Ira Stoll on SCOTUS ObamaCare Ruling: emphatic rejection of former constitutional law professor's constitutional acumen
At FutureofCapitalism.com, where they still believe capitalism has a future, Reason.com contributor Ira Stoll finds four bright spots in the Supreme Court's ruling in National Federation of Business et al v. Sebelius:
New media beats old media. CNN's initial report, that the law was struck down, was incorrect…
By calling the mandate a tax, the court made an official ruling that President Obama had violated his 2008 campaign promise not to raise taxes on anyone earning less than $250,000 a year…
[I]n the end it may well be better for the country for these decisions to be made through the political process rather than by a group of nine robed graduates of Ivy League law schools in a non-televised proceeding…
Finally, though the ruling was in some sense a vindication for Obama on the constitutionality of the law, in other ways it was a pretty emphatic rejection of the constitutional acumen of a president who is, after all, a former professor of constitutional law. Even Elana Kagan, President Obama's own appointee to the court and his former solicitor general, and Justice Breyer, a former aide to Senator Edward Kennedy, agreed that the Medicaid expansion part of the law was unconstitutional.
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Lobster Girl would have saved it.