It’s late, but please see — Ezra Klein, “How you know the negotiations have truly failed” and Steve Benen, “Obama Puts GOP in a Box.”
Daily Archives: June 29, 2011
6th Circuit Court Upholds Affordable Care Act
It is so Constitutional. From the decision:
By regulating the practice of self-insuring for the cost of health care delivery, the minimum coverage provision is facially constitutional under the Commerce Clause for two independent reasons. First, the provision regulates economic activity that Congress had a rational basis to believe has substantial effects on interstate commerce. In addition, Congress had a rational basis to believe that the provision was essential to its larger economic scheme reforming the interstate markets in health care and health insurance.
See also Steve Benen and Adam Serwer.
New Jersey Turning Against Christie
Hey hey hey hey tell me what’d I say …
More than half of New Jersey residents say they wouldn’t back Governor Chris Christie for a second term, disapproving of his choices on a range of policy and personal issues, from killing a commuter tunnel to using a state-police helicopter to attend his son’s baseball game
On the night Chris Christie was elected, I wrote,
I think the people of New Jersey possibly don’t understand how far right Christie is. New Jersey has had Republican governors in recent memory, but not crazy hard-right ideological Republican governors. New Jersey likes governors who cut taxes, but if Christie pushes a hard-right social agenda, he will be a one-term governor.
Christie’s mostly been pushing a hard-right economic agenda. It’s one thing to cut taxes (which I believe he has done only for the wealthy, anyway), but something else to cancel building projects that would have employed a lot of people and cut funding for schools.
To hear Republicans nationwide tell it, Christie is achieving great results in New Jersey (although they tend to be vague about what those “results” are). But it’s plain to me the only thing he’s good at is going viral on You Tube.
Update: See also Atrios.