Vinson vs Obama: Obama Care Is Outright Dangerous

Now I know I have friends out there who really believe that the Constitution is a thing of wax that the political "victor" gets to interpret anyway he wants. They really believe Obama Care is a good thing for Americans and assume the government is the ultimate authority. It is exactly this point that makes Obama Care so extremely dangerous as I previously noted in my first post.

It is also being argued that Vinson is legislating from the bench. No matter though, President Obama is now officially in contempt of the Federal courts, and so in the end, this may all be a mere exercise in academic futility. The age of the Constitution may have indeed passed with the current lawlessness of this Administration.

With Vinson clearly explaining the Commerce Clause and its historical "jurisprudence" that "has taken some turns," with the fact that it has "contracted and expanded (and contracted and expanded again) during our nation’s development" [page 40], we now turn to Vinson's sound application of the Law. There is certainly no legislating from the bench here. ONLY a biased media could even begin to repeat such nonsense, which is probably why most stories just say it is 2-2 in the Federal courts.

Vinson asks the obvious question,

The threshold question that must be addressed is whether activity is required before Congress can exercise its power under the Commerce Clause. [pg 39]

In a footnote Vinson states,

Indeed, as the plaintiffs have persuasively noted, not even in the context of insurance under the National Flood Insurance Program did Congress mandate that all homeowners buy flood insurance directly from a private company. [pg 39]

In other words, in every case provided on the Commerce Clause activity must be taking place.

But, in every one of the cases --- in both the contractive and expansive --- there has always been clear and inarguable activity, from exerting control over and using navigable waters (Gibbons) to growing or consuming marijuana (Raich).16 In all the cases discussed above, the Supreme Court was called upon to decide different issues (e.g., whether commerce encompassed navigation; whether it included manufacture and agriculture or was limited to trade or exchange of goods; whether the activity at issue was interstate or intrastate and had a direct or indirect effect on commerce; whether that effect was substantial; whether the activity was economic or noneconomic; and whether it was part of a single-subject statute or a necessary and essential component of a broader comprehensive scheme), but it has never been called upon to consider if “activity” is required.

In other words, Obama's argument and interpretation of the Commerce Clause is unique and admits as much. They attempt to say that to say the Federal Government may not regulate inactivity would be novel. Vinson responds in a way that may of us would like to.

First, it is interesting that the defendants --- apparently believing the best defense is a good offense --- would use the words “novel” and “unprecedented” since, as previously noted, those are the exact same words that the CRS and CBO used to describe the individual mandate before it became law. Furthermore, there is a simple and rather obvious reason why the Supreme Court has never distinguished between activity and inactivity before: it has not been called upon to consider the issue because, until now, Congress had never attempted to exercise its Commerce Clause power in such a way before. [pg 41]

Vinson then proceeds to slam a home run over Fenway's Green Monster.

It would be a radical departure from existing case law to hold that Congress can regulate inactivity under the Commerce Clause. If it has the power to compel an otherwise passive individual into a commercial transaction with a third party merely by asserting --- as was done in the Act --- that compelling the actual transaction is itself “commercial and economic in nature, and substantially affects interstate commerce” [see Act § 1501(a)(1)], it is not hyperbolizing to suggest that Congress could do almost anything it wanted. [pg 42]

Anything Indeed! This is exactly the warning I offered in the first post. If this clause is to be interpreted in this manner, Congress may not only regulate what motorcycle you ride (or may not ride at all), what car you may buy, how much electricity you consume, etc etc, but it may go much further. Why not regulate how many steaks you eat for dinner, or should you be allowed to have children, or what vocation or career you may choose etc etc..

How does the Left argue with Vinson on this point on page 42?

It is difficult to imagine that a nation which began, at least in part, as the result of opposition to a British mandate giving the East India Company a monopoly and imposing a nominal tax on all tea sold in America would have set out to create a government with the power to force people to buy tea in the first place. If Congress can penalize a passive individual for failing to engage in commerce, the enumeration of powers in the Constitution would have been in vain for it would be “difficult to perceive any limitation on federal power” [Lopez, supra, 514 U.S. at 564], and we would have a Constitution in name only. Surely this is not what the Founding Fathers could have intended.

So I have a simple question for my friends. Would the Founding Fathers really force such an idea upon its people? The answer ought to be obvious, but knowing their determination to overthrow liberty I am almost afraid to hear their answer. Here are some questions that Vinson poses that should also be sufficient to overthrow any idea that Obama Care is Constitutional.

On page 46 Vinson wrote about the wheat market,

For example, everyone must participate in the food market. Instead of attempting to control wheat supply by regulating the acreage and amount of wheat a farmer could grow as in Wickard, under this logic, Congress could more directly raise too low wheat prices merely by increasing demand through mandating that every adult purchase and consume wheat bread daily, rationalized on the grounds that because everyone must participate in the market for food, non-consumers of wheat bread adversely affect prices in the wheat market.

Of course, why stop there? Since Obama now owns GM, and since that market has major problems...

Similarly, because virtually no one can be divorced from the transportation market, Congress could require that everyone above a certain income threshold buy a General Motors automobile --- now partially government-owned --- because those who do not buy GM cars (or those who buy foreign cars) are adversely impacting commerce and a taxpayer-subsidized business. [pg 46]

Of course everyone needs a home...right?

For example, virtually no one can opt out of the housing market (broadly defined) and a majority of people will at some point buy a home. The vast majority of those homes will be financed with a mortgage, a large number of which (particularly in difficult economic times, as we have seen most recently) will go into default, thereby cost-shifting billions of dollars to third parties and the federal government. Should Congress thus have power under the Commerce Clause to preemptively regulate and require individuals above a certain income level to purchase a home financed with a mortgage (and secured with mortgage guaranty insurance) in order to add stability to the housing and financial markets (and to guard against the possibility of future cost-shifting because of a defaulted mortgage), on the theory that most everyone is currently, or inevitably one day will be, active in the housing market? [pg 47-48]

In conclusion, Vinson recognizes the purpose of our Constitution properly when he notes,

Much of the Constitution is concerned with setting forth the form of our government, and the courts have traditionally invalidated measures deviating from that form. The result may appear “formalistic” in a given case to partisans of the measure at issue, because such measures are typically the product of the era’s perceived necessity. But the Constitution protects us from our own best intentions: It divides power among sovereigns and among branches of government precisely so that we may resist the temptation to concentrate power in one location as an expedient solution to the crisis of the day. . . . [A] judiciary that licensed extra-constitutional government with each issue of comparable gravity would, in the long run, be far worse [than the crisis itself].

So whatever crisis is perceived now, violating the constitution is not the answer. Even Obama admits as much as cited by Vinson,

I note that in 2008, then-Senator Obama supported a health care reform proposal that did not include an individual mandate because he was at that time strongly opposed to the idea, stating that "if a mandate was the solution, we can try that to solve homelessness by mandating everybody to buy a house.” [page 76]

As should now be as plain as day, this is not about health care. This is about a Federal Left-wing government gaining despotic control over every facet of American lives and the overthrow of personal liberty and freedom. If you still can't see this, then you are in fact blind by your own passions. I will conclude with an article of Obama admitting that Democrats have been trying to take over health care for the last hundred years proving that none of this has to do with current health care costs. Read here.