In the recent primaries and elections, the Tea Party has proven itself a political force. I still don’t know what to make of them, though. They’s stated they don’t want to create another political party, but reform the ones we’ve got. I like that. Yet there’s something about their decked out patriot costumes and slogans that shouts Obama Birthers and 9/11 Truthers. What do you think? Is the Tea Party something to support?

Movements can be powerful. A powerful movement is good or dangerous – depending on your politics.

The Tea Party is a unique type of movement for the United States. It’s large and quiet. Most US movements are small and loud, representing specific minority issues, and are often organized and financed by unions and other organizations.

The Tea Party movement represents the general ideas of efficiently small government and personal responsibility, which are ideas held by the majority of working Americans, regardless of past voting habits. And the movement is ‘grass roots,’ meaning it simply sprang up comprising numerous like-minded people throughout society. That’s why Tea Party rallies are held on the weekend, so the whole group doesn’t have to get the day off, unlike the common Hippy-Liberal rallies that appear on weekdays intentionally to be disruptive.

You can tell the Tea Party movement is powerful just by how nervous it makes outspoken Liberals. And the Liberal criticism of the movement is weak at best. Liberals, including Obama, describe the Tea Party like they’re Anarchists, wanting no government – but the Tea Party just wants government to stop growing wildly. They agree government is a good thing.

Liberals describe the Tea Party as hateful and dangerous – but the Tea Party has harmed no one, committed no property damage (unheard of at Liberal rallies), don’t cause disruption, and even pick up after themselves. The favorite Liberalcriticism of the Tea Party, of course, is that Tea Party activists are anti-Obama racists – but the only examples of racist behavior has been by Liberals planting themselves at Tea Party rallies. There’s even a $100,000 reward for evidence of a Tea Partier using a racial slur – unclaimed!

The Tea Party has proven a strong force in the few special elections held since its appearance. And if you believe in its basic principles – not further growing/financing more government bureaucracies – then supporting it is natural. The few goofballs wearing the 1700s gear, birthers, and 9/11 truthers are few at most. As far as political rallies go, you’d expect to see more weirdos. But the average Tea Partier is the average working American. Don’t be fooled by the press and its tendency to show only the most eccentric or dangerous looking members of a protest in its news reports. Yeah, the Tea Party is mostly white, but so is America.

The real question is strategic: What will this movement mean for the direction of the country? Movements like this can be extremely productive in promoting their ideas – but can be equally as destructive to them.

Electing Brown in Massachusetts was an example of a productive direction of power. It stuck a republican into one of the most traditionally Democratic seats in Congress. An example of a possibly destructive direction was the Tea Party induced victory of Rand Paul over Trey Grayson in Kentucky’s Republican primary election for the mid-term Senate race. Grayson was the more electable candidate, the one establishment Republicans were backing. And Rand Paul, somewhat a radical, has since already said a few ‘unelectable’ things…

So we’ll see. If this were a Democrat upsergence I’d predict that the eventual result would be repetition of history: Dems splitting the vote and handing victory to the minority, how Lincoln got elected. But the Tea Party is mostly Republican and Libertarian. The Libertarians worry me, but Republicans are generally a big-picture type of people who will recognize the necessity of electing electable people, rather than ideal people.

And by ‘electable’ I don’t mean moderate. Indeed, America wants a moderate government, one that will provide expert non-ideological solutions. But that would require expert non-ideological people. And those kinds of people rarely run for political office and even more rarely are elected (they’re usually ugly and/or awkward). So we have to settle for electing the most reasonable seeming ideologs in even numbers on each side of the spectrum. Right now we’re dealing with a swinging pendulum in that respect.

The accusation is akin to accusing someone of poisoning themselves to spite someone for feeding them poison. But we all know what is really going on here. All these companies are run by white male fat-cats who can’t stand that a black man is president, don’t want sick babies to have health insurance, and know where the secret prison is that’s holding John Lenin to prevent world peace so they can keep getting rich off the war machine.

I was watching celebrity apprentice. Rod Blagojevich is on there – or was. He’s adorable, but so totally useless unless you need to talk a paper bag into being a plastic one. He can barely use a cell phone and can’t operate a computer. Another guy opened up Word for him, and Rod took a half hour to type a paragraph.

Don’t try to apply logic to the health care bill. It degraded down from a Leftist dream-bill to an Obama political make-or-break stack of paper labeled “Healthcare Reform”. That’s it. It was called “Healthcare Reform”. Everyone knows the bill is poorly constructed, complicated, contradictory, unspecific, full of random specific chunks of Santa Clause, uses phony math and budgetary widgets, and is bristling with dangerous taxes. That’s why they had to cheat it through on reconciliation.

They’re talking about immigration reform now. I hope like hell that bunch fools can come to some reasonableagreement. Let’s hope the first thing Pelosi or Reid lets out on the floor isn’t written by a wack-job amnesty enthusiast. And let’s hope if they do bring up a rational bill there will be more than Graham on the Republican’s side ready to support it – despite their butt-hurtedness form the health reform ass raping.

I don’t like either path. As you point out, the power to tax path is just dishonest. A tax only applied to individuals who don’t do something – logically – is a penalty.

And as contrary as it is to initial constitutional Federal powers and State roles, according to precedence, a mandate most probably is, or will be deemed, constitutional by shoving it down the commerce clause pipe. Although, I’d keep a plunger handy, probably some old towels and news paper too. What irritates me most though is – what better exercise is there for a federation than to experiment with improving health care and access to it in 50 different ways?

And I agree: the Republicans shouldn’t get into this court business. But, at least they’re challenging a new law, which is healthy, instead of trying to make a new law through the courts after it fails in the legislature, or the other way around. It’s not a productive venture for them politically. They should be focusing on the stuff that will get them more seats in the legislature so President Palin can reform Obama’s reform. After all, she won’t be hindered by that silly old thing they used to do – filibuster I think they called it.

Also, forcing a decision in the Supreme court could turn a painful stretch in the commerce clause into an official big step – another powerful precedent on the slippery slope of precedence. And if it goes the other way, what then? For there to be coverage for all, all must invest. Which means, in this world logic demands a mandate, regardless if it’s Republican or Democrat reform.

If I were on the Republican’s side of the proverbial chess board, I’d minimize these court challenges and focus onshowing all the goofy flaws, confusion, contradictions, and other inherent problems any huge, hurried, and sloppily compromised bill like this has – and talk about REFORM or REPLACE and stop all the REPEAL talk. Then I’d be as reasonable as possible with this upcoming immigration reform and try to keep all the anti-amnesty enthusiasts calm, especially in the Teaparty. Protesting Liberal super-spending and taxing is perfectly rational. Some might argue anything but is irrational.

But I’ve got a bad feeling there are plenty of Tea Partiers who will protest anything containing anything that might be interpreted as amnesty. And sure, amnesty is wildly unpopular, but the alternatives are nothing and deportation. Those aren’t popular either. Regardless, Republicans need to treat immigration reform kindly so as not to keep frightening off the Latino vote. The Latino block and the recent-immigrant block are both such a good fit under the Conservative philosophy it would be tremendously unwise to piss them away irrationally fighting against amnesty – or whatever Obama decides to call it – and let the Dems scoop them up with their staple promises of entitlements.

As I understand it, the main thrust of the lawsuit (and an interesting question regardless) is that the new federal healthcare bill violates the 10th Amendment to the United States Constitution. The 10th Amendment provides that, “powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states.”  Basically, the argument against the bill’s constitutionality is that the healthcare bill exceeds Congress’ enumerated powers.

I agree with Noisy Dove that the best argument for the bill’s constitutionality is that Congress has the power to regulate healthcare under the Commerce Clause.  Some commentators have argued that the bill is constitutional under Congress’ taxing and spending power, but I disagree.  Even though it may be called a “tax”, the penalty for failing to purchase healthcare is not a tax but exactly that — a penalty.  The healthcare bill applies a charge only to those who do not purchase healthcare, in other words don’t purchase healthcare and you have to pay a fine.  The fine does not become a tax simply because the amount due may be delineated based on income brackets or paid at tax time.  Accounting for income levels is no different in this case from adjusting a fine based on the gravity of the offense.  If Congress had wanted to create a tax incentive for purchasing healthcare it would have been very simple – just tax everyone for healthcare and then provide a tax credit equal to the amount of tax charged for those who purchase their own care.  This is, however, not what they did.

Nonetheless, I do believe that Congress had authority to pass this healthcare legislation under the Commerce Clause.  Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution affords Congress the power, “[t]o regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes.”  No matter what the original intent of the Commerce Clause, which I agree was probably as Noisy Dove describes, it has a long history of litigation and interpretation by the Supreme Court (seems like about one-third of my Constitutional Law course was spent on this one topic).  This has created several layers to Congress’ power that are not obvious from the text.

First, Congress may regulate wholly intrastate activities of interstate commerce.  See Shreveport Rate Cases.  Even though a person may not cross state lines to purchase his or her individual healthcare, and it is, therefore, a wholly intrastate activity, it is extremely difficult to argue that healthcare costs do not affect interstate commerce.  The Supreme Court has “identified three broad categories of activity that Congress may regulate under its commerce power”: (1) “the use of the channels of interstate commerce;” (2) “the instrumentalities of interstate commerce, or persons or things in interstate commerce, even though the threat may come only from intrastate activities;” (3) “those activities having a substantial relation to interstate commerce, i.e., those activities that substantially affect interstate commerce.”  United States v. Lopez, 514 U.S. 549, 558-59, 115 S. Ct. 1624, 1629-30 (1995) (internal citations omitted).  Hospitals, insurance companies, prescription drugs and drug companies all have profound effects on interstate commerce.

In the past fifty years, the only laws passed by Congress that the Supreme Court has ruled were not sufficiently related to interstate commerce were: (1) a law involving the carrying of handguns in school zones; and (2) parts of the violence against women act.  The regulation of healthcare and the healthcare industry has a much more direct affect upon the nation’s economy than the tangential relationship in those cases.  Under the loose standards of Supreme Court precedent, I think that Obamacare passes the test.

As to whether Congress may mandate that people purchase something, i.e. healthcare, the scope of Congress’ power under the Commerce Clause is very broad.  Congress has discretion to choose its means so long as those means are “reasonably adapted” to the Constitution.  See Heart of Atlanta v. U.S..  Congress has a long history of unfunded mandates, which are often controversial, but perfectly legal.  I see this as no different.

Of course there is a powerful slippery-slope argument to be made.  For example, one could argue that if Congress can mandate that people purchase healthcare, they could also mandate that people buy GM cars (since the federal government now has a financial interest in the company).  Honestly, Congress may be able to legally mandate something along those lines, but at some point, we have to have trust that our republican form of government (not the Republican party, but our representative form of government) will prevail.  Personally, I do not think that the chances of re-election for anyone who would vote that a person must purchase a GM car would be very good, and the same may be true for those who voted for the healthcare bill.  That is the beauty of our government.  Laws are made, the people speak, and laws can be changed.  I think that there is a much greater danger in running to the courts for this type of dispute because the court is asked to interpret the United States Constitution, which is not easily changed.  Such decisions have much longer-enduring and devastating effects; just look at Roe v. Wade.  I find it extremely interesting how conservatives often complain, and in fact campaign on, “left-wing activist judges,” but yet go running to the courts to change long-established constitutional law when they lose a political battle.  Et tu?  Et tu?

We all know, and it has been said over and over again, that our economy needs something new, a jolt.  And I believe that this legislation will unleash tremendous entrepreneurial power into our economy. — Pelosi

This reminds me of a skit by that Canadian comedy group – The Kids in the Hall:

The car won’t start, so the ‘husband’ gets out and kicks the tire. He looks to the ‘wife’, now in the driver’s seat. “Try it now.” Nothing. He opens the hood, “Try it now.” Nothing. He closes the hood. “Try it now.” Nothing.

He ends up changing the tire, and I forget what else, everything but fix the damn engine, but it’s about the same as Pelosi’s logic when it comes to economics. Nothing about passing a bill that forces companies to provide health insurance if they have more than 50 employees will stimulate entrepreneurship.

*sigh*

It’s just ridiculous. This is something around a 10% increase (probably more) in employee costs. That might not seem like much to a foolish congresswoman who’s never had to earn a living, but when you realize that a successful business is usually functioning on a profit margin of single percentage points, and that most entrepreneurial ventures fail, and that the ones that do succeed do so only after several years of losing money – you’ll understand how difficult these fancy new taxes will make it to do the things our economy needs us to do: innovate, risk, and invest.

The only entrepreneurial powers this will unleash are new solutions to keep your staff under 50 members.

But right now 14 states are filling suit against the healthcare bill based on the questionable constitutionality of the mandate. The only argument for its constitutionality that isn’t totally absurd (life, liberty, pursuit of happiness…) is that Congress has the right to regulate it as interstate commerce through the interstate commerce clause.

But this argument is shaky at best. This clause was added in order to allow the Fed to prevent a then loose group of states from clogging domestic trade with tariffs and other barriers. More recently it’s been used for about everything including enforcing drug laws.

But how can you argue that the interstate commerce clause can give Congress the right to make a law that requires ALL citizens to purchase health insurance when – by law, using the interstate commerce clause – you can’t purchase health insurance across state lines? It’s NOT and interstate commerce! If it were, the argument would be stronger to regulate it – but then how can you argue requiring all Americans be required to purchase it?

It’s as clear as anything to me that health insurance is under the State’s domain and not the Federal government’s. If it is determined constitutional and under the commerce act, just like the use of reconciliation, you could apply it to anything. Such a ruling would be a HUGE step forward in Federal power expansion.

And what if it’s shot down? What if health reform crashes and burns due to a Supreme Court ruling? What kind of reform will work if a mandate is ruled out?

What a piece of garbage. Could you have done a more controversial bill in a more inflammatory way – hopey changey?

I think that would be a handy way to keep a handle on the budget. It’s important for an economy like ours to run deficits during war time and economic downturns. But those safety systems have been – and most certainly are currently – being abused for the sake of entitlements and keeping the economy hotter than natural.

I think people would be less likely to strike up the banners of war or be so easily sweet-talked into imaginary-Free healthcare if they thought they’d actually have to pay for it in a couple hours when they swing by the Kwiki Mart. It would also kill off this dumb-ass Liberal/Progressive idea of taxing the prosperity out of the motivated in order to welfare any motivation to seek prosperity out of the poor.

What would really be cool is a Constitutional Amendment in the direction of the Freetax, something that would require the tax to be raised to equal spending – with the exception of actual emergencies in which case an actual fiscal plan would be required. Never mind… No exception. It would get abused.

[facetiousness alert]

I have a suggestion for such a tax reform bill: Ban abortion and institute mandatory reversible sterilization in the name of reproductive freedom. In other words, not forcing ALL children approaching sexual maturity to be temporary sterilized infringes upon their precious right to necessary sexual expression, exposition, and experimentation. Reproduction would require a license that would involve testing to weed out the 12-year-old crack-smoking hill-billies and the morbidly degenerate.

We’ll name it the American America Act.

Hey, we could also add this in thee. You know how the stupid Canadians have their arbitrary hate-speech laws that are only enforced against Conservatives? We could have a similar law using the same sneaking logic. We could make ignorant speech a crime. So like, having a protest were you chant demands for the Government to do something like buy people houses, talking about green jobs, claiming the health reform bill will save money, or abandon Iraq or Afghanistan – that would be illegal. The chair! The chair!

The main thing we’ll need is more primary care doctors. And since we already have a shortage of them, we’re going to cut Medicare and Medicaid payments to doctors – basically giving them a pay cut. That way, current doctors will be more inclined to continue accepting Medicare and Medicaid (which is important because many currently uninsured – and insured – will be dumped into Medicaid) and future doctors will be more likely to become doctors due to the incentive of not being able to maintain a small practice and will have to work for a huge bureaucratic network – practicing defensively all the live long day.

I know you’re upset about the lack of a public option, but don’t worry. All the big Dems in Congress have assured us that this is just the first step, “a starter house”.  And if the next step is in the same direction as the first, we’ll have some socialized medicine in no time, just like Europe. That’ll keep all those foreigners out, coming here to be doctors and be treated properly by doctors. Sheesh.

But seriously, now that the Filibuster is dissolved, when Palin’s serious-teaparty-Conservatives are marching hip-to-hip shoulder-to-shoulder in the majority, she’ll cut all this crap in the name of fiscal prudence. Hell, if the Dems keep up this type of behavior, by the end of 2013 we might see the army privatized and the IRS deported. Declaring was will be in the form of an RFQ – lol. (Request for Quotation)