For us to say that you've got to take a responsibility to get health insurance is absolutely not a tax increase. What it's saying is...that we're not going to have other people carrying your burdens for you anymore. Right now everybody in America, just about, has to get auto insurance,. Nobody considers that a tax increase. You just can't make up that language and decide that that's called a tax increase.
According to the Associated Press, the largest U.S. news-gathering organization and one of the world's leading suppliers of news, this is B**l Sh*t.
WASHINGTON (AP) - Memo to President Barack Obama: It's a tax. Obama insisted this weekend on national television that requiring people to carry health insurance -- and fining them if they don't -- isn't the same thing as a tax increase. But the language of Democratic bills to revamp the nation's health care system doesn't quibble. Both the House bill and the Senate Finance Committee proposal clearly state that the fines would be a tax.
As Chris Reed of Reason Magazine says,
This is the civil version of Joe Wilson's rant. We need more such civility, starting next with the president's claim that under his proposal those who are happy with their current health insurance would be able to retain it as is. Bunk.
So, Mr. Obama, a tax is a tax when CONGRESS SAYS IT IS, not when you say it ain't.
UPDATE: Via Roger L. Simon, an excellent brief article,
http://pajamasmedia.com/rogerlsimon/2009/09/20/stephanopoulos-and-acorn-obama-lies-again/
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