 | Judge compares Dems health care defense to "Alice in Wonderland"Scotty Starnes | October 15, 2010 at 12:16 PM | Tags: Alice in Wonderland, commerce clause, Congress, Democrats, health care mandate, insurance, Obama, Obamacare, penalty, tax, taxing authority, U.S. District Judge Roger Vinson, U.S. Supreme Court | Categories: Uncategorized | URL: http://wp.me/pvnFC-35k |
Democrats tend to live in fantasy land.
Politico reports:
A federal judge in Florida on Thursday said he will allow some of the lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the health care law to proceed — and criticized Democrats for making an "Alice in Wonderland" argument to defend the law.
U.S. District Judge Roger Vinson allowed two major counts to proceed: the states' challenge to the controversial requirement that nearly all Americans buy insurance and a required expansion of the Medicaid program.
In his ruling, Vinson criticized Democrats for seeking to have it both ways when it comes to defending the mandate to buy insurance. During the legislative debate, Republicans chastised the proposal as a new tax on the middle class. Obama defended the payment as a penalty and not a tax, but the Justice Department has argued that legally, it's a tax.
"Congress should not be permitted to secure and cast politically difficult votes on controversial legislation by deliberately calling something one thing, after which the defenders of that legislation take an "Alice-in-Wonderland" tack and argue in court that Congress really meant something else entirely, thereby circumventing the safeguard that exists to keep their broad power in check," he wrote.
Vinson ruled that it's a penalty, not a tax, and must be defended under the Commerce Clause and not Congress's taxing authority.
A Dec. 16 trial date is planned in the lawsuit, brought by 20 state attorneys general and governors. Many legal experts expect it to end up before the U.S. Supreme Court.
 | WordPress.com | Thanks for flying with WordPress! |
Trouble clicking? Copy and paste this URL into your browser: http://subscribe.wordpress.com
--
Thanks for being part of "PoliticalForum" at Google Groups.
For options & help see http://groups.google.com/group/PoliticalForum
* Visit our other community at http://www.PoliticalForum.com/
* It's active and moderated. Register and vote in our polls.
* Read the latest breaking news, and more.
No comments:
Post a Comment