Unconstitutional ObamaCare

Check out the opinion piece at The Wall Street Journal by J. Kenneth Blackwell and Kenneth A. Klukowski:

"The Justice Department announced last week that it would defend the new federal health-insurance mandate as an exercise of Congress's 'power to lay and collect taxes,' even though Barack Obama had insisted before the bill's passage that it was 'absolutely not a tax increase.' The truth is the mandate is not a tax—and if it were it would be unconstitutional.

"A tax is when the government takes money from individuals, puts it in the Treasury, and plans to spend it. With the health-insurance mandate, the government is not taking money from private individuals; rather, it is commanding them to give their money to another private entity, not to the Treasury. If individuals don't obey the mandate, they pay a penalty to the Treasury. But penalties aren't taxes. The mandate is legally separate from the penalty.

"Even if the Justice Department were to get the mandate considered a tax, it would be an unconstitutional one. Unlike states, the federal government has limited jurisdiction. Under the 10th Amendment, the federal government has only those powers enumerated by the Constitution, and all other powers are reserved to the people or the states. Every federal action must be authorized by a constitutional provision. If there is no such provision, then the action is unconstitutional. No provision of the Constitution authorizes the federal government to command people to buy insurance."

Read the whole thing. It's short and highly recommended.

As I have said before, demanding that citizens buy products and services from private enterprises regulated by the state for the social good of all fits the definition of fascist economic theory.

From the Concise Encyclopedia of Economics:

"Where socialism sought totalitarian control of a society’s economic processes through direct state operation of the means of production, fascism sought that control indirectly, through domination of nominally private owners. Where socialism nationalized property explicitly, fascism did so implicitly, by requiring owners to use their property in the 'national interest'—that is, as the autocratic authority conceived it. (Nevertheless, a few industries were operated by the state.) Where socialism abolished all market relations outright, fascism left the appearance of market relations while planning all economic activities. Where socialism abolished money and prices, fascism controlled the monetary system and set all prices and wages politically. In doing all this, fascism denatured the marketplace. Entrepreneurship was abolished. State ministries, rather than consumers, determined what was produced and under what conditions. [emphasis mine]"

This law must be repealed. No compromises.