By: Bart Moss

“…for us to say that you’ve got to take a responsibility to get health insurance is absolutely not a tax increase.” 

– President Barack Obama on ABC’s Good Morning America on September 20, 2009, in response to questioning by show host George Stephanopolus on how the individual mandate in the Affordable Care Act (aka…ObamaCare) was a tax increase.

I had a really good column planned about the Declaration of Independence, the Revolutionary War, and the bicentennial of America’s second war for independence, the War of 1812.

However, last Thursday the United States Supreme Court changed all of my plans.

How could I write about the freedoms and individual liberty that so many men fought and died for in the late 1700s and early 1800s when the Supreme Court upheld a law written, promoted and hailed by the Democratic Party that does away with many of those very freedoms and individual liberties?

As the opinion of the majority on the Supreme Court was being read to the public on Thursday it became increasingly clear that Barack Obama and the Democrats lied to the American public throughout the debate over ObamaCare.

The Democrats tried to tell anyone who would listen that ObamaCare was not a tax increase.

The Supreme Court said that the only way the law could be constitutional was to call it a tax increase.

With those words the Democrats signature piece of legislation, ObamaCare, became the largest tax increase in the history of America.

The Supreme Court basically allowed the federal government — and by extension the Democratic Party — to take over the American health care industry — one-sixth of the economy.

What can the federal government NOT do to us now?

If the government tells you to purchase something and you don’t make the purchase they can penalize you with tax.

Make no mistake about it, insurance premiums will increase for individuals and families, businesses will drop insurance plans and taxes will increase on middle-income families.

If you decide you do not need or want health insurance there will be millions of IRS agents ready to swoop in on you and force you to buy insurance or pay a massive tax penalty.

Obama and Democrats claim this will help the poor and uninsured.

The truth is this law will end up falling on the poor the most. Wealthy people will be able to withstand this law. As with many Democratic policies the poor will continue to get poorer and the middle class will continue to disappear.

This law unfairly penalizes employers and the private sector like no other law. Job growth will stall and the economy will suffer.

Many Alabama small business owners say they will not make any hiring plans until after the November elections because of the fear that the ObamaCare mandates are too costly and there is too much uncertainty.

The Obama Administration and the Democratic Party committed unprecedented fraud upon the American people.

Obama and the Democrats knew all along this was a massive tax increase on middle-income families and yet refused to admit it.

The Supreme Court couldn’t say the law was constitutional on the merits. They had to make the law a tax to find it constitutional.

This is not the America I grew up in or my parents and grandparents. This is not the America that our Founders fought for and died for.

However, with this Supreme Court decision it may be the America that my two young children grow up in.

The light at the end of the tunnel is that the Supreme Court did nothing last Thursday that can’t be overturned in January if we elect the right people to the White House and Congress in November.

ObamaCare was the single most important issue of the 2010 election cycle. What happened?

The Republican Party took control of the House of Representatives by a wide margin and missed taking over the Senate by one seat.

The Republican Party in Alabama took over the state legislature for the first time in 136 years. Republicans control every state office in Alabama and have deemed state Democrats largely irrelevant.

The repeal of ObamaCare, along with the anemic Obama economy, will be the central themes to the November election.

I believe there are still enough people in this country who believe in freedom and individual liberties to give the Republican Party more gains in the House, take over the Senate and send Barack Obama back to Chicago.

How is that hope and change looking today?

Bart Moss is a columnist for The Franklin Coutny Times.