Judgeshould have struck down entire law Re: “The Obamacare ‘Christmas tree’ gets trimmed,” editorial, Dec. 14 T his editorial about a federal judge striking down Obamacare’s individual insurance-purchase mandate rightly noted that the law lacks a severability clause. Because of that, the judge should have struck down the entire health care law rather than just severing the unconstitutional part of it. To justify preserving the rest of the law, the judge cited a 2010 Supreme Court ruling that invalidated part of a law — but kept the rest of it in force. But that case involved a law passed almost unanimously by Congress, which would have passed it even without the challenged provision.
Obamacare is totally different. It was barely passed by a divided Congress, but only as a package. Supporters admitted that the unconstitutional part of it — the insurance mandate — was the law’s heart. Obamacare’s legion of special-interest giveaways that are “extraneous to health care” does not alter that.
Hans Bader
Senior attorney,
Competitive Enterprise Institute
Obama’s Holy Grail is mass dependency
President Obama complained last week that “Republicans now finally have their Holy Grail of tax cuts for the wealthy.” How disdainful he is of millions of his fellow Americans who, he thinks, are either stupid or morally degenerate.
We do not covet the wealth created by hard work and creativity. We know that wealth left in private hands elevates us all by energizing our great economy, but is generally wasted when confiscated by the government. Republicans hold the compassion and moral high ground by protecting our liberty, protecting our property from confiscation, and keeping our economy strong.
Our Holy Grail is independent citizens living in a strong America, while Mr. Obama’s arrogant statist one only leads us to a bankrupt European-type welfare state with a weak, entitled citizenry demanding to be taken care of by the nanny state.
Howard Sachs
Chevy Chase
Warning labels needed for politicians, too
Labels, such as those required on food, clothing, and bedding, are useful because they tell us what is in a particular package. Perhaps warning labels should be mandated for politicians as well.
The assumption behind the “no labels” argument is that there is really no difference between “Republican” and “Democrat,” “conservative” and “liberal” and that these labels matter less than whether you follow the Bears or the Redskins since politicians will follow a liberal agenda regardless.
The Tea Party, on the other hand, proudly bears its conservative label, which says that there are areas it will not enter, things it will not do, and standards that it will uphold because ultimately, the survival and well-being of our society is at stake.
We not only need labels on politicians, we need to pay attention to them.
Paul Blase
Alexandria
