Dakota War College toots its horn on the misses; I might as well holler for the hits. The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act is batting over .500 again in the courts. Judge Gladys Kessler in the D.C. Circuit Court finds the individual insurance mandate perfectly constitutional and dismisses the distinction between activity and inactivity and the religious lawsuit on which it was based.
The Founding Fathers should be pleased. As Rep. Hal Wick's failed personal gun mandate brought to light, the men who had the writing of the Constitution freshest in their minds were fine with personal mandates. President George Washington had no problem signing and enforcing the Militia Act of 1792, which required citizens to buy not just guns but ammo and knapsacks. The Founding Fathers also supported the Act for Relief of Sick and Disabled Seamen of 1798, which imposed mandatory taxation to pay for government-run health care (not unlike what you and I now pay for the Noem family's health care). Neither law has ever been declared unconstitutional.
Marc Anderson of South Dakota's AFL-CIO brought the 1798 sailor health mandate to the attention of Senate Health and Human Services yesterday during a hearing on HCR 1004, the lat bit of nullificationist nuttery still rattling about our Capitol. The majority of senators were not impressed, but I sure was! Good catch, Marc!
South Dakota receives $1.59 for every dollar it pays.
"The report shows that of the 32 states (and the District of Columbia) that are "winners" -- receiving more in federal spending than they pay in federal taxes -- 76% are Red States that voted for George Bush in 2000. Indeed, 17 of the 20 (85%) states receiving the most federal spending per dollar of federal taxes paid are Red States."
http://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/2004/09/red_states_feed.html
What young entrepreneur can afford to start a business in South Dakota and buy health insurance, too? Until PPACA kicks in, unions can offer insurance pools for blue-collar sole proprietors and independent contractors like ip was for twenty years. No wonder young people flee the chemical toilet for states where strong unions can provide a head start.