Ken’s Take: I don’t have a stake in this issue, but it’s fun to watch it reveal itself. Gotta admit that Obama-logic makes me dizzy sometimes. Maybe he’s just way smarter than I am … oe maybe he’s just making this stuff up as he goes.
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Excerpted from WSJ, Obama’s Nontax Tax, Sept. 21, 2009
On his round of five Sunday talk shows President Obama revealed a great deal about his philosophy of government and how he defines a tax increase.
Under Max Baucus’s Senate bill that Mr. Obama supports, everyone would be required to buy health insurance or else pay a penalty as high as $3,800 a year. George Stephanopoulos posed the obvious question about this kind of coercion when “the government is forcing people to spend money, fining you if you don’t [buy insurance]. . . . How is that not a tax?”
“Well, hold on a second, George,” Mr. Obama replied. “Here’s what’s happening. You and I are both paying $900, on average—our families—in higher premiums because of uncompensated care. Now what I’ve said is that if you can’t afford health insurance, you certainly shouldn’t be punished for that. That’s just piling on. If, on the other hand, we’re giving tax credits, we’ve set up an exchange, you are now part of a big pool, we’ve driven down the costs, we’ve done everything we can and you actually can afford health insurance, but you’ve just decided, you know what, I want to take my chances. And then you get hit by a bus and you and I have to pay for the emergency room care, that’s . . .”
“That may be,” Mr. Stephanopoulos responded, “but it’s still a tax increase.”
Mr. Obama: “No, but—but, George, you—you can’t just make up that language and decide that that’s called a tax increase.”
“I don’t think I’m making it up,” Mr. Stephanopoulos said. He then had the temerity to challenge the Philologist in Chief, with an assist from Merriam-Webster. He cited that dictionary’s definition of “tax”—”a charge, usually of money, imposed by authority on persons or property for public purposes.”
Mr. 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.”
The CBO estimates that the Senate’s individual mandate will result in new revenues of some $20 billion over 10 years because some people will choose to opt out of ObamaCare. If that $20 billion doesn’t count as tax revenue, then what is it?
Under Mr. Obama’s definition, all taxes can be justified in the name of providing some type of service, however wasteful. It turns out the President thinks a health-care tax is not a tax if he thinks the tax is for your own good. His problem is that the individual mandate really is a tax, but the President doesn’t want voters to think of it that way, because taxes are unpopular
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[Fact: uncompensated care accounts for about only 2.2% of national health spending today.]
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Full article:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204488304574425294029138738.html?mod=djemEditorialPage
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The Homa Files 
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