The Right wing all got behind Mitt Romney and his healthcare plan back in 2006. I don’t know if they thought they were supporting a future president or if they really believed in his policy. Everybody got on board. This would include the prestigious, conservative Heritage Foundation. They wrote ad nauseam. Now that liberals have passed a national healthcare plan that looks almost exactly like what former Governor Mitt Romney pushed in Massachusetts they (conservatives) are all up in arms. My question is were you lying then or are you lying now.
From TP:
The Heritage Foundation, one of the leading conservative think tanks — which has historically provided many of the policy ideas for the Republican Party, Republican administrations, and Republicans in Congress — has aggressively attacked President Obama’s efforts to reform health care in America. In addition to providing academic voices in the media to knock reform, Heritage has churned out blog posts and reports denigrating reform legislation for various reasons. And in recent days, Heritage has scrambled to mobilize a repeal effort of health reform, calling the law “intolerable.”
But before Democrats took up the mantle of reforming health care on the national level, Heritage experts boosted former Gov. Mitt Romney’s (R-MA) health reform plan in the Bay State. In numerous pieces posted on the Heritage website before 2008, Heritage took a markedly different approach to health reform than it does now:
– Heritage On Romney’s Individual Mandate: “Not an unreasonable position, and one that is clearly consistent with conservative values.” [Heritage, 1/28/06]
– Heritage On President Obama’s Individual Mandate: “Both unprecedented and unconstitutional.” [Heritage, 12/9/09]
– Heritage On Romney’s Insurance Exchange: An “innovative mechanism to promote real consumer choice.” [Heritage, 4/20/06]
– Heritage On President Obama’s Insurance Exchange: Creates a “de facto public option” by “grow[ing]” government control over healthcare.” [Heritage, 3/30/10]
– Heritage On Romney’s Medicaid Expansion: Reduced “the total cost to taxpayers” by taking people out of the “uncompensated care pool.” [Heritage, 1/28/06]
– Heritage On President Obama’s Medicaid Expansion: Expands a “broken entitlement program,” providing a “low-quality, poorly functioning program.” [Heritage, 3/30/10]
In fact, in 2007, Heritage again boasted that Romney’s plan is “already showing progress.” That same year, Heritage proudly posted a video of Romney gloating that Heritage officials had supported him in creating “ultimate conservatism” with the Massachusetts health plan.
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You do understand that under our Constitution the states are supposed to have broader powers in matters of social policy than the feds, don't you?
The powers assigned to the feds are few and enumerated. The rest is reserved 'for the states and the people'.
I understand that in spite of me quoting from Supreme Court documents you are still arguing like the Supreme Court didn't rule on your objection. I also understand that the Heritage foundation didn't base their objection on the commerce clause. Here's what they said,”Edwin J. Feulner, president of the Washington, DC-based think tank, said the bill represented “a giant step toward creation of a European-style welfare state.” Instead of empowering individuals, he noted, the trillion-dollar, 2,700 page bill empowers an “unelected bureaucracy [to}… determine the content of health benefits packages, including medical treatment and procedures, and how much will be paid for those services.”
It appears that you have blown off what I wrote. You overlooked or didn't care that John Marshall who fought in the Revolutionary War, who knew the writers of the constitution personally and was appointed by John Adams said, “Although, among the enumerated powers of Government, we do not find the word ‘bank’ or ‘incorporation,’ we find the great powers, to lay and collect taxes; to borrow money; to regulate commerce; to declare and conduct a war; and to raise and support armies and navies. The sword and the purse, all the external relations, and no inconsiderable portion of the industry of the nation are intrusted to its Government. It can never be pretended that these vast powers draw after them others of inferior importance merely because they are inferior. Such an idea can never be advanced. But it may with great reason be contended that a Government intrusted with such ample powers, on the due execution of which the happiness and prosperity of the Nation so vitally depends, must also be intrusted with ample means for their execution.“
Do you really expect anyone to agree with everything that any soldier in Washington's army believed at any given point?
They didn't even agree with each other.
They had differing political opinions, surely you realize.
So should I take each opposing view and declare them ALL ok?
I can disagree with Mr Marshall, and I do.
He was appointed by John Adams…..so what? Adams had political differences with Jefferson and other Fathers. What makes an appointment by Adams the end of all discussion?
Lots of people 'knew the writers of the Constitution personally'. So what? Many of those 'personal acquaintances' didn't even support the Revolution, even though they knew some, or many, of the Founding Fathers.
My point is this (and I'm not required to have the same objections as Heritage either, I speak and think for myself) : If you broaden the commerce clause (or any clause) in such a manner as you desire to do, Dr Thompson, then the term 'limited government' is virtually meaningless because you wish to empower the government to do whatever it can muster a 51% majority to approve at any given point.
So please, if you wish to disagree with me, then do so based on what I said, not based on what you think I should've said.
Joe —
Thanks again for your comments.
First of all, one of the typical retorts of conservatives is that they would like a strict interpretation of the Constitution. They want to interpret the Constitution as the writers intended. So, finding somebody who knew the writers of the Constitution and who was there through our revolutionary struggles would seem to qualify him as someone who could interpret the original intention of the Constitution. This is why I point back to John Marshall. This is why I mentioned that he was appointed by John Adams.
so, where in the Constitution are you finding the term “limited government?” Because you're thinking for yourself, is this something you came up with on your own? Is this something that the writers of the Constitution intended to put in the Constitution? Please elaborate.
The alternative to limited government is, of course, unlimited government.
I think you would be hard pressed to find a serious constitutional scholar who would attempt to make the case that the Founders intended to create a federal government that was unlimited.
They purposely put quite severe limits on the federal power, and the rest was reserved for the states and the people.
Your reading of the commerce clause would give the federal government unlimited power over every aspect of life.
You wanted to define 'commerce' under this clause as including the exchange of thoughts and ideas, so that even formerly free speech would be regulated by the feds under the commerce clause.
I would have to disagree. You are talking about 2 extremes. I think that there is something in the middle.
It is nice to know that the Supreme Court has disagreed with your interpretation of the Constitution.
Finally, I would disagree with you on what I said about the commerce clause. I gave the definition of commerce. I never said that government should regulate speech and ideas. I thought it was important to define a word before you begin to talk about it.
Hey, I think that you would have loved the Articles of Confederation. Clearly, more power to the states in the Articles.
Joe –
Let me make your argument for you.
From a historical perspective James Monroe has already made this argument — Excerpts from President Monroe’s Special Message on Internal Improvements, May 4, 1822:
If, then, the right to raise and appropriate the public money is not restricted to the expenditures under the other specific grants, according to a strict construction of their powers respectively, is there no limitation to it?
Have Congress a right to raise and appropriate the public money to any and to every purpose, according to their will and pleasure? They certainly have not. The government of the United States is a limited government, instituted for great national purposes, and for those only. Other interests are committed to the states, whose duty it is to provide for them.
therefore, it would seem that the Supreme Court has already dealt with this issue of unintended consequences and unfair trade practices. By implementing the current law, Congress will inadvertently squelch competition. As mentioned earlier, this was found to be unconstitutional in the Hammer versus Dagenhart case.
My other 2 cents.
The definition of commerce as used in the commerce clause is the issue, and the definition you cited included thoughts and speech. Simply admit that you did.
I have no objection to the proper regulation of interstate commerce as described in the Constitution.
But the individual mandate isn't about interstate commerce at all.
Buying insurance is intra-state commerce, and this congress isn't simply regulating it, they are forcing it to occur.
It is all about the confiscation of goods from one party to give to a private company. I thought Democrats were against corporate welfare, but here is the largest piece of corporate welfare ever devised.
Insurance premiums will skyrocket under this arrangement, with the blessing of Democrats. oh they will wring their hands and 'complain' but they caused it and they know it. Anytime you force someone to buy something, the cost isn't going to go down. Why would it?
This is simply a power grab by the feds over an area that has been traditionally and legally regulated by the states.
Overregulation and incompetence by the feds caused many of the problems in the insurance and health care markets over the past few decades —- the exemption for self insured plans, cost shifting due to Medicare and Medicaid, the explosion of illegal immigration driving states to near bankruptcy paying for health care of illegal residents—- and we could go on. But why should we? You are determined not to address or understand these things. You've consistently ignored them when they are discussed.
There was cost-shifting long before Medicare and Medicaid.
Thanks for your thoughts.
Does that justify it as government policy?
Just because something 'is happening anyway' is that a good enough reason to make it the official practice of the US government?
It seems Mr. Joe White knows a lot about history and has the logic to make good use of it. Mr Thompson appears to have access to history and knows how to cut and paste it very well.