The real question left after the argument is not whether the Court will oppose ObamaCare, but whether the Court will strike the entire law or just certain parts of it. Scalia clearly wants to throw the entire thing into the garbage, but the others seem content to leave the ancillary parts of the Act alone, even of the individual mandate–the driving force behind the reform–is tossed.
It was not a good three days for the Administration. We will probably see an opinion by late June.
In his recent wonderful book, Classical Liberalism and the Austrian School, Ralph Raico gives Eugen Richter (1830-1906), the neglected hero of authentic German liberalism, his due. As I read the chapter, I kept feeling as if I was reading about Ron Paul.
Just as Ron Paul has been “Dr. No” in Congress, Richter was a veritable “Herr Nein” (or as one German historian called him, “the eternal nay-sayer”) in the Reichstag.
As Ron Paul continually points out, we’re broke, and the political class shows no signs of putting us on the road to solvency. Far from it: they seem determined to drive us over a cliff, spending and piling up debt to the point where the American dollar is losing value faster even than we are losing the war in Afghanistan.
That this course is unsustainable is a fact of reality conveniently evaded by both [neocon Robert] Kagan and his admirer in the Oval Office. We are being defeated in world markets and in the wilds of Afghanistan: dragged down by the burden of empire, we have no chance to get back up off our knees.
