a little taxing | the fuss about the health care mandate

Michael Tomasky writes:

The instant after the court decision a week ago, you’ll recall, congressional Republicans took the gist of the court’s finding—the mandate stands as a tax, not a penalty—and launched into a campaign calling the ACA the biggest tax hike in all of American or even human history and saying that Obama broke his promise not to tax middle-income Americans. Politifact rated the first claim pants-on-fire false. As a percentage of GDP, in fact, it’s only the 10th largest tax increase in America since 1950. The second claim isn’t exactly an all-out lie like the first one, but it’s a grotesque exaggeration, since this penalty-tax would not be paid by everyone, but only by those who refuse to buy insurance, an explicitly self-selecting maybe 2 percent of all people. — Michael Tomasky, The Daily Beast, 07.05.12