A Tax Be Any Other Name... Is Still A Tax

From Encarta's online dictionary:

tax [ taks ] noun (plural tax·es)
Definition:
1. strain: a strain or heavy demand
2. money paid to government: an amount of money levied by a government on its citizens and used to run the government, the country, a state, a county, or a municipality

As many of you may know by now, President Obama and George Stephanopoulos of ABC News got into a little tiff this past Sunday during the interview of the President and his proposal for mandatory health care insurance for ALL citizens. The President wants everyone, no exceptions, to pay for and carry health insurance if and when his reform policy is approved. If someone did not get insurance coverage, the government would levy a fine on their wages. Mr. Stephanopoulos thought that this was really a new tax on Americans, regardless of whether or not it was a good thing. At this point the President went down the rabbit hole and insisted that requiring a citizen to pay for health insurance was not a tax increase. If he admitted it was a tax increase, it would denigrate his campaign promise not to raise taxes.

If you believe the Encarta definition, I think George got this one right. It is like the Five Legged Dog story that politicians continually, and usually unsuccessfully, try to pull over on Americans, of which many examples are highlighted in the book, "Love My Country, Loathe My Government." The story goes as follows:

Question: if you called a tail a leg, how many legs would a dog have?

Answer: It would still have only four, calling it a leg does not make a leg.

Same principle here: just because you do not call it a tax does not mean it is not a tax. This fee 1) would be a strain or heavy demand for many Americans and 2) it is a fee levied by the government on its citizens. By trying to argue this is not a tax increase just destroys Obama's credibility more and more. Look what happened to Clinton when he tried to manage the definition of a two letter word, who can forget the famous words: "It depends on what the meaning of the word 'is' is". He was ridiculed and suffered a decrease in credibility for trying to wiggle out of the deposition where this statement was uttered. Americans and George S. know that this is just another tax to be levied on Americans without fully understanding how this tactic fits into the overall Obama plan.

Obama's problem goes back to the original premise we stated in August: the entire political class did not do their homework regarding health care reform in that they never determined what the underlying root cause(s) of increasing health care costs is. If you do not know what is causing the problem, then it is impossible to come with tactics that effectively address the root causes. Levying this fee might be a good thing but in the absence of a comprehensive strategy attacking the root causes we have no idea if it is a good thing or not.

From a different perspective, forcing families to buy health care insurance is still stupid on so many levels. First, it sets a bad precedent. If a group of politicians thinks this is a good way to raise money, what is to stop them from forcing Americans to pay additional fees, which we know now from our above discussion are taxes. Maybe we should force all Americans to have flood insurance even if they can afford not to have it or they do not live in a flood zone. Maybe we should force all Americans to carry insurance for theft even if they do not have anything worth stealing. The list could go on and on and get pretty silly but that would not stop the political class from imposing these additional fees. Sure would make the insurance companies happy, though. Hmmm, do we know insurance companies contribute to politicians?

Second, imposing any kind of fee is a restriction of liberty. Why should rich people have to pay for insurance if they do not want it? If they get sick, they would pay for their treatment out of their own funds and assets. What if a family wanted to pay for other things that are more important to them such as their children's education, charitable causes, starting a business or a myriad of other uses a family needed or wanted to do and take the risk that they would not need health care insurance. If they get sick, and the treatment costs would bankrupt them, that should be their choice, not Obama's forced choice.

Third and finally, if the political class had done their due diligence and homework and found out the true root causes of escalating health care costs, there would be no need for this restriction in liberty since costs would come down to a level to where it would be a good deal relative to other needs and wants. Without this analysis, we are just rolling the dice since there is no basic understanding, no overall strategy, and no tactical plan to fix the problem. But what did we expect from this current crop of politicians besides a five legged dog?