| ABC News's Michael Falcone unearths video of Mitt Romney admitting, in a 2008 presidential debate, that the individual mandate he passed as Governor of Massachusetts was a tax:
CHARLIE GIBSON: Governor, [inaudible] you imposed tax penalties in Massachusetts [inaudible]. ROMNEY: Yes, we said, look, if people can afford to buy it, either buy the insurance or pay your own way; don't be free-riders and pass on the cost to your health care to everybody else... The central argument that Republicans have been making in the wake of the Supreme Court ruling -- which upheld the indivual mandate as a tax -- is that it proves Obama foisted a massive tax hike on the nation. Yet Romney admitted that his own mandate was a tax, too. Now, Romney can plausibly point out that his mandate was state-based, while Obama's was federal. But as a policy tool, either the mandate is a tax, or it isn't. |
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