The individual mandate in President Obama's health care bill is perhaps the most incendiary piece of the legislation.
It generally rankles a majority of Americans that they will be forced to buy a certain kind of insurance and fined if they
don't buy it.
Recently a
federal judge in Virginia sided with the State of Virginia in a lawsuit seeking to invalidate Obamacare.
Just this morning it was announced
that a
measure in Missouri had passed with roughly 70% of the vote, making it illegal under that state's law to impose a penalty on any person for failing to purchase
health insurance. The Missouri statute would directly conflict with Obamacare's individual mandate.
A similar
referendum is likely to be on the
ballot in Colorado this fall. Dozens of states are considering ballot measures that would repudiate or conflict with the Obamacare individual mandate
and roughly 20 states have taken Obamacare to court in an attempt to invalidate the law on constitutional grounds.
The Obama administration is trying to use Arizona as a example of what happens to a state that defines the federal executive,
using litigation to suspend that state's law to right illegal immigration.
The trend, pitting the federal government's
prerogatives against those of the states, especially on topics where a majority (immigration and health care) oppose the federal
point of view is not only bad legal precedent but bad political judgment for this President and his party.
Setting aside the potential spectacle of a federal court ruling that Obamacare is unconstitutional, the ongoing legal warfare
between the federal government and the states not only undercuts Obama's claim to be a post-partisan uniter of the country.
It emphasizes every negative label that the President's opponents have tried to stick on him.
During the campaign,
he was "no drama Obama". Now he is bloodless, calculating and cold. When he pits the Department of Justice
against state governments in a vast exercise in litigation, he begins to look tyrannical.
The administration's
foolish lawsuit against Arizona will make it subsequent litigation against Missouri, Virginia and other states that seek to
revolt against Obama appear to be a trend. That trend, opponents will claim, is one in which President Obama seeks to
grab power for the federal government at the expense of the people and the states.
That narrative, which is already
coalescing in the mid-term elections will become received wisdom in the second half of the first Obama administration, making
an Obama re-election much less likely.
I hadn't written on Obama's impact on business uncertainty in a few weeks until I found
this piece in the Weekly Standard (contrasting the 1981 recession with the curent recession):
"Reagan got the country
out of the mess because he cut taxes, cut regulation, set clear objectives, and let ordinary Americans make money. Obama is
failing to get the country out of a recession because he's telling Americans what money they can make, what kind of jobs should
be created, what extra regulations will be imposed on them (once he and his dysfunctional party have made up their collective
minds), and how much more they're going to be taxed once that has been decided by all the committees that have jurisdiction.
In short, he has done the one thing he should have avoided like the plague-
he has created uncertainty."
(emphasis added)
Indeed, the Business Roundtable listed more than fifty policy positions the administration has
taken that inhibit business growth in its
June, 2010 letter to the Obama White House.
President Obama is coming to Atlanta and
Georgia Democrats are yawning.
"Former Governor Roy Barnes will not be available to meet Mr. Obama. The Democratic gubernatorial candidate
will be somewhere in Georgia- - far from Atlanta."
"Campaign manager Chris Carpenter released a statement:"
"Roy has a busy campaign schedule in Middle and South Georgia on Monday where he'll be talking to farmers and
local law enforcement. Roy's priority is to continue traveling across the state, talking to voters about jobs, education,
and transportation- his plan to make Georgia work."
"Meanwhile, Governor Sonny Perdue will greet the
President planeside when the Democrat arrives in Georgia. Mr. Perdue's spokesperson Bert Brantley told 11Alive reporter Jeff
Hullinger the governor had to juggle his schedule to be able to greet the president."
My law firm,
Taylor English Duma, was the subject of a
lengthy article in last week's Atlanta Business Chronicle.
The article describes how we keep costs down and deliver greater
value to clients but staffing matters more efficiently and paying our attorneys based on results.
You'll need to
read the entire piece to understand how it all works, but when you do you'll understand how we've almost doubled in the past
year and are the fastest growing law firm in Atlanta.
