Breitbart logic is funny:
The individual mandate was never intended to be a tax, Congress never called it a tax, and it wasn’t a tax in Massachusetts, either. Fine–but now that Obama’s lawyers went to court and called it a tax, and Chief Justice John Roberts called it a tax (and spare us the non-distinction between “tax” and the “taxing power”) Obamacare is, undeniably, a massive tax on the middle class. Obama lied. It’s that simple.
The Solicitor General argued strenuously before the Court that the individual mandate was an exercise of the taxing authority of Congress. He did not argue that it was a tax. A tax’s purpose is to raise revenue. The mandate’s purpose is to incentivize people to buy insurance. Sorry that I couldn’t spare them the distinction.
As for calling it a massive tax on the middle class, it is in fact a modest penalty on deadbeats who have enough money to buy insurance but insist on freeloading, causing the rest of us to pay more in premiums.
As for Obama lying, all he said was that it wasn’t a tax increase because it didn’t tax anyone’s income. It just inflicts a fee on deadbeats.
It’s that simple.
