By John Ballard
Second re-blogging this morning. But when somebody else says it so well I see no point in parsing. Besides, how in the world does anyone parse someone with these credentials?
Gilbert Cranberg is George H. Gallup Professor of Journalism Emeritus, the University of Iowa School of Journalism and Mass Communication. He was associated for 33 years with The Des Moines Register and Tribune where he was editor of the editorial pages of both papers.
Cranberg taught for 18 years at the University of Iowa's journalism school. He co-authored "Libel Law and the Press: Myth and Reality," (The Free Press) whose authors won the 1987 Distinguished Service Award of the Society of Professional Journalists for research in journalism. Another book, "Taking Stock: Journalism and the Publicly Traded Newspaper Company," (Iowa State Press), was published June 2001.
May 24 will mark the 75th anniversary of Helvering, Commissioner of Internal Revenue, et al, vs. Davis, the landmark Supreme Court decision upholding Social Security. It would be fitting, if the high court rules in favor of the Affordable Care Act, that it announce the decision on the date Social Security was affirmed. The health care legislation is a logical, if belated, extension of the safety net initiated by Congress in 1937.
The specific feature of Social Security at issue in Helvering vs. Davis was the payment of Federal Old Age benefits. The noise you hear in the background is the gnashing of teeth and foaming at the mouth over features of the law. Congress actually voted to RAISE taxes on employers and employees to pay people to do NOTHING!!! Nevertheless, the high court ruling upholding the monthly pensions wasn�t even close � 7-2.
The current Supreme Court seems to be at loggerheads over the health-care law though it is a vastly more modest step than what the court approved 75 years ago. After all, then the government wrote checks with no strings attached. Beneficiaries, then as now, could spend the money on booze or any foolish Ponzi scheme. By contrast, not a penny of the money spent under the health care law goes into the pockets of ordinary Americans. They benefit, but only because health-care providers � physicians, nurses, hospitals, nursing homes, etc.�provide them services under the law.
Some of the justices seemed to believe that if they uphold the law they would arm big brother with the power to demand that people buy vegetables. Seventy-five years of experience with old age pensions shows how silly is that suggestion. It shows also that if Congress can vote pensions for people it is no stretch at all to vote to pay for their health care.
And when the Sun came up this morning it was not cloudy, so I guess we must all assume that it will never rain again and we will all die of thirst.
ReplyDeleteCongress levvying a tax, for any purpose or for no purpose, is in no way related to Congress requiring people to purchase a product or service from a private seller. The latter may or may not be constitutional, but the former is not proof one way or the other of the latter, any more than a single sunny day is proof of impending drought.