David Harsanyl: The mandate and mug clause

What does it say about your cause that nearly every policy idea you cook up is based in some form or another on coercing the American people?

When House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers, D-Mich., was asked recently to identify where the Constitution grants Congress the authority to force all Americans to buy health insurance, he replied, “Under several clauses, the good and welfare clause and a couple others.”