Video above, Barack Obama argues with George Stephanopoulos about the defined meaning of the word tax and explains, quite vehemently, how the healthcare mandate forcing Americans to purchase healthcare coverage is not a tax.
Text of convo:
OBAMA: No. That’s not true, George. The — for us to say that you’ve got to take a responsibility to get health insurance is absolutely not a tax increase. What it’s saying is, is that we’re not going to have other people carrying your burdens for you anymore than the fact that right now everybody in America, just about, has to get auto insurance. Nobody considers that a tax increase.
People say to themselves, that is a fair way to make sure that if you hit my car, that I’m not covering all the costs.
STEPHANOPOULOS: But it may be fair, it may be good public policy…
OBAMA: No, but — but, George, you — you can’t just make up that language and decide that that’s called a tax increase.
Emphasis mine and there can be no differentiating interpretations of his words. He is very clear. His healthcare mandate is NOT a tax. Period.
Jump on forward to today, via NYT, the Obama administration, in preparing to battle in court over the legality of the healthcare mandate, now claims it is part of the governments "power to lay and collect taxes.
Administration officials say the tax argument is a linchpin of their legal case in defense of the health care overhaul and its individual mandate, now being challenged in court by more than 20 states and several private organizations.
Under the legislation signed by President Obama in March, most Americans will have to maintain “minimum essential coverage” starting in 2014. Many people will be eligible for federal subsidies to help them pay premiums.
In a brief defending the law, the Justice Department says the requirement for people to carry insurance or pay the penalty is “a valid exercise” of Congress’s power to impose taxes.
Anyone want to try to claim Barack Obama is not an out-and-out liar?
