The U.S. Supreme Court is going to hear arguments on President Obama’s health care reform this month. The question at hand will be whether Congress exceeded its authority in requiring all Americans to purchase health insurance. Supporters of the health care reform are taking comfort in the fact that since 1936 the high court hasn’t struck down any major regulatory law on the basis that Congress exceeded its authority.

But the health care reform law is different. This law actually requires people to purchase something, and that’s an innovation the federal government has never tried before.

Something rarely appreciated, but nonetheless true, is that the U.S. Constitution is more about what the federal government may do, rather than what it may not do. If the Constitution doesn’t give the federal government the power to do something, then it may not do it, even if it sounds like a good idea. There is no need for a specific restriction in the Constitution to curtail federal power.

Now while it is true that the Constitution gives Congress the power to regulate commerce “among the several States,” and that this power has been read fairly expansively by the Supreme Court, there is no provision of the Constitution that permits Congress to mandate participation in commerce by requiring the purchase of a product or service. If the Supreme Court wants to read that power into the Constitution, the verbal contortions will be prodigious indeed.

On the other hand, if the Court wants to limit itself to an intellectually honest direction, it will have to strike the mandate down. At that point, the entire health care reform will have to be either thrown out or dramatically altered, since the mandate is what is expected to keep the price of insurance under control.

So do the opponents of health care reform win? Probably, considering what we can practically expect of Congress. But for the idealists among us, those who have yet to mentally absorb the dominance of the greased palm in the halls of our national legislature, there remains an alternative.

Universal single-payer health coverage would not present any constitutional problems at all. Congress has the specific powers to “lay and collect Taxes,” and to provide for “general Welfare of the United States,” and, that is all that a single-payer system would require.

But insurance companies wouldn’t make any money under a single-payer plan, so we’re not likely to see a major push for it in Congress. That is also why the idea was taken off the table from the onset when the President’s health care reform was first discussed in what was then a Congress with Democratic majorities in both houses.

Of course the money that health insurers stand to lose by an overturning of the mandate might be the mandate’s salvation. It is a rare privilege to have everyone in the country be required to purchase your product. What, and who, are the health insurers willing to pay in order to maintain it?

One thing that Rush Limbaugh doesn’t have a lot of these days is defenders. Even Republicans have turned against him for calling Georgetown University law student Sandra Fluke a “slut” and a “prostitute” because of her testimony before Congress supporting the requirement that employer provided health insurance plans cover contraception notwithstanding any conscience objections that may exist.

For those of us taking the freedom of religion side in this debate, it was definitely a we-didn’t-need-this moment. For those of us supporting the Bill of Rights generally, it was time to prepare against yet more cannon fire on our ill-defended and generally despised ideological ship.

It was only a matter of time before someone brought it up, and, sure enough,

Let it be conceded that there is nothing remotely in the public interest about Rush Limbaugh. He has been a major force for making political discourse in the United States less civil and less informed. He has littered the national landscape with faith-based ditto heads who, lacking confidence in their own thinking abilities, have yielded up their political thought processes to this radio host who manages to sound so self-assured.

But we can’t have an arm of government shut him down. The freedom of speech protected by the First Amendment certainly would prohibit that. And what purveyors of opinion could feel secure once that line was crossed?

So does he get to just call a woman a slut without ramifications? Not at all. Even though the Supreme Court has jealously guarded free speech rights in connection with defamation suits, the strictest requirement for maintaining such a suit requires that the defamer knew that he was speaking falsely, or that he spoke with reckless disregard of the truth.

One presumes that Mr. Limbaugh has no personal knowledge of Ms. Fluke’s sexual activity. Still, he called her a “slut” and a “prostitute.” What would be reckless disregard of the truth if this was not?

We don’t need to throw out the First Amendment because of Rush Limbaugh. Sandra Fluke should sue him for defamation. She’ll win.

–Jack Quirk

Two more American soldiers are dead today because somebody thought that burning copies of the Quran in Afghanistan, a Muslim country, was the most intelligent response to finding “extremist inscriptions” on them. That brings the number of Americans killed since the incident to six.

Let’s try to get behind the thought process, such as it was, that resulted in this ingenious move. The problem was that it appeared to be the case “that these documents were being used to facilitate extremist communications.” They had been removed from the library of a detainee center.

Removing the material from a spot where detainees would have access to it would have solved the problem, of course. But perhaps whoever made this decision needed room. After all, you can’t let concern about the sensitivities of the population of a country you’re occupying get in the way of proper space management.

One assumes that it was not anticipated they would get caught burning Qurans, but it seems the mission failed in the execution phase. They left charred remains sufficient to alert Afghan laborers who were collecting the trash of the clandestine operation.

President Obama has tried to dampen the controversy by issuing an apology to Afghan President Hamid Karzai, and has called the Quran burning “inadvertent.” One is left to wonder how it is possible to quite consciously confiscate Qurans, and then set fire to them by accident.

Candidate for President Newt Gingrich has decried Mr. Obama’s apology, apparently believing that the President should just tell the Afghans to deal with it. It seems that, for Mr. Gingrich, not having to say you’re sorry is worth additional danger to the troops. There’s some presidential material for you!

The U.S. needs to stop this overseas adventurism now. If we keep this up, we’re going to hurt ourselves.

HUDSONVILLE, MI – About 1500 people packed the Pinnacle Center in Hudsonville to hear Ron Paul speak in a surprise campaign visit Sunday evening, with 400 more standing outside in the cold listening to Paul’s words over a speaker.

The crowd included people who identified themselves as libertarian, liberal, and conservative, however most identified themselves as independent. Greg Dykema of Hudsonville said,  ”I don’t consider myself being bound to other people’s agenda. I believe inthe Constitution and that people should be able to live their own lives as long as it doesn’t harm the person of possession of another.”

Wearing a brightly lettered t-shirt that read “End the Fed,” Dykema said, “The Federal Reserve is a fraudulent system that keeps us in perpetual debt.” Ending the federal reserve and ending wars were Dykema’s top two concerns in this years election.

Ron Paul spoke for nearly an hour. He called the Patriot Act unpatriotic, referred to NDAA as unconstitutional, touched on the war on drugs as a failed policy and he said that the golden rule should be our foreign policy standard.

“We need to mind our own business,” Paul said. “You don’t have to give up liberties to be safe.”

Speaking in one of the most religiously conservative cities in West Michigan, Paul said, “We’ll never agree on how we want to use our freedoms. In a room like this there might be 50 different religious values and some with no religious values at all. But freedom answers the question because we don’t impose ourselves on other people. You do what you want.”

Ron Paul supporter of Berrien County, John Mumaugh, was standing closer to the street, sporting a big sign encouraging people to support medical marijuana legislation. “We are trying to get a Constitutional Amendment on the ballot, mainly because of the erosion of the Michigan Marijuana law that’s going on in the legislature.”

Just ahead of the upcoming primary on Tuesday, Ron Paul started his swing through Michigan on Saturday at Central Michigan University, before stopping in Hudsonville today.

Sally Brooks of Plainfield Township said, “I am here because I believe in freedom.”

President Obama has signed legislation extending emergency unemployment benefits through the rest of the year. For those who are uncomfortable with the idea of giving money to people who aren’t employed, perhaps the following will be of some assistance.

It is not an outburst of emotion to say that employees aren’t paid what they’re worth. On the contrary, it is a truism. If all employees were paid what they were worth, businesses would find it difficult to make a profit.

A business profit comes into existence as a result of the total capital contributed and work expended on a given business. Capital contributed may only involve initial outlays, giving a business a value at the beginning of its operations.

This is not the same, it should be emphasized, as a purchase of stock from a stockholder. In that situation no investment is made in the company, but the interest once held by an original investor is transferred to someone who pays the current holder of the interest its value in money.

It is important to notice, here, that the owner of an interest that might be represented as shares of stock, what would universally be considered as an ownership interest, divests himself of that interest by selling it. In that transaction, he receives the value of his interest in exchange for giving it up.

The situation of the employee who gets laid-off is quite different. Throughout his employment he has been contributing value to his company in the form of his work. Now for the employee to be profitable to the company, the total value of that work must exceed the amount he receives in wages.

But this value in excess of wages usually doesn’t result in an ownership interest of any kind for the employee. So when he is laid-off, he isn’t paid that excess value; the company retains it. In a word, it is confiscated.

What employers pay for unemployment insurance, then, should be viewed as compensation to redress this imbalance. Extensions of unemployment benefits, which are paid out of general funds, should be considered as appropriate redress from a nation that has failed to protect its citizens from such predation.

–Jack Quirk

West Michigan business leaders met with presidential candidate Mitt Romney yesterday evening and complained about unions and the requirement that workers be paid prevailing wages on public works. The problem, of course, is that unions get in the way of businesses dictating the terms of employer-employee contracts, and that prevailing wage law doesn’t allow construction companies to underpay their workers on state projects.

But Mr. Romney, who supports right to work laws, assured those in attendance that it was his mission to relieve businesses of this oppression, and let his dim view of unions be known. “Unions ask for too much and you end up killing the company,” he said.

What ought to be surprising, but isn’t, is that Mr. Romney was speaking to a group that, if you asked them, would presumably say they support free enterprise. But getting rid of the prevailing wage law, and making Michigan a right-to-work state, would be quite the opposite of that.

The prevailing wage law is essentially the state telling contractors that it does not want to enter into contracts with companies that will not be paying their workers at a certain level. Now free enterprise means freedom of contract, and freedom of contract means that parties can enter or not enter into contracts as they choose. But the prevailing wage law is no more than the people of the State of Michigan setting a condition for entering into contracts. Are opponents of the prevailing wage law saying that the state shouldn’t be allowed to set such a condition?

As for right-to-work legislation, that is, in spite of its name, actually a restriction on the freedom of contract. Under current Michigan law a business and a union can enter into a contract wherein the business agrees that a certain segment of its workforce will be members of the union. But a right-to-work law would prohibit such contract provisions. That isn’t free enterprise, that’s direct government interference in contract negotiations between two private entities.

So when someone, especially a politician, says that he supports free enterprise, he has made a claim that should not go unexamined.  Sometimes words have meaning, and sometimes they don’t.

–Jack Quirk

Local First launched an Online Holiday Auction today. The event runs Nov. 23, to encourage awareness of what local businesses have to offer to holiday shoppers.

Each week the auction will have featured items to highlight some of the unique gifts available from local retailers. The auction web site is located at http://www.biddingforgood.com/auction/AuctionHome.action?vhost=localfirst

LAKE MICHIGAN – A partial retaining bluff collapse Monday at the We Energies Oak Creek Power Plant in Wisconsin sent toxic coal ash spewing into Lake Michigan. This collapse comes just weeks after the U.S. House voted to prevent the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) from protecting Americans from coal ash.

In response, Mary Anne Hitt, Director of the Sierra Club’s Beyond Coal Campaign issued the following statement:

“The EPA has been trying to enact national protections to stop this kind of disastrous spill from happening again, ever since the TVA disaster in 2008, and our Congress has been blocking them every step of the way. As a result, communities across the nation remain at risk and unprotected. This spill in the Great Lakes is a tragic reminder of why the status quo is not good enough. As long as Congress interferes, spills like this are going to happen, and dozens of communities are at risk. Congress needs to back off and allow the EPA to finalize strong protections.

“In 2008 we witnessed first-hand how a lack of strong national protections leaves the job in the hands of state regulators that lack the will and ability to protect communities from coal ash incidents. Since the TVA disaster, industry groups have been lobbying hard to block the EPA from establishing strong federal protections, arguing, they say, that states are doing a fine job regulating coal ash. Just weeks ago, at the urging of We Energies and others in the coal industry, the U.S. House of Representatives voted to block the EPA from enacting strong national protections, thereby allowing states to continue the status quo that led to this disastrous collapse. This bill, called the Coal Residuals Reuse and Management Act (S.1751) is now before the Senate for consideration.

“This spill shows that states are not protecting our health and our environment from cancer-causing coal ash, and as long as the EPA fails to act there will be more coal ash spills. “This collapse is particularly troublesome because We Energies has known for years that its management of coal ash was a threat to human health. They have even been providing bottled water to neighbors who have contaminated wells.

“The Senate should immediately stop work on its bill to block the EPA from protecting Americans from toxic coal ash, and our Senators should urge the EPA to finalize its rulemaking process that began in 2009, received hundreds of thousands of comments in support, and has still not been finalized because of industry pressure.

“We want to thank the first responders, cleanup and safety workers for their courage in helping to clean up this mess. We are very grateful that no one appears to have been injured. Unfortunately, residents of Southeast Wisconsin have been victims of We Energies negligence for years. The burning of coal is a public health menace. This incident underscores that as long as we are still mining and burning coal someone somewhere is paying the price.”

Last week, the House Insurance Committee passed HB 4936, a bill that would eliminate Michigan’s no-fault auto insurance system.

According to Rep. Jeff Irwin, “This change will mean that more families will be bankrupted by car accidents, more patients will receive substandard or insufficient care and the taxpayers will be picking up more of the expenses that insurance companies would rather avoid.”

The highlights of this proposal are:

1. No requirements for insurance companies to reduce rates to reflect their reduced liabilities.

2. Consumers will be prevented from buying “unlimited coverage,” as they do today. Instead, consumers can buy $500K, $1M or $5M in LIFETIME coverage. Once coverage is exhausted, victims and their families would be left to bankruptcy and eventually Medicare/Medicaid.

3. Finally, if this bill passes, auto-accident victims in Michigan will be forced to seek compensation in our courts. This will clog our courts with long and complicated auto-related cases – costing millions in litigation, when those dollars should be saved for medical care.

“Thousands of jobs will be lost almost immediately,” said Irwin. “Instead of aggressive rehabilitation, victims will be pushed toward taxpayer-funded nursing home care.”

Occupy Grand Rapids is holding a Rally this Saturday at Monument Park. According to a OccupyGR press release, the purpose of this rally is to reach out to the community in support of the Occupy Movement.

The Occupy GR Rally will also include workshops, music and discussions in an effort to interact with and educate the community. Workshops and Discussions including The Spirit of Consensus, Politics of the left, Direct Action, and Moving Forward with the Movement.

Speak-out sessions will take place at noon and at 3pm. There will also be a canned food drive, donations to support a local food pantry. This family friendly event will take place at the corner of Division and Fulton this Saturday, October 22 beginning at 11am.

Additional information can be found at http://facebook.com/OccupyGrandRapids