US Law Archives - Page 23 of 71

Goldwater Institute Files Lawsuit to Overturn Obamacare

The Phoenix based Goldwater Institute filed a lawsuit in federal court seeking to find that the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacare, is unconstitutional. Here is the text of the Goldwater Institute’s August 12, 2010, press release:

The Goldwater Institute filed a lawsuit today to strike down the 2010 federal health care reforms as a fundamental attack on individual freedom and the rights guaranteed to all Americans by the U.S. Constitution.The lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Phoenix is a private challenge to the health care bill championed by President Barack Obama. Arizona and 21 other states are pursuing public lawsuits against the federal law, based in large part on preserving their traditional authority to regulate health insurance. This new lawsuit, known as Coons v Geithner, argues the federal health care bill exceeds the powers of Congress, violates individual rights, interferes with the authority of states, and violates the separation of powers by setting up a new bureaucracy without meaningful congressional oversight or judicial review.

“This lawsuit is our effort to bring down one of the most sweeping invasions of individual liberty and state sovereignty in American history,” said Clint Bolick, litigation director for the Goldwater Institute. “The federal health care bill is a sledgehammer to solve a problem that needs the precision of a scalpel. This is the most overbearing and intrusive way possible to try to address America’s rising health care costs.”

Nick Coons serves as the lead plaintiff in the lawsuit. A small business owner from Tempe, Mr. Coons pays for all of his medical care out of his own pocket and he wants to continue making his own health care decisions. Under the federal health care bill, Mr. Coons will face significant fines from the IRS if he doesn’t buy a health insurance plan that has been approved by the government by 2014.

“The government is making me spend money on something that I don’t want,” Mr. Coons said. “Is a stranger who works for the government in some other part of the country really going to know what I need? I am the best qualified to make these decisions for myself.”

The new federal law also violates Mr. Coons’ medical privacy by forcing him to disclose his medical records to an insurance company, and those records could be accessed by the federal government and others without his permission.

Mr. Coons has been joined as plaintiff in this case by U.S. Representatives Jeff Flake, Trent Franks, and John Shadegg, all of Arizona. The federal bill created a powerful board, called the Independent Payment Advisory Board, to assure cost containment. The board will have no meaningful oversight from Congress or the courts and can’t be repealed, except during a short time in 2017. This provision of the law violates the separation of powers doctrine essential to America’s system of government.

Other plaintiffs represented by the Goldwater Institute include Arizona state House Speaker Kirk Adams and 28 other Arizona legislators. Earlier this year, these lawmakers tried to resolve the state’s budget deficit in part by voting to reduce the state’s relatively generous benefits for people receiving health care through Medicaid. But the passage of the federal health care bill forced the Legislature to restore all benefits they had reduced or risk losing $7 billion in federal funding for the program. This federal coercion violates the First Amendment rights of these lawmakers to vote solely in the best interests of Arizona citizens.

To overturn the federal health care bill, the Goldwater Institute’s Scharf-Norton Center for Constitutional Litigation is suing President Obama in his official capacity as head of the executive branch and Timothy Geithner, who as secretary of the Department of Treasury oversees the IRS and its task of fining individuals who don’t buy health insurance by 2014. The other two defendants are Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius, whose department would implement the health care bill; and Attorney General Eric Holder, who oversees the Justice Department and other agencies set to enforce other provisions of the health care bill.

The Obama administration is expected to ask that this lawsuit be dismissed on the grounds that the federal bill won’t be fully implemented until 2014. But last month, U.S. District Judge Henry Hudson rejected that argument against the state of Virginia’s legal challenge to the federal health care bill. Judge Hudson said Virginia deserves its day in court because the bill “radically changes the landscape of health insurance coverage in America.”

The Goldwater Institute will host a telephone town hall about this lawsuit against the federal health care bill at 7:00 p.m. tonight, August 12, 2010. To join the town hall, call (888) 886-6603 and enter event ID number 15269.

Learn more about Coons v. Geithner here. The Goldwater Institute is a research and litigation organization whose work is made possible by the generosity of its supporters. Click here to support this lawsuit or call Katie Charles at (602) 462-5000 x 249.

For more about this lawsuit, including discussions on the following subjects, see the Goldwater Institute’s lawsuit summary:

Why are we suing?
The health care bill raises health care costs and adds more taxes
The health care bill violates the rights to medical autonomy and privacy guaranteed by the Fourth, Fifth, and Ninth Amendments
The health care bill violates the First Amendment rights of elected officials
The health care bill erodes the Separation of Powers
Defies the purpose of the Interstate Commerce Clause
Runs afoul of the Health Care Freedom Act
Who are the clients?
Whom are we suing?
Can we win?
The Legal Team

See “Goldwater, congressmen challenge health reform” and “Watchdog agency files health care suit for Tempe candidate.”

See also the Coons v Geithner Complaint filed by the Goldwater Institute.

Obama’s Head of Council of Economic Advisors Says Tax Increases are Highly Contractionary

The Chairwoman of President Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers and Christina D. Romer and economics Professor David H. Romer of the UC-Berkeley published The Macroeconomic Effects of Tax Changes: Estimates Based on a New Measure of Fiscal Shocks, 100 Am. Econ. Rev. 763 (2010). Here is the abstract:

“This paper investigates the impact of tax changes on economic activity. We use the narrative record, such as presidential speeches and Congressional reports, to identify the size, timing, and principal motivation for all major postwar tax policy actions. This analysis allows us to separate legislated changes into those taken for reasons related to prospective economic conditions and those taken for more exogenous reasons. The behavior of output following these more exogenous changes indicates that tax increases are highly contractionary. The effects are strongly significant, highly robust, and much larger than those obtained using broader measures of tax changes.”

“Our estimates suggest that a tax increase of 1 percent of GDP reduces output over the next three years by nearly three percent.”

Diversity and the Myth of White Privilege

U.S. Senator James Webb’s column in the Wall St. Journal entitled “Diversity and the Myth of White Privilege” argues that it is time to end government’s racial discrimination because you cannot solve the problems caused by discrimination by discriminating. His article ends:

“Our government should be in the business of enabling opportunity for all, not in picking winners. It can do so by ensuring that artificial distinctions such as race do not determine outcomes. Memo to my fellow politicians: Drop the Procrustean policies and allow harmony to invade the public mindset. Fairness will happen, and bitterness will fade away.”

See “James Webb on Affirmative Action and Race.”

The Regulatory Avalanche From Washington – Changes that Will Affect Employers’ Obligations Under Various Federal Laws

The law firm of Ogletree Deakins has prepared a summary of some of the up-coming changes in federal laws affecting employers. Employers need to learn about the new laws now and take action in advance so they can comply with the new laws when the laws become effective. The summary begins with:

“The federal government has served notice that it will soon be creating an avalanche of new regulatory and enforcement actions from Washington, D.C., which will place enormous new burdens on employers. Worse, several of the new regulatory strategies will mandate that employers, in effect, demonstrate and document their compliance with employment laws and regulations to all employees, which then can lead to federal enforcement actions, private lawsuits or union organizing.”

23% Say U.S. Government Has the Consent of the Governed

Rasmussen Reports: “The notion that governments derive their only just authority from the consent of the governed is a foundational principle of the American experiment. However, a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that just 23% of voters nationwide believe the federal government today has the consent of the governed. Sixty-two percent (62%) say it does not, and 15% are not sure.”