Barack Obama cannot get reelected.
Much has been written about the president’s decision to force religious institutions to provide coverage for contraception, surgical sterilization, and abortive drugs in their insurance plans. The president’s proclamation has correctly been identified as an infringement of First Amendment rights. To stem the subsequent backlash, the president decided to “compromise” by forcing insurance companies to pay for the coverage themselves. Money is fungible—it doesn’t matter who writes the check. Religious institutions will simply end up paying for services they object to via increased premiums.
The bigger issue in this so-called compromise is that the president abandons one constitutional overreach by adopting another. The president creates a new mandate, telling companies that they must buy a service for their customers. Where is the constitutional authorization for such rulemaking? The left will justify the mandate with the interstate commerce clause. But laws the left defends prohibit interstate competition between insurance companies, meaning the clause can’t possibly apply.
Lost in the culture war between right and left has been the abject unconstitutionality of both of the Obama administration’s proposals. See for yourself. Where in the president’s enumerated powers is there authorization for such rulemaking? The abuse of the Constitution is the number one reason Americans must defeat Barack Obama in 2012. The president cannot be allowed to nominate Supreme Court justices who will refuse to uphold the Constitution as written.
