Nov. 7, 2013, Fairfax, Va.— Americans for Limited Government President Nathan Mehrens today issuedYou must Subscribe or log in to read the rest of this content.
The ironic part of all this is that the tin foil hat brigade rails against the health care individual mandate and calls it unprecedented government intrusion.
What do they think the mandate that all people have a retirement plan as required by the Social Security Act is?
In 2012, Eliot Spitzer credited what he called “spectacular historical reporting by Professor Einer Elhauge,” who is employed by the campaign to re-elect President Obama,[5] for finding 18th century legislation that Spitzer and Elhauge called individual mandates.[6][7] The Militia Acts of 1792, based on the Constitution’s militia clause (in addition to its affirmative authorization to raise an army and a navy), would have required every “free able-bodied white male citizen” between the ages of 18 and 45, with a few occupational exceptions, to “provide himself” a weapon and ammunition.[8] (See Conscription.) The Militia Acts had been reported in 2010 by Joe Conason,[9] but were never federally enforced, so their constitutionality was never litigated.[10]
An Act for the relief of sick and disabled seamen, signed into law by President John Adams in 1798, required employers of seamen to pay to the federal Treasury 20 cents per seaman per month, and authorized the President to use the money to pay for “the temporary relief and maintenance of sick or disabled seamen,” and to build hospitals to accommodate sick and disabled seamen.[11] The Act authorized the employer to deduct the monies from the seamen’s wages. (See Workers’ compensation and Social Security Disability Insurance.) Others have called the 1798 statute a tax like Medicare and said it cannot be called an individual mandate, because it does not require anyone to purchase anything.[12]
We have a history of this, no matter what we call it at the time.
5 comments
Perfectly said. Do not replace. Repeal or be recalled.
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The ironic part of all this is that the tin foil hat brigade rails against the health care individual mandate and calls it unprecedented government intrusion.
What do they think the mandate that all people have a retirement plan as required by the Social Security Act is?
From Wikipedia (I attribute):
In 2012, Eliot Spitzer credited what he called “spectacular historical reporting by Professor Einer Elhauge,” who is employed by the campaign to re-elect President Obama,[5] for finding 18th century legislation that Spitzer and Elhauge called individual mandates.[6][7] The Militia Acts of 1792, based on the Constitution’s militia clause (in addition to its affirmative authorization to raise an army and a navy), would have required every “free able-bodied white male citizen” between the ages of 18 and 45, with a few occupational exceptions, to “provide himself” a weapon and ammunition.[8] (See Conscription.) The Militia Acts had been reported in 2010 by Joe Conason,[9] but were never federally enforced, so their constitutionality was never litigated.[10]
An Act for the relief of sick and disabled seamen, signed into law by President John Adams in 1798, required employers of seamen to pay to the federal Treasury 20 cents per seaman per month, and authorized the President to use the money to pay for “the temporary relief and maintenance of sick or disabled seamen,” and to build hospitals to accommodate sick and disabled seamen.[11] The Act authorized the employer to deduct the monies from the seamen’s wages. (See Workers’ compensation and Social Security Disability Insurance.) Others have called the 1798 statute a tax like Medicare and said it cannot be called an individual mandate, because it does not require anyone to purchase anything.[12]
We have a history of this, no matter what we call it at the time.
Same thing. Legalized theft.