Political Quotes

“I yield for the purpose of that question as well--and they might well. One of the striking things--and although under the rules of the Senate I am not allowed to ask Senator Lee a question, I can pose a rhetorical question to the body, and should Senator Lee have thoughts on that rhetorical question, he can choose to ask me a question that might contain his thoughts on that rhetorical question posed to the body. So given that sort of convoluted reasoning, which may explain why we are in the Senate with the odd and precarious procedures that govern this body, I am going to ask this rhetorical question to the body, which is, Senator Lee explained that the Supreme Court of the United States upheld ObamaCare, after concluding it exceeded the commerce clause authority of Congress, by concluding that it was a tax. By calling it a tax, it was able to force it into a different line of jurisprudence and uphold it under the taxing clause, the taxing power of Congress. I would ask rhetorically of this body, was it an accident that the ObamaCare statute did not call the individual mandate a tax? Maybe it was a scribe's error. Maybe it was they meant to call it a tax, they thought it was a tax, and a clerk writing just wrote the wrong word. So instead of ``tax,'' the word ``penalty.'' Surely that is not consequential. It must purely have been an accident.…”