 100 dollar fine.

This historical fact demolishes claims of “unprecedented” and "The Constitution nowhere authorizes the United States to mandate, either directly or under threat of penalty...”

Perhaps these somewhat incompetent attorneys general might wish to amend their lawsuits to conform to the 1798 precedent, and demand that the mandate and fines be linked to implementing a federal single payer healthcare insurance plan.

The other option is to name Presidents John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison et al. in the lawsuits. However, it might be difficult to convince a judge, or the public, that those men didn't know the limits of the Constitution.

But regardless, afaik it's still essentially structured as a tax rebate. And I'm pretty the US federal government is well within it's Constitutional rights to do those.

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Ok, apparently it's NOT structured as a Tax Rebate.

But is, in fact, even more constitutional then I'd thought before:

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/2010/03/how_does_the_individual_mandat.html

Most people will never notice the mandate, as they get insurance through their employer and that's good enough for the government. But of those who aren't exempt and aren't insured, the choice will be this: Purchase insurance or pay a small fine. In 2016, the first year the fine is fully in place, it will be $695 a year or 2.5 percent of income, whichever is higher. That makes the mandate progressive.

And what happens if you don't buy insurance and you don't pay the penalty? Well, not much. The law specifically says that no criminal action or liens can be imposed on people who don't pay the fine. If this actually leads to a world in which large numbers of people don't buy insurance and tell the IRS to stuff it, you could see that change. But for now, the penalties are low and the enforcement is non-existent.

The theory behind the mandate is simple: It's there to protect against an insurance death spiral. Now that insurers can't discriminate based on preexisting conditions, it would be entirely possible for people to forgo insurance until, well, they develop a medical condition. In that world, the bulk of the people buying insurance on the exchanges are sick, and that makes the average premiums terrifically expensive. The mandate is there to bring healthy people into the pool, which keeps average costs down and also ensures that people aren't riding free on the system by letting society pay when they get hit by a bus.

The irony of the mandate is that it's been presented as a terribly onerous tax on decent, hardworking people who don't want to purchase insurance. In reality, it's the best deal in the bill: A cynical consumer would be smart to pay the modest penalty rather than pay thousands of dollars a year for insurance. In the current system, that's a bad idea because insurers won't let them buy insurance if they get sick later. In the reformed system, there's no consequence for that behavior. You could pay the penalty for five years and then buy insurance the day you felt a lump.

Luckily, consumers aren't usually that cynical, and the experience of places such as Massachusetts suggests that individual mandates encourage people to buy insurance even when it might make sense for people to simply pay the penalty. But for all the furor over the individual mandate, the danger in the bill is much more that it is too weak and too good a deal than that it is too strong and too punitive a tax.

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legitimate, vigorous dissent is not much better.

There is a point to be made about signal-to-noise ratio. The message from the Tea Party people are too often garbaged by bigoted undertones and explicit racism. For those of us who are more sensitive to racism and who might tend to find the lesser forms of racism more exacerbating, your "legitimate, vigorous dissent" from the Tea Party is the side dish, not the main course.

Besides, it's not like we've had a lack of people claiming to be supporters of small-governments in the past (no, I don't see the Tea Party movement, as a whole, is any more genuine about it than any other groups). I don't see what new ideas or new directions the Tea Party people are bringing to the discussion, other than a big umbrella under which many odiously offensive sorts representing the undesirable end of social tolerance (lack thereof) find room to stand.

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Scot,

Shryke,

Your quote is exactly why I think we will end up with fewer people covered after this bill that before. Additionally because anyone can buy into a plan at any time I suspect health care costs will continue to rise.

According to an estimate I read on NPR, 30 million more people will receive insurance. There will still be 23 million people without. This includes illegal immigrants, and those who don't pay. However, those who don't pay fall into several categories, including religious and other reasons.

In any event, I don't agree with your conviction, partly because we're talking about a small set of people, partly because of human nature. But we'll see how it plays out.

I had a question to ask you. As a parent, are you happy knowing that your children will be on your insurance now until they're 26? I know my parents were thrilled about my two younger siblings with the expanded coverage.

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I'm reading a bunch of discussion on this now and there's people saying that Klein is technically right, but missing the larger picture.

The way some people seem to think it works is that the fine will essentially be added on to your yearly taxes. So you would have to pay it that way. (since not paying your taxes does eventually get you into trouble)

However, there may be a sort of checkbox that asks "Do you have Health Insurance?" on the tax form, so it's directly levied against you as a fine.

Of course, lying on your taxes is an offense of some sort afaik, so it comes back.

I'll keep looking round for stuff on it.

Shryke,

Your quote is exactly why I think we will end up with fewer people covered after this bill that before. Additionally because anyone can buy into a plan at any time I suspect health care costs will continue to rise.

Why?

For one, even with no enforcement, Massefuckits system works roughly the same and plenty of people pay into it. And it may just be "enforced" through your taxes anyway.

But really, it should be noted that a mandate that doesn't work won't cause health care COSTS to go up, it will cause Health Insurance PREMIUMS to go up, which will cause more people to drop out of the system till they need it and essentially send Health Insurance Companies into a horrible death spiral.

But how much Health Care actually directly costs won't be effected.

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Don't think I saw this earlier, so, re: Cantor's window

The Richmond Police Department is investigating an act of vandalism at the Reagan Building, 25 E. Main St., Richmond, Virginia. A first floor window was struck by a bullet at approximately 1 a.m. on Tuesday, March 23. The building, which has several tenants including an office used by Congressman Eric Cantor, was unoccupied at the time.

A Richmond Police detective was assigned to the case. A preliminary investigation shows that a bullet was fired into the air and struck the window in a downward direction, landing on the floor about a foot from the window. The round struck with enough force to break the windowpane but did not penetrate the window blinds. There was no other damage to the room, which is used occasionally for meetings by the congressman.

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Shryke,

Your quote is exactly why I think we will end up with fewer people covered after this bill that before. Additionally because anyone can buy into a plan at any time I suspect health care costs will continue to rise.

Holy cow Scot, you may have a consecutive record of most negative things to say on any and all aspects of this topic. Even back before there were even specifics, when the discussion was just whether or not we needed reform.

FLOW,

Can't think of the exact section/clause offhand, but the Constitution expressly gives Congress the broad authority to "raise and equip armies". Given that specific grant of authority, I'd say Congress didn't exceed its authority with that particular mandate.

Well, it's mandating that its citizens make purchases it deemed beneficial to the common good. I dunno, it says "provide for the common defence and general welfare of the United States." I'm not sure why you accept such a mandate on behalf of one broad authority and not the other?

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Cantor victim of hilariously random coincidence:

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hPSXB0pVWgnTggpu-KnVqhophahwD9ELT6600

Richmond police say the bullet that hit a window of Republican Virginia Congressman Eric Cantor's office had been randomly fired skyward.

Amid reports of threats and vandalism against Democrats who voted Sunday for sweeping health care reforms, Cantor said at a Washington news conference Thursday that a bullet was fired into his Richmond office.

In a news release, Richmond police said that the bullet had been fired into the air early Tuesday. It hit the front window of a building that houses Cantor's campaign office as it fell to back earth at a sharp angle.

The round landed on the floor of the office a foot inside a broken window pane. No one was in the building, and police say an investigation has yielded no suspects.

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