Rep. Poe Seeks Cosponsors to Challenge the Constitutionality of Government-Mandated Healthcare Coverage
Washington,
Dec 11, 2009 -
Never before in the history of our country has a tax been levied on individual Americans by their government with the purpose of forcing Americans to do something the government wants them to do. In the case of the House and Senate government run health care bills, Americans will be taxed if they do not purchase the type of health care insurance that the government tells them they should have. This is clearly beyond the scope of Article 1, Section 8, Clause 1 of the U.S. Constitution which gives Congress its authority to tax. The constitution says Congress has the power to tax to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defense and general Welfare of the United States. It is a very slippery slope to allow Congress to expand this authority to the power to tax for the purpose of forcing American citizens to take a particular action which the Government wants them to take. H. Res. 959 would amend clause 5 of rule XXI of the Rules of the House to state that it will be out of order for the House to consider a bill which uses Congress’s taxing power in this fashion. Simply put, cosponsoring H. Res. 959 will assert that not every member of Congress agrees with this unprecedented expansion of Congressional taxing power and believes that it should be out of order for this body to pass any future bills which take this approach. We must heed the checks and balances of our Constitution, not ignore it in a mad rush to expand the Federal government.
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