| Submit your comments on this article | |
| -Election 2012 | |
| Conservative anger growing over Obamacare decision | |
| 2012-07-01 | |
| Bryan York. I ran into a prominent conservative member of Congress Friday night just before the huge storms moved through Washington. He was, he said, far angrier on the day after the Supreme Court Obamacare decision than he had been the moment he learned Chief Justice John Roberts had joined the Court’s liberal bloc to uphold the individual mandate at the heart of Obamacare. He didn’t resort to histrionics or profanity, but he was spitting mad — and his anger was growing, not diminishing. A short time later, I saw another conservative lawmaker who said much the same thing. And yet another conservative leader who was in the same frame of mind. At the same time, a backlash was forming in response to analyses by some formidable conservative writers — George Will, Charles Krauthammer, and others — who argued the Obamacare decision was actually a victory for conservatives because it placed a limit on expansive interpretations of the Constitution’s Commerce Clause. Early polling also shows signs of increasing intensity among conservatives and Republicans in the wake of Roberts’ decision. In the first survey since the ruling, Gallup found that Americans are split down the middle — 46 percent to 46 percent — on the question of whether they agree or disagree with the Court. But when asked what should happen next, significant differences emerged. Sixty-five percent of Democrats said they want to see the law kept in place and the government’s role in health care expanded. But 85 percent of Republicans said they want to see Obamacare repealed either in whole or in part. It’s possible that in the wake of the Supreme Court’s ruling, a long-running trend in opinion — that Republicans dislike Obamacare more than Democrats like it — will become more, not less, pronounced. Finally, on Saturday afternoon, I sent out a couple of tweets in which I said: “My sense is that conservatives are getting angrier, not calmer, about Roberts opinion. Shocked/confused on Thursday. Angry of Friday. Really angry on Saturday. Unhappiness trending up, not down.” The tweets sparked an outpouring of impassioned responses.
| |
| Posted by: |
| #4 |
| Posted by: junkiron 2012-07-01 21:37 |
| #3 An interesting thing to watch over the next couple of weeks is whether the pace of corporate donations to Champ picks up I'd bet n making payments to both, Matt. Companies have a fiduciary duty (or something like that) to the shareholders to protect them from predatory government action by any legal means. Small businesses and privately held ones are likely a different story, it seems to me, but I don't imagine small businesses go in for much in the way of Washington, DC dealings. |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2012-07-01 20:59 |
| #2 To be enforced by IRS scrutiny if you don't publicly genuflect? |
| Posted by: lotp 2012-07-01 19:55 |
| #1 An interesting thing to watch over the next couple of weeks is whether the pace of corporate donations to Champ picks up. One effect of Thursday's debacle is that the value of an exemption from Obamacare just went up, since it's now more likely that Obamacare will become a reality. So Champ and his crew are in a much position to raise money by selling exemptions like a medieval bishop selling indulgences. It's a tough business choice: you can donate to Romney and hope that he gets elected and kills Obamacare by executive fiat, or donate to Champ in exchange for an assurance of an exemption. Or hedge your bet and do both. Another thing to watch for is whether Champ cuts off the "it's a tax on the middle class" argument by announcing a broad policy that the tax won't be collected unless the individual in question refuses to genuflect to the new Emperor. |
| Posted by: Matt 2012-07-01 18:37 |