Tax or penalty?
I keep hearing arguments among so-called intellectuals about this issue.
Forgive me, but this is not complicated. The Supreme Court ruled that it’s a tax. Obamacare is only constitutional as a tax. Obamacare is being enforced by the IRS. And to make this absolutely clear: the burden of Obamacare is being paid for by taxes on the middle class, people making less than $250,000 a year. Yes, I know that Obama vowed that taxes would not pay for Obamacare, but guess what?
Obama lied.
Yesterday was July Fourth, Independence Day. This country was founded on the principle that a free people is only free when the shackles of big government are thrown off.
Obama and Pelosi blame “Free Riders” as the problem that needs a massive government expansion and solution. This is exactly how the British referred to the American colonies.
Thus the Democrats have become a Praetorian guard who have just nationalized and colonized our health care system. And because Obamacare is not market driven it will destroy the health care system and ultimately drive the American economy into insolvency.
As Obamacare takes root like a cancer Obama’s army of lawyers and IRS agents are getting ready to enforce and punish American citizens.
Here’s what we know for sure about this monstrous law: Your premiums will rise and rise and rise. You will have little choice about which physician takes care of you. You will stand on long lines and fill out mountains of paperwork. You will wonder how America turned into Cuba.
FOX News reports:
With the Supreme Court giving President Obama’s new health care law a green light, federal and state officials are turning to implementation of the law — a lengthy and massive undertaking still in its early stages, but already costing money and expanding the government.
The Health and Human Services Department “was given a billion dollars implementation money,” Republican Rep. Denny Rehberg of Montana said. “That money is gone already on additional bureaucrats and IT programs, computerization for the implementation.”
“Oh boy,” Stan Dorn of the Urban Institute said. “HHS has a huge amount of work to do and the states do, too. There will be new health insurance marketplaces in every state in the country, places you can go online, compare health plans.”
The IRS, Health and Human Services and many other agencies will now write thousands of pages of regulations — an effort well under way:
“There’s already 13,000 pages of regulations, and they’re not even done yet,” Rehberg said.
“It’s 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,” Matt Spalding of the Heritage Foundation said. “We counted about 180 or so.”
There has been much focus on the mandate that all Americans obtain health insurance, but analysts say that’s just a small part of the law — covering only a few pages out of the law’s 2700.
“The fact of the matter is the mandate is about two percent of the whole piece of the legislation,” Spalding said. “It’s a minor part.”
Much bigger than the mandate itself are the insurance exchanges that will administer $681 billion in subsidies over 10 years, which will require a lot of new federal workers at the IRS and health department.
“They are asking for several hundred new employees,” Dorn said. “You have rules you need to write and you need lawyers, so there are lots of things you need to do when you are standing up a new enterprise.”
For some, though, the bottom line is clear and troubling: The federal government is about to assume massive new powers.
Off-topic: Robert, I put up a post on films dealing with American History at Chicago Boyz (link from my blog)…if you have a chance, it would be great if you could stop by & add your thoughts.
Dear Robert: This is off topic, but this coming Sunday will be the fast of the 17th of Tammuz, which falls on Shabbat this year. I wish all those of you who are fasting an easy one.
I still don’t know why Roberts didn’t vote to kill this serpent.
Graduating in 1978 and starting my career as a CPA, I witnessed the growth and complexity of the tax code from the mind-numbing days of our tax classes in college. Only the 1986 law attempted to cut out the undergrowth that had been planted by congress playing to constituencies and contributors. Of course within less than 10 years it was as bad as ever and know I shudder to think what it would take to deal with it. My son is starting in the international tax department of a big 4 firm and it scared me to think of what he had to take in college to qualify for the position.
In my experiences, most of the agents on the bottom or more incompetent than scary and it is always good to know agents further up the food chain that you can reason with. But it only takes a few power mad nuts in an IRS office to make every tax preparor wish we had a simple sales tax to fund the government.
As much as Romney has bungled his statements after the SC decision, he’s our only hope to kill this beast in the nest because it has already sprouted wings and is getting ready to attack us.
I posted this in our local newspaper, The Daily InterLake 2 cents blog, with your name and URL.
I’m kind of stunned about the people I know. Mostly family and close friends. I sent your article, with your URL, your name, etc. to about 30 people as well as posting it in my local newspaper. So far I have had exactly 5 responses.
1. Hi Kay, good to hear from you, how are you?
2. FYI I am an Obama fan.
3. Ditto
4. Well, I have no insurance so don’t know what I’m going to do.
5. When did you become a Republican? This article is right wing BS.
Obviously birds of a feather don’t hang out together, or else my feather colors have changed!