Helpfully, Hoover Institution scholar Keith Hennessey has provided a starting point for doing so, and it involves the most reviled word in politics: tax. According to Hennessey, almost four million Americans, none of whom are “rich,” will be subject to the individual mandate’s de facto tax. As he notes, this tax levy violates President Obama’s pledge not to raise taxes on those earning less than $250,000 a year. This should be Mr. Romney’s first talking point for the next five months.
Beyond the specifics of the law’s taxation scheme is the broader political strategy to undo it. As Roberts wrote, it is up to the electorate to remedy what he would not. This is talking point #2. Here too Hennessey has provided a roadmap: should Republicans capture the Senate, they can use the same procedure to undo Obamacare that Democrats used to pass it: reconciliation, which only requires 51 Senate votes.
And, talking point #3 for Mr. Romney: three reliably conservative votes on the Court are insufficient. Justices Scalia, Thomas, and Alito need a fourth comrade in arms, especially since Justice Scalia is 75 and the Court’s oldest justice. Justice Kennedy is a swing vote, and Chief Justice Roberts has shown himself to either be susceptible to Beltway influence, or more concerned about the perceived “legitimacy” of the Court in the eyes of the legal Left. Mr. Romney should promise to appoint justices who do not split the constitutional baby and bend to political pressure.
On March 23, 2010, President Obama signed the Affordable Care Act into law. In response to this and other big government outrages, on November 2, 2010, the country sent Washington a message by electing sixty-three additional House Republicans, and a Republican senator to fill Ted Kennedy’s seat. After the Court’s supreme error, it appears that Washington needs to be sent another message this November. That, as Bill Lumbergh would say, is good for the country.
