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The Spectacle Blog
Lots of disappointment from my conservative colleagues over the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling on Obamacare today, and understandably so. However, there are a few silver linings to this storm cloud that should give us hope.
One, as my former boss, John Hood, writes at The Corner, the Supreme Court victory comes at significant political cost to President Obama. Chief Justice John Roberts managed to uphold Obamacare apart from the Commerce Clause by calling it a tax — a tax that will constitute a mammoth increase on the middle class. Not a good selling point in an election year. Romney has a golden opportunity to exploit Obamacare as a tax hike, and he has the Supreme Court as his source.
Two, conservatives’ depression will quickly turn to resolve and action. In the same way that Obama’s endorsement of same-sex marriage will convince reluctant evangelicals to fill in the oval for Romney in November, so will the Supreme Court’s ruling convince Libertarians and moderates who previously were on the fence to go for Romney. The ruling will create badly needed enthusiasm for Romney in a way that wouldn’t have been possible had the high court struck down the individual mandate or Obamacare in its entirety. Look for 2010 conservative fervor to return.
Third, writing at HotAir, Ed Morrissey makes the good point that the court’s ruling means that the HHS contraception-mandate battle will rage on. It’s a golden opportunity to continue to expose the Obama administration’s blatant disregard for freedom of religion and conscience.
All of these factors don’t even take into consideration the stalling economy, which Romney will continue to exploit. So while today is a sobering one for America, the defeat has brought significant opportunities.
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More Blog Posts by David N. Bass
http://spectator.org/blog/2012/06/28/obamacare-ruling-will-fuel-201
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Bill Hussein O'Stalin| 6.28.12 @ 11:51AM
Very soon millions of more jobs will be outsourced.
Wait until the public discovers that illegal aliens are not required under the act to pay the tax/penalty. That means they will be able to get the jobs and Americans won't.
Lastly, the health insurance companies will be forced to lay people off.
While the liberals gloat today I think that by November you will observe unemployment go up significantly. Obama will pay the final tax.
bluecollarbytes| 6.28.12 @ 11:53AM
After essentially leaving obamacare to the courts, how is it that Republican careerists are going to find some new conservative ground to hold?
Sure, let's fight it out on the political level. In my dreams.
The writing is on the wall. It's debatable whether Republicans can even come up with an acceptable 'replacement' for obamacare, something many of them seem compelled to do.
Knowing that more Republican might have more paying elected positions than Democrats after Nov., does nothing for me.
owend| 6.28.12 @ 11:55AM
I truly hope so. The incredible thing about this ruling was that a so-called Conservative Justice handed it to Obama and the Government. The expected swing vote was with Justice Kennedy, who wrote a dissenting opinion that the entire bill was unconstitutional. No one could have seen this one coming down the way it did. Truth is indeed stranger than fiction.
Fast and Curious| 6.28.12 @ 11:58AM
Sometimes citizens are given the opportunity to "send a message." Anyone who loves freedom should go to Romney's website and make this the biggest donation day of the campaign. That would start things off in the RIGHT direction. We need to bury Obama's campaign quickly and definitively.
Grzmlyk| 6.28.12 @ 1:05PM
I believe that, even if he is elected (a big "if" given that voter fraud is legal if you're a democrat) Romney will keep many aspects of Obamacare - my guess is pre-existing conditions and keeping kids on their parents' policies till they are 26.
One way or another, we are headed inexorably to single payer.
If people think Romney is going to have the political courage to change the trajectory of this country, they must see something in him that I don't see.
What I see is that Republicans are to the Democrats what the Washington Generals are to the Harlem Globetrotters.
LiveFreeOrDie| 6.28.12 @ 3:31PM
I agree with you as usual. I'd like to add my disappointment in conservative leaders, talking heads, blogger and writers. We've lost an incredible amount of freedom to a slippery-slope of unconstitutional policies but hey, maybe this will help get our guy elected?!??!! Disgusting.
Romney may jump on the repeal bandwagon and ride it to the election. So what? He will remain unscathed when he doesn't follow through as no bill will ever make it's way to his desk.
JmsA| 6.28.12 @ 11:59AM
If memory serves me right, Obama approval dropped right as Obamacare was passed. He ran against Clinton by claiming he would not support an individual mandate, only to change positions after he won and support an individual mandate, which he then claimed was not a tax. He then argued in the SCOTUS, it was a tax--, in effect violating his pledge against a middle class tax increase. If the folks don't get what Obama/democrats are all about, they'll never get it.
JD| 6.28.12 @ 12:19PM
The Court just called Obama a liar. He said the penalty wasn't a tax; they said it is.
Hardcard| 6.28.12 @ 12:20PM
hey mr. speaker the most splendid leader is now spiking the ball. what are you going to do you empty suit. they must have shown judge roberts the photos. now we are all screwed forward and in the rear.
JD| 6.28.12 @ 12:20PM
The Court FDR tried to pack ruled that because taxes can only exist to "collect revenue for the acts of government", a tax cannot exist to redistribute wealth or to influence behavior. They struck down a number of FDR's programs on those grounds.
How far we have fallen...
BackToBasics| 6.28.12 @ 12:35PM
Conservatives have tried to see the silver linings in Chief Justice Robert's leftist-leaning rulings this week. It boils down to the best that they can say about this so-called conservative is that he's rolling the dice that his rulings will work in favor of ousting Obam in November.
I doubt it and it sure is a risky gamble if it even were true. Roberts has voted conservative but probably the two most important rulings which were this week he's voted with the left. His rulings smack of globalist thinking rather than interpreting the constitution.
I thought Bush II was a terrible, left-of-center president. So what if he's better than Obam. Now even his choice of Roberts is much diminished.
I actually think Romney, if elected, will be more to the right of Bush and with his Mormon faith I think any justices he chooses will be more conservative than Roberts. At least I hope so.
JD| 6.28.12 @ 12:42PM
At this point our best option is to hunker down and let the lefties have their way so it can blow up in their faces. We need to focus on reporting, anyway. Right now no matter what happens, they win, because they control the press. We need to make sure that the outcomes of their policies become known to the electorate, or they'll spin them against us forever.
BackToBasics| 6.28.12 @ 1:04PM
It's not a positive future when we have to resort to that although I agree with the sentiment.
I hope you are right though and if you mean the wait would be short term it could work to our favor. If it's a wait for more than the next 5 months the blow-up will happen but we will not be immune to the effects of the disaster. We may be able to pick up some pieces after that. Yet, my instincts tell me that some sort of amnesty looks to be in the cards eventually no matter who wins in November. If that ever happens, the conservatives will not have enough votes to offset the speical-interest groups numbers.
JD| 6.28.12 @ 1:21PM
I think "Atlas Shrugged" was right about how this all ends, which means we have a lot of pain to go through before it's over.
Grzmlyk| 6.28.12 @ 2:05PM
JD, while I would love to see the lefties finally acknowledge that they are the destroyers of this country, they will never, ever lay the blame for the collapse of this country on their own policies. When Obamacare causes healthcare costs to skyrocket, we know who will be blamed: Evil Republicans.
And, despite what many think, we are not headed toward a rightward surge in this country. We are headed where socialism always ends - over the cliff. In this case, that will be by hyperinflation.
Does it really matter if Obama takes us there at 100 mph, or if we elect Romney, who will put the brakes on and take us there at 75 mph?
And when hyperinflation hits, Paul Krugman will insist that the only reason the house of cards collapsed was because we just didn't print enough money. And all the NPR listeners will nod in agreement, and the mainstream media will concur, and academia will rededicate itself to Keynesianism, and everybody will lay the blame at the feet of fiscal conservatives and libertarians.
Limbaugh talks about the four corners of deceit - academia, science, media and government. All of these institutions are out-and-out socialist-fascists who crave a Soviet-style dictatorship.
The sheep go cheerfully into the slaugterhouse, drunk on their own sense of moral superiority and self-righteousness.
Kingofthenet| 6.28.12 @ 12:41PM
Well i give you Conservatives credit, the 'Lemons to Lemonade' going on here is pretty optimistic! ...but as Dirty Harry said...A man has GOT to know his limitations.
Slacker| 6.28.12 @ 2:13PM
Silver lining indeed! Come 2014 this Slacker gets to go back to slacking off!
The need for health insurance keeps a lot of us working full time. Once this state exchanges start I won’t need to a real job. Just jeep your adjusted income below the cutoff for federal assistance and hello cheap insurance! Hello part time work. Hello black market economy. This is going to be fun. I’m going to buy a sailboat or something. I bet they will even give me food stamps.
I am truly sorry for those of you who haven’t built a decent nest egg already, and anybody with financial obligations to others. You can have my job as a conciliation prize.
Bob Grant| 6.28.12 @ 2:13PM
Lemons to Lemonade?
We are making the false assumption that the bill will forever be unpopular. It's what gives the gutless RINO's cover to show their conservative "bona fides."
Now that the law is "constitutional", expect obama to go on a massive PR blitz promoting how great this "constitutional" law will be once it's implemented. What happens when public opinion shifts and the law becomes popular?
Will those aforementioned RINO's support repealing a bill that is now popular, or will they begin to talk about how it would be better to "deal with the realities of obamacare"? ...that it is the law of the land?
Mr. Roberts ensured obamacare is here to stay. The point might be moot, however, as the United States, like Stockton California, will soon be broke.
Bye Bye America. It was nice knowing you.
Grzmlyk| 6.28.12 @ 2:25PM
I agree with you 100%, Bob. Most people are going to love Obamacare. After all, what's wrong with free healthcare for everybody, right? What's wrong with unicorns and fairy dust dictating logic in in modern-day America?
We are now a dictatorship. And most modern-day Americans are going to love it. Right up until the money runs out, of course. Which it has already. But so what? We have printing presses! We'll keep going until the dollar is so debased as to be worthless.
But why worry about tomorrow? Obamacare ROCKS! The fools think they are displaying compassion, the crooks are making easy money off of the taxpayers, the vandals get to destroy America and the pawns get free stuff. Everybody's happy, right?
Why stop the drinking binge while there's still booze in the bottle?
Is America a great country or what?
Slacker| 6.28.12 @ 3:35PM
Don’t be so sure. Today the progressives are blinded by their lust for an Obama victory. When the dust settles they will realize they fought tooth and nail for what turned out to be a very regressive tax.
Roberts may have just cunningly demolished Obama’s health care legacy. Payback for that state of the union jab?
Occam's Tool| 6.28.12 @ 4:44PM
I dated (and screwed) Don Siegel's cousin, an attorney...she had limitations, just like Obama. He's gone in November, and we will see if Romney can get the votes needed to repeal Obamacare. McConnell and the boys are going to try reconcilliation, and it will serve the Dems right.
Ralphie| 6.28.12 @ 1:44PM
This decision and dissent was kind of brilliant in a way. Roberts, et. al., upheld it as a tax, which isn't what the political argument was. He drew in the liberal justices in defending that view. The dissent was clearly strong that it was crap. Now Obama and the Dems have to figure out how to logically put together it isn't a tax, when the thing they have to point to in their defense says it is. Interesting. It is almost like the court put a checkmate on the Dems political arguments. One thing the public is not nuanced about is the word tax. Funny, the government lawyer got creamed not by what he argued for, but for what he didn't. I'm sure he knew it would slam dunk as a tax, but the political pressure was passed to the court. The court just returned volley.
Bob Grant| 6.28.12 @ 2:30PM
It was brilliant to whose benefit?
Thanks to Roberts, the republican's only hope now is the bill remains unpopular so as to keep the RINO's under sway.
I fear there are many RINO's just itching to support this bill , ala Arlen Specter, as soon as it becomes popular. And it eventually will because a tired American people will demand compromise, which we all know means....obamacare!!!
Mr. Roberts decision will eventually lead to bipartisan support of obamacare because of the political realities.
Mr. Roberts had the ability of ending this monstrosity on legal grounds. He chose not to and now obamacare is here to stay.