On the recordJanuary 19, 2010
I thank the gentleman from New Jersey for this. You know, we are talking about a potential health care bill which, whether it is the Senate or House version, is an enormous expansion of the government. Not only is it an enormous expansion of the government in the cost for it, but it's also an enormous expansion in the amount of power. Now, both bills are based on the commerce clause of giving them their authority to implement this program. The commerce clause, as we know, over the last 70 years has been so expanded, its shape has basically been lost. But notwithstanding even when the courts have ruled on commerce clause issues, they have two thresholds that must be maintained before something has usually been declared constitutional for them. One is the activity has to have a significant impact on interstate commerce. I think you can argue this bill will. But the second is the willing participant threshold that must be met, which means the commerce clause has said Congress can do that which will stop an activity; but never, never have they said the commerce clause can be used to forbid inactivity or force individuals to pay a fine not only for doing nothing, but for doing the wrong kind of thing according to the Federal Government. Now that is the problem this piece of legislation has, because if you can force people to go through this to have a certain kind of health insurance, they can force Americans to do anything at any given time.
