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Dems Don't Care About Constitution

Since when can the US require people to buy something?

By John Johnson, Newser Staff

Posted Dec 25, 2009 12:33 PM CST

(Newser) – Everyone's putting out best-of lists these days, so in that spirit Bill Pascoe nominates Senate Roll Call Vote Number 392 as the "most significant vote of the decade." No, it's not the big one that passed health care reform. It came just before that, on an amendment questioning whether it's constitutional to make people buy health insurance.

"Every single Democrat in the Senate is now on record in support of the belief that the federal government literally has the power to order its citizens to use their own after-tax dollars to buy something it wishes them to buy, details to be filled in later," Pascoe writes in CQ Politics. "In a word, wow."

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Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nev. listens to questions on Capitol Hill Thursday. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)

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I have looked through my copy of the Constitution several times, and I can find no provision that authorizes the federal government to mandate that I, as a private citizen of these United States, purchase anything. - Bill Pascoe, CQ Politics

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COMMENTS

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speakerfixer

Dec 30, 2009 12:05 PM CST

Taxes are NOT legally charged to give to PRIVATE companies. That's what the health care "mandate" will do... require the payment of monies to PRIVATE companies, under the force of law. How exactly is that constitutional?

speakerfixer

Dec 30, 2009 12:00 PM CST

To Cat-lover and prolerzee... because the claimed "right to health care" requires someone to, by force, give up their property so that someone else can have it. NO right can hinge on the requirement that someone else be FORCED to provide it, at the second person's own expense. IOW, you have NO right to take from others...

speakerfixer

Dec 30, 2009 11:57 AM CST

All of the things mentioned (Social Security, taxes for national defense, etc) are all TAX PAYMENTS to the GOVERNMENT. The health care "mandate" forces a person, by force of government, to purchase something from a PRIVATE COMPANY, JUST for being alive. I thought we had an inherent right to life and liberty, without having to pay a "life tax" for it? At least, that was the way the Constitution and the Bill of Rights read, the last time I read it (and BTW, a copy of the Constitution is right next to me, here on the desk)...

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Politics • Health

Senate • Constitution • health care reform • unconstitutional

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Dems Don't Care About Constitution