If you recall, one of the most steadfast public positions of the Democrats and the Obama White House during the health care debate was that the legislation did not constitute a tax. President Barach Obama expressly denied that the legislation was a tax in pushing for its approval. Now, however, his administration is seeking to defend the law on the basis that it is . . . you guessed it . . . a tax.
The Obama Administration has been repeatedly criticized for saying things to the public and then saying different things in court. Civil libertarians have denounced the Administration for not only fighting to preserve Bush-era doctrines but actually expanding on those doctrines in court in the areas of surveillance, torture, and terrorism.
The Administration is defending the new law as part of the government’s “power to lay and collect taxes.” It is the strongest possible basis for defending the law (and was used to justify the social security law), but it happens to contradict what both Democratic leaders, including President Obama, told the public.
Just last September, George Stephanopoulos specifically challenged the President on his denial that the legislation was a tax on ABC News program “This Week.” Stephanopoulos observed that the legislation seemed to be clearly a tax by any definition. Obama replied strongly “I absolutely reject that notion.”
Here is the exchange:
STEPHANOPOULOS: I — I don’t think I’m making it up. Merriam Webster’s Dictionary: Tax — “a charge, usually of money, imposed by authority on persons or property for public purposes.”
OBAMA: George, the fact that you looked up Merriam’s Dictionary, the definition of tax increase, indicates to me that you’re stretching a little bit right now. Otherwise, you wouldn’t have gone to the dictionary to check on the definition. I mean what…
STEPHANOPOULOS: Well, no, but…
OBAMA: …what you’re saying is…
STEPHANOPOULOS: I wanted to check for myself. But your critics say it is a tax increase.
OBAMA: My critics say everything is a tax increase. My critics say that I’m taking over every sector of the economy. You know that. Look, we can have a legitimate debate about whether or not we’re going to have an individual mandate or not, but…
STEPHANOPOULOS: But you reject that it’s a tax increase?
OBAMA: I absolutely reject that notion.
I remain a bit unclear why the President believes that looking up a term in a dictionary must mean “you’re stretching a little bit right now.” Now, of course, you can simply look it up in the Administration’s brief.
While once defined as a “penalty,” the cost of being uninsured is now embraced as a tax that is expected to raise $4 billion a year by 2017, according to the Congressional Budget Office.
I previously wrote this prior column on the serious federalism concerns raised by the new legislation.
Source: NY Times
Slart: I’m so sorry you hate people like me, but it is no surprise. The godless have no reason to love their enemy.
You got it partly right about the rich, as I said you would. You presume that the rich do not get through the eye of the needle because they are particularly evil, say, more evil than you.
But that is not what the Bible says. The “good” unbeliever ends up in hell with the “bad” believer if both reject Christ. So the poor good person goes to hell with Hitler.
You are silly to take the meaning of the eye of the needle phrase literally. When the bible says to remove the beam from your eye before you remove the speck from your friend’s eye, do you really believe that there is somewhat of a 2 by 4 in the eye?
http://bible.cc/matthew/7-5.htm
You are funny indeed.
What happens to all the rich Israelites before the time of Christ? Do they get your permission to go to heaven?\
In truth, you don’t know what the bible means. You were the one quoting scripture as if you did then asked me to explain.
You said
“but for those of us who don’t believe in such things the only justice is that which we make in this life.”
That’s a very cheap moral code you have there. Tell me how you or anyone else made any sort of justice for the people Hitler murdered?
All the children starving to death as we speak, how will your fine godless moral code make it right?
It cannot. It never will. 6000 years of written human history prove it.
Our race is thoroughly corrupt and the more we try to fix it the worse it gets.
Buddha–
“Maybe he can move into an abandoned bar and set up shop.”
LOL
I doubt that Timmy G. has the ability to do that. Besides, he’d have to bring along his mentor, Larry “The Man with a Face Even a Mother Couldn’t Love” Summers, to give him directions and advice.
Question: Have you EVER seen Summers with a smile on his face?
I doubt the man has any laugh muscles to turn up the corners of his mouth.
In re Elizabeth Warren:
‘Lil Timmy is playing hard to get (away from the Banker’s Banquet of Graft).
“Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner conspicuously stopped short of endorsing Elizabeth Warren to head the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Thursday morning. And while he praised her for her effective advocacy on behalf of consumers, he also refused to say whether he would be happy if she got the job.
“I think she would be a very effective leader of that institution,” he said.
At a breakfast meeting with reporters hosted by the Christian Science Monitor, Geithner said he has not yet made his recommendation to President Obama about who should be nominated for the post.
Asked who else might be in the running, Geithner noted that his “colleagues in the White House have put out two other names.” Those are Michael Barr, the assistant treasury secretary for financial institutions, and Gene Kimmelman, chief counsel for competition policy in the Justice Department’s antitrust division.
Both have backgrounds in consumer advocacy, but nevertheless are seen as more sympathetic to Wall Street than Warren.”
From: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/07/22/geithner-refuses-to-say-w_n_655579.html
Seems to me that Obama is Timmy’s boss and Warren is his choice for the job. If ‘Lil Timmy doesn’t want to do what the boss wants done, it’s about time for Timmy to hit the bricks.
Maybe he can move into an abandoned bar and set up shop.
But this Banker’s Clown needs to go. He’s clearly part of the problem, not the solution.
Byron,
That was a thing of beauty.
Slartibartfast,
” … Since you believe that everything was created the only thing that it can do is decay from the perfection embodied in it by your imagined creator and anything new must necessarily be corrupt. The rest of us understand that the universe is evolving and that, in general, things get better as time goes on. You can keep extolling the virtues of your modern dark ages, but the rest of us will continue working towards a new renaissance. …”
=================================================================
I don’t have a dog in this fight and I beg your pardon for the intrusion but, damn, Slarti, that is one of the clearest thoughts on the difference I have ever read. Well done and thank you!
B,
Somewhere James Joyce is laughing and Larry Niven is looking uncomfortable. 😀
isnt Finnagle’s law used at Finnigan’s wake to maximze consumption of the effects of the fermentation of malted barley?
Slarti,
I hate to nit-pick and not that I’m most or even close to representative of most, but I’m of the mindset that says the universe is evolving and that, in general, things get weirder as time goes on. It’s an extrapolation of Finnagle’s Law: the perversity of the universe tends toward the maximum.
Weirdness is important. Better is good, but weirdness keeps it all entertaining.
Tootie,
Wow, that was an impressive array of straw men you just destroyed!
I would say that it is hard for a rich man to enter into heaven because pursuit of wealth generally interferes with pursuit of godliness, but that’s just me – obviously you’ve got your own delusional rationalization going on… Since I don’t believe that anyone is going to heaven (since I don’t believe in heaven) I don’t see why I should care about rich people’s difficulty getting into an imaginary place one way or the other, but your comment about pitying rich people just shows that religion is the opiate of the masses, in my opinion.
you said:
Yes. And a camel can go through the eye of a needle as well as a thread, just not as easily…
you said:
I don’t believe in the divinity of Jesus, however I agree with the things he taught and try to live my life accordingly (I was raised Methodist so I have a pretty good understanding of the teachings of Jesus). That his teachings are in good agreement with my political ideologies is just a happy coincidence. And I have no desire to take anything away from the rich or anyone else, I just want them to pay their fair share (and since they have received more benefit from society their share of the cost of society is naturally bigger). Buddha’s already given several good examples of Jesus’s leftist leanings, so I’ll just point out that the whole thing with the bread and the fishes seems very socialist to me… The only deception going on her is your self deception about what Jesus was trying to say.
To assuage your curiosity, I don’t really care if you are rich or poor or heathy or sick or anything else for that matter. Your posts here have shown your ideas to be for the most part ignorant, unscientific, bigoted, hateful and wrong so I attack them.
Your personal situation is irrelevant to the quality of the arguments that you put forth (as is mine). As the sign on the door says: “res ipsa loquitur”. I don’t think that anyone is entitled to government handouts, I think that a civilized government provides a safety net for its citizens (both because it’s the right thing to do and because it is in the best interests of the society as a whole to do so). I’ve been unemployed since the first of the year and haven’t applied for unemployment (as I’m entitled to) – why? Because I don’t need the safety net right now, but I’m glad it’s there if I need it and I want it to be there for everyone that does need it. So while I certainly think that you are ignorant, mis-informed and bigoted, that has nothing to do with your circumstances and everything to do with your statements here.
I understand that you (like many people) take comfort in the belief that sinners are punished after death, but for those of us who don’t believe in such things the only justice is that which we make in this life.
In regard to your comments about ‘true madness’, given the number of egregious assumptions you’ve made about the thinking of the ‘intellectuals’ you so despise (and me in particular), I don’t believe you are anywhere near a position from which you can understand how I or any other intellectual thinks.
You know, I was reading your post and it just came to me that this is all just about evolution vs. creation. Since you believe that everything was created the only thing that it can do is decay from the perfection embodied in it by your imagined creator and anything new must necessarily be corrupt. The rest of us understand that the universe is evolving and that, in general, things get better as time goes on. You can keep extolling the virtues of your modern dark ages, but the rest of us will continue working towards a new renaissance.
Tootie,
Here’s something for you and Jethro to dance to:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T6OoOhKM_yc&hl=en_US&fs=1]
Woost:
When did I state that the feds should run a government church?
Slart:
Why would it be hard for a rich man to enter into heaven?
I already know the answer to that and so my question is a rhetorical one for myself.
I was just wondering if you knew the answer.
If after I elicited an answer from you, I would then ask you why in the light of Biblical knowledge that rich people have trouble getting into heaven, do you not all the more pity them? This is the logical response by those who are reasoning morally from the Bible.
Rich people can go to heaven as well as the poor, just not as easily. And that is all the verses you posted imply.
No where does God or the Bible condemn the rich for being rich. God blessed the Jews and made them a great and wealthy civilization. He intended for them to be rich. Many of them will surely go to heaven. Solomon will there. He was loaded. How could it be only evil then?
I believe you do not believe in Jesus as God. And so it would seem that you only use what you think are His teachings to further your political ideologies in order to convince others (or yourself) that it is righteous to take away from the rich that which you do not want them to have. But you are not using His teachings because no where does He teach what you allege.
This appears to be an old trick used even to deceive Christians. And I hope this century brings us the happy event that that myth dies.
I’m so curious about this matter. What if I am poor? What if I am disadvantaged? What if I didn’t have health insurance for nearly ten years? What if I was all of these things and more from time to time over the past 25 years and yet never once thought that the rich owed me a dime?
How is it that I could be living one paycheck away from utter financial disaster, without any savings to fall back on, without resources for the future, aging, and infirm, and yet never once feel that the government ought to reach into someones pocket and hand their money over to me?
Am I that stupid? I’m sure you probably think so.
But I am convinced that, even when I am poor, I ought not to take that which does not belong to me. I trust God instead.
How is it that two poor people could have two different responses to the rich? How does one demand stealing and the other doesn’t? For me, it is the Bible that you seem to allege teaches stealing, that teaches ME not to.
Even the poor ought not to steal. And the not so poor ought not to use the poor as an excuse to justify it. And it is stealing still when the poor demand the government steal for them.
Do I think it is awful that rich people do not help the poor? Absolutely. It is cruel and evil. It is heart-breaking. But it is the sort of cruelty and evil-doing that gets settled elsewhere.
Like the settling of Hilter’s account of cruelty and evil.
Such huge accounts can never be settled within the framework of mortal life and mortal punishment. How could you have punished Hitler for what he did? It is impossible. No one could have devised a means of punishment that would have balanced the scales of justice. No means of punishing such crimes and sins are possible among mortals and finite time.
Only a just immortal, infinite, and omniscient God could make Hitler suffer for what he essentially got away with here on earth: murder and destruction of the highest order.
Therefore the virtuous godless among us are without a plan for just remedy against the greatest of evil doers. Those who believe and have faith in God (even if God is not true) live with the expectation and hope that those who escape this life not having paid a full recompense for their deeds, will do so in the next.
This, in my opinion, leads to much less mental anguish and less madness in the world.
I believe that mankind, though thoroughly wicked and corrupt, possesses, generally, a remnant urge for justice . And when that desire for justice is thwarted because many things cannot ever EVER be made right, it drives some stark raving mad.
Marx is an example of that kind of madness.
It is a true madness brought about by the intellectuals inability to cope with the unmovable realities of the human condition which when left unaccounted for lead to mass slaughter or human suffering.
Jethro,
To pull out an old favorite:
All celestial Bodies are made of cheese.
The Moon is a celestial body.
The Moon is made of cheese.
“We are talking about what secular government does. Are we not?”
when it suits you
another darn good reason for separation of church and state
Jethro:
Yes! You are correct.
Buddha:
All that Jesus did he did as a religious leader (or, as I’m prone to say, as God). He did not do these things as a politician (e.g. socialist, president, congressman, or apparatchik).
We are talking about what secular government does. Are we not?
All that Jesus did and commanded was voluntary and none of it done at gunpoint (which socialism requires). Brute force is a defining feature of Marxism (and its offspring socialism). Naturally, this appeals to blood-thirsty monsters on the left. It delights them.
But you won’t find Jesus assaulting anyone, drawing a knife, brandishing a weapon, or throwing them in jail because they won’t help the poor. If you do find Him thus, please provide the chapter and verse for me, because, I have apparently committed an huge oversight.
The only verse about this that I know of regarding how to help those in need (especially believer to believer and not believer to everyone outside the church) was this one from 2 Corinthians 9:7
“Each one must do just as he has purposed in his heart, not grudgingly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.” (NASB)
Correct me if I am wrong, but “not…under compulsion” appears to be the opposite of socialism.
Only a moron would find these two methods [the New Testament method and socialist method] of “helping” others to be moral equivalents. To do so would be like favorably comparing rape with consensual sex. Yes, activities involving sexual organs occurred in both cases, but no one in their right mind thinks both are benign.
Who is greedy or evil? The person with lots of money acquired legally, lawfully, or morally? Or the one who doesn’t want him to have it just because he doesn’t want him to have it and will do whatever it takes (including assault, imprisonment, or death) to get it?
Are there myths about Jesus which dirty-rotten-scoundrels use for political gain (or monetary reward and/or theft) that I need to elaborate on further for you today?
Socialism is STEALING.
Stealing = sin.
Jesus was sinless = Jesus was NOT a socialist.
Thanks puzzling. I will check back here to see your reply. If it isn’t for a week or so, would you please give me the heads up on a current thread? I appreciate your response and look forward to reading it! My best,
Jill
Byron, you say “I want people to be able to act in their own best interest without the coercion caused by taxes and regulations, the system works better that way.”
I feel and think that too. I can’t wait to see it. 🙂