This week has effectively been the Constitutional Convention that is the sitting of the US Supreme Court on ObamaCare. As I have stated on my program over the past several days, this is a landmark case for American liberty. For the first time in our lifetimes, actually in American history, our Federal government is attempting to create a market that it will then turn around and regulate. Under a liberal (no pun intended) interpretation of the Interstate Commerce Clause, which is found in Article I, Section 8, Clause 3 of the Constitution, the Obama Administration and its allies are attempting to takeover our nation’s healthcare system.
The Interstate Commerce Clause, in its original intent, was designed to facilitate commerce between the states. To this end, it provided that the Congress of the United States had the power to regulate existing markets that crossed state lines. It did not, however, provide authority to the Congress to create markets it would then turn around and regulate. This rewriting of the Constitution by an overreaching Congress and a power grabbing President is unprecedented, and threatens to undermine the original intent of the Constitution – which was to clearly define the role of the Federal government.
>>REPLAY: Sen. Jim DeMint[mp3player width=600 height=100 config=player.xml playlist=obamacare.xml]
Allowing the Congress and the President, or courts for that matter, to recreate the Constitution in the image of their ideology is dangerous. Thus, if the Supreme Court upholds ObamaCare as Constitutional, it will have opened the floodgates to unrestrained Federal power. This will be accomplished by effectively establishing the Interstate Commerce Clause, along with the oft-abused “Necessary and Proper” clause, as the route to omnipotent government. It is critical to this country’s future that this abuse of the law is overturned.
I’ll go on record in support of a line of questioning put forth today by Associate Justice Samuel Alito. Justice Alito knocked US Solicitor General Donald B Verrili, Jr., who is defending the healthcare law, back on his heels by citing a cost report on the individual mandate portion of the healthcare law. Alito referred to a Congressional Budget Office (CBO) report, which indicates that the individual mandate will force young people to pay much more for healthcare than they currently do, and asked “isn’t it the case that what this mandate is really doing is not requiring the people who are subject to it to pay for the services that they are going to consume? It is requiring them to subsidize services that will be received by somebody else?” That’s hitting a nail on the head, for this law is, at its very core, yet another liberal attempt at cost-shifting and wealth redistribution.
It is my sincere hope that the US Supreme Court will strike down the individual mandate and, as a result, the Obama healthcare takeover. If it should not, however, freedom-loving Americans must turn out in force in the November elections to take over the Senate and the White House. If the Court abdicates its responsibility, the people still have the recourse provided by the Constitution called elections. If the Court fails to curtail this Federal overreach, and the people don’t put the White House and Senate back in conservative hands in November, however, there may not be much of a Constitution left to provide recourse in the future.
Josh, you are, as do so many, mis-interpreting the commerce clause, something that has been explained many time by Judge Napolitano and others. The commerce clause originated because some states were charging tariffs to other state for goods that would be sold in that state. The correct definition of “regulate commerce” was to “make regular,” or to create an environment that would allow interstate commerce to take place. It did NOT mean to apply multiple burdensome regulations on the market, which is what the courst have allowed it to become. It is time we got back to what the founders intended. They knew what they were doing.