Make Stuff Up Faster, Time Is Running Short!

Ezra Klein resorts to fan fantasy and fiction to defend the ObamaCare mandate in what may (fingers crossed!) be its final hours.

He offers two examples of "mandates" implemented by the founding fathers. The first was a requirement that men between the ages of eighteen and forty-five equip themselves properly for deployment in the local militia.  Obviously, that is not an exercise of the Commerce Clause.

The second example is a "mandate" to buy "hospital insurance" with the caveat that "mandate" means "payroll tax" and "hospital insurance" means "Federally funded and sponsored hospitals".

The current fantasy, as presented by Einer Elhauge, a professor at Harvard Law, and excerpted by Ezra:

In 1790, the very first Congress—which incidentally included 20 framers—passed a law that included a mandate: namely, a requirement that ship owners buy medical insurance for their seamen. This law was then signed by another framer: President George Washington. That’s right, the father of our country had no difficulty imposing a health insurance mandate.[...]

Six years later, in 1798, Congress addressed the problem that the employer mandate to buy medical insurance for seamen covered drugs and physician services but not hospital stays. And you know what this Congress, with five framers serving in it, did? It enacted a federal law requiring the seamen to buy hospital insurance for themselves. That’s right, Congress enacted an individual mandate requiring the purchase of health insurance. And this act was signed by another founder, President John Adams.

Uh huh.  Here is the text of the act.  It is a payroll tax with the proceeds paid to the government (not private hospitals or insurers). The funds are to be used by the government to build and/or pay for hospitals to care for sailors. (The boat owner is responsible for all record-keeping and payments, although he is authorized to retain the amounts from his sailor's pay.)

Gosh, if Obama had wanted to fund ObamaCare with a payroll tax, would that have been Constitutional?  It would have been like... like... like Medicare!

Of course, Obama had promised not to actually raise taxes on anyone earning less than $250,000, so that road was closed. And any citizen determined to avoid that payroll "mandate" could simply stop working.

It's fun that libs are dusting off their history, but they really need to find some analogous analogies.

FROM CENTURIES AGO:

Wth July, 1798.

CHAP. [94.] An act for the relief of sick and disabled seamen.

 Be it enacted, Sfc. That from and after the first day of September next, the master or ownerof every ship or vessel of the United States, arriving from a foreign port into any port of theUnited States, shall, before such ship or vessel shall be admitted to an entry, render to thecollector a true account of the number of seamen that shall have been employed on board such vessel since she was last entered at any port in the United States, and shall pay, to the saidcollector, at the rate of twenty cents per month for every seaman so employed ; which sum he ishereby authorized to retain out of the wages of such seamen.

...

§ 3. That it shall be the duty of the several collectors to make a quarterly return of the sumscollected by them, respectively, by virtue of this act, to the secretary of the treasury ; and thepresident of the United States is hereby authorized, out of the same, to provide for the temporaryrelief and maintenance of sick, or disabled seamen, in the hospitals or other proper institutions now established in the several ports of the United States, or in ports where no such institutions exist, then in such other manner as he shall direct: Provided, that the moneys collected in anyone district, shall be expended within the same...

Incredibly, the act does not run on for another two thousand pages. Five paragraphs in all, actually.

Comments

[narciso]

Well yes, Gus, if you're going to bring facts into the narrative 'you're no fun anymore;

[narciso]

Did they get this tip from the burned GID agent?

http://weaselzippers.us/2012/06/26/european-security-officials-say-al-qaeda-trained-white-norwegian-muslim-convert-operational-and-awaiting-orders-from-yemen-to-attack/#comment-795706

[narciso]

It's cruel to torture them with their own ignorance, and mendacity, so I'll have someone
else do it.

[Ignatz]

--you're no fun anymore--

I get narc's Monty Python and original Star Trek references but I'm pretty clueless otherwise since the last original movie I watched in a theater was uh...I have no idea.

[narciso]

It was a punchline, for one episode involving Aliens and Scotsmen

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0651004/quotes

[glasater]

That makes you a real 99.9999999%er

Hope that is a good thing, RickB.

Ignatz, I'm so far behind in all goings on and thanks for the "visual" help.

Any day I see Frau and Caro's "handles" come up is a good one :)

[Sara]

* Today Republicans oppose sending American guns into a foreign country without the consent of that nation's government but they didn't mind when Bush invaded Iraq ooh burn.

Who wrote this bgates?

There is a big difference from selling guns to a violent foreign drug cartel without the knowledge of that government and in secret from your own country and going into Iraq with Congressional and UN approval with plenty of reporters along and with a good-sized coalition of countries on your side.

[Sara]

OMG! Muslims Shouting “Allahu Akbar” Stone Christians in Dearborn, Michigan (Video)

I'm glad I wasn't there. Scary.

[Sara]

I hope you all watch the above video and it disgusts you as much as it did me. More than disgust ... it makes me GD mad, and most especially at those cops. What a bunch of shitheels they were. Can't use a bullhorn, but stand idly by as the other side starts throwing rocks, eggs, garbage, and urine.

I.WANT.MY.AMERICA.BACK!!!!!!!!!

[daddy]

Speaking of TM's headline about Making Stuff Up...

Today we saw Obama dissing Red Sox fans about Youklis going to the WhiteSox.

Then we saw Carney making stuff up about the Boston folks not booing Obama but instead were hollering "Yook".

That reminded me of Obama back in 2010 trying to pretend he was a White Sox fan by wearing a White Sox ball cap to a Washington Nats game, when he was quizzed on air:

"(Obama) was interviewed during the game's television broadcast by former Sox pitcher Rob Dibble, who asked the president about his favorite players on the South Side growing up."

"This is was the point that the usually eloquent Obama began stammering."

"You know uh ..... I ... I thought that ... uh .... you know," Obama stalled. " ... The truth is a lot of the Cubs I like too! But, uh ... I did not become a Sox fan until I moved to Chicago. Because I uh .... I was growing up in Hawaii so I ended up actually being an Oakland A's fan."

This was also the interview where Obama called it ""Cominskey Park."

Here's the link, but the video won't work without the signed, written consent of Major League Baseball.

I suppose Maraniss would say that Obama's pretending to be a White Sox fan was what mattered, not the fact that he never really was one.

[Jim Ryan]

Obamacare will be given thumbs up 5 to 4. You heard it here 163rd.

[hit and run]

HAPPY BIRTHDAY JANET!!!!!!!!11!1!1!1!!!

[pagar]

Happy Birthday Janet. Wishing you many many more.

[rse]

Happy Birthday Janet!!

And thanks for all you do for the troops. I know for a fact your willingness to reach out to people you have never met far from home and in harm's way provides a tangible reminder of the American values they believe they are fighting to preserve.

You provide brightness and joy. Which makes you officially a treasure.

[Jane]

Wow! HAPPY BIRTHDAY to one of the most thoughtful, kind, generous and wonderful people I know. You are such a great role model Janet, and the stuff you do for the troops is sooo cool!

You deserve the best birthday EVAH!

[Rick Ballard]

Happy Birthday, Janet.

I second RSE.

[Captain Hate]

HB Janet

[Janet]

Thanks all. Love the cake, hit although it needs 54 cigarettes! Hah!
You're a very sweet keeper of "the List".

[Jane]

Oh dear I never noticed the cigarettes until you pointed them out. That's hysterical!

[Captain Hate]

I'm seeing some strange reports @ AoS that Paleface Boehner is trying to squelch the Stedman contempt vote. As I said there, I hope this is false information because I don't want to start the day in a really bad mood.

[centralcal]

Happy Birthday, Janet! The cigarettes on the cake are a hoot!

[NK]

Speculation-- all of it grain of salt stuff-- we find out thursday 1000am. but any prediction that the mandate is upheld 5-4 makes no sense. If the mandate is upheld it will be 6-3 with CJ Roberts appointing himself to write the majority opinion and deliver the Court's definitive interpretation of what the Commerce Clause means.

[jimmyk]

Happy Birthday, Janet! Is 54 your daily cigarette intake? Because I'm sure you can't be a day over 39.

[NK]

Thanks again to Alice for posting that Avik Roy 2011 response to the Seamen Insurance Mandate. I read his article last night, and I disagree with him why the 1798 Seamen Act is completely distinguishable-- Roy correctly cites the Commerce Clause and war making powers distinctions from Obamacare, but to me the key is that the 1798 tax was a tax collected by shipowners to defray medical expenses incured directly by the US Treasury to care for sick and wounded sailors. It was based on Congress's tax and spend for war and general welfare powers under Article I Clause 1. How do we know dipshit Klein was and is wrong about this? I don't believe the Admin even used this argument to justify the mandate in the SCOTUS.

[Melinda Romanoff]

Happy Birthday, Janet!

Smoke a few for me, today, please?

[Melinda Romanoff]

CH-

Do I have your e-mail addy?

[Slartibartfast]

I was consulting the writings of our Founders

Why bother? Those documents are over 100 years old, after all. What did those guys know that's relevant to today?

[Janet]

Because I'm sure you can't be a day over 39.

God bless ya, jimmyk. :)

[Captain Hate]

You should have it, Mel. I lost a bunch of old emails recently but I'm sure you'd reached me on it earlier.

[bspeigel]

Ezra Klein... isn't he the one who gathered "objective" news reporters together and plotted how they could publish stories to help Obama before the last election? Yeah, I think that's him. Mr. Journolist? Ezra Klein has no business claiming to be a journalist. He is a party hack.

[Janet]

Smoke a few for me, today, please?

Can do, can do.

[NK]

Ezra Klein? party hack-- maybe; POS? definitely

[Melinda Romanoff]

Ameritech gets some renewed business.

You have mail.

[Extraneus]

Please post that on every thread in which TM links the party hack, bspeigel.

[will]

Please don't call Ezra Klein and others like him "liberals" or "libs." They are statists. They have no concept of classical liberalism.

[Disillusionist]

IIRC, it was during the Journolist saga that those madcap libertarians over at Reason put Klein through the ringer. I disagree with them a lot, but some of the regular commentators are howlingly funny. The phrase "...and cries when she fakes an orgasm" was featured.

[richard40]

Unfortunately all the lefts intimidation of the SC worked. Although the SC did throw out the mandate as written, they then put it back in by rewriting it as a tax.

[Erotikchat]

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