DEMOCRATS LIED: They Told Us Obamacare Was Not a Tax… Then Argued in Court That It Was a Tax… Now They’re Saying It’s Not a Tax Again

Democrats told us Obamacare was not a tax.
Then they argued before the Supreme Court that it was a tax.
A fraud was perpetrated on the American people.

They said it wasn’t a tax.

A Fraud Has Been Perpetrated On the American Citizenry

Democrats told us Obamacare was not a tax. Then they went before the Supreme Court and argued that it was a tax. Now they’re saying it’s not a tax again.
The American Spectator reported:

Critics of the majority’s decision will say for the foreseeable future that Chief Justice Roberts rewrote Obamacare to save it. Michael Carvin, who argued against Obamacare before the Supreme Court, noted dryly, “I’m glad he rewrote the statute instead of the Constitution.”

Carvin’s summary of the Supreme Court’s ruling was on target: “What the Obama Administration… thought they were doing was completely unconstitutional; what they lied to the American people about was constitutional.… Unfortunately they got away with that bait-and-switch. A fraud has been perpetrated on the American citizenry.”

In oral arguments before the Supreme Court, the administration’s attorneys argued — as they knew they had to — that the mandate was constitutional as a tax. This despite the fact that Democrats passed Obamacare by stating specifically and repeatedly that the mandate was not a tax, including a testy response by President Obama himself to unusually challenging questioning by ABC’s George Stephanopoulos in 2009.

As recently as a few months ago, President Obama’s budget director said in a Congressional hearing that the mandate is not a tax, with Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius saying “it operates as a tax, but it is not per se a tax.”

If the bill had been marketed to members of Congress and the public as a tax, it is unlikely that even the Cornhusker Kickback and the Louisiana Purchase would have been enough to pass the law, despite the large Democrat congressional majorities at the time. Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) said that “if it had been seen as a tax, they wouldn’t have gotten ten votes, much less sixty.”

As for those Democrats in Congress who have argued, and may continue to argue, that the Obamacare mandate is not a tax, Graham said “they either don’t know what they’re doing, or they lied to us. So this is a huge issue in the fall.” Graham called for every Congressional Republican who is up for election to ask their Democratic opponents whether they support this tax increase; given that Democrats have little choice but to support Obamacare, this is the political equivalent of asking someone if he has stopped beating his wife yet, and a solid political tactic.

Nearly 75% of ObamaTax costs will fall on the backs of those Americans making less than $120,000 a year.

Democrats forgot to tell us this.

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Jim Hoft is the founder and editor of The Gateway Pundit, one of the top conservative news outlets in America. Jim was awarded the Reed Irvine Accuracy in Media Award in 2013 and is the proud recipient of the Breitbart Award for Excellence in Online Journalism from the Americans for Prosperity Foundation in May 2016. In 2023, The Gateway Pundit received the Most Trusted Print Media Award at the American Liberty Awards.

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