Conyers: Individual Mandate Has Nothing to Do With Individual Liberty

By Matt Cover

House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers (D-Mich.)

Washington (CNSNews.com) – Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.), the ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, said Wednesday that the individual insurance mandate in the Democrats’ health care law has nothing to do with individual liberty.
“[W]e have been hearing that this is all about individual liberty, the right to be let alone. But is it really?” Conyers asked in his opening statement.
“The liberty interests at stake do not change simply because it is the federal, rather than the state government that is imposing the requirement.
“While we can debate whether Congress has the power to impose this requirement – something I believe we clearly do – we should not scare Americans into believing that how we resolve that question says anything about their individual liberty.”
Conyers argued that states require the purchase of auto insurance and that citizens are required to pay taxes, send their children to school, and receive vaccinations.
Conyers made the comments Wednesday in a House Judiciary Committee hearing examining the constitutionality of the insurance mandate.
For the record, a number of Republicans have dismissed the Democrats’ auto insurance argument.
“This is the first time in American history that Congress has passed a law mandating that you buy something simply because you’re breathing,” Rep. John Boehner (R-Ohio) wrote in a USA Today op-ed last year. “You don’t need to purchase a car. You do need to breathe,” he said.

“What about the 700+ waivers issued so far? Obviously some are more free than others, namely this administrations’s friends.”

More stories from CNS:

EPA Can’t Provide Documentation Supporting Claim Linking Autism to Contaminated Water 
(CNSNews.com) After EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson testified on Feb. 2 that regulating drinking water might help prevent children from getting autism, CNSNews.com asked Jackson by e-mail whether she could provide any data, studies, documents, reports or other sources to confirm her claim. Her office subsequently stated there were emerging studies but provided no evidence.

HHS Will Become Nation’s First Trillion-Dollar-Per-Year Cabinet Department When Obamacare’s Fully Implemented in 2014, Says Obama’s Budget 
(CNSNews.com) – The Department of Health and Human Services will become the nation’s first-ever $1-trillion-per-year Cabinet department in 2014, which is also the first year President Barack Obama’s health-care law is scheduled to be fully implemented by that department, according to the budget projections President Obama released Monday. In fact, HHS already is costing American taxpayers more per year in inflation-adjusted dollars than the entire federal government cost back in 1965, the year President Lyndon Baines Johnson signed Medicare into law.

Obamas Budget Lie: Falsely Claims Receipts Will Equal Outlays by Mid-Decade, Debt Will Not Increase 
(CNSNews.com) – In a press conference Tuesday, President Barack Obama falsely claimed that under the budget he released on Monday annual federal revenues would equal annual federal expenditures by the middle of the decade and that the national debt would not increase. In fact, his own budget documents contradict the president’s claims.

DHS Budget Says Napolitano Doesnt Intend to Secure a Single Additional Mile of U.S. BorderThis Year or Next 
(CNSNews.com) – Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano released a budget document on Monday indicating that the Department of Homeland Security does not intend to put a single additional mile of the U.S. border under effective control in either fiscal year 2011 or 2012. Nor does it intend to add a single additional Border Patrol agent in fiscal year 2012. According to DHS budget justification released Monday, CBP currently has only 1,007 of the 8,607 miles of border it is responsible for under effective control.

Hoyer: We Don’t Want to Shut the Government Down Over Obamacare; We Want to Negotiate With Republicans 
(CNSNews.com) – House Majority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) said today he does not want to shut the government down over Obamacare, preferring instead to negotiate with Republicans on the issue. He conceded, however, that a shutdown is possible when the law currently funding the federal government expires on March 4.

Sen. Rand Paul Proposes $500 Billion in Federal Cuts as Budget Passes $3.5 Trillion and National Debt Passes $14 Trillion 
(CNSNews.com) With the federal budget at $3.5 trillion, the deficit at $1.4 trillion, and the national debt more than $14 trillion, lawmakers are busy talking about how to trim spending. No plan has garnered more attention than the one sponsored by freshman Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), a Tea Party Republican, who introduced legislation on Jan. 25 to cut spending across-the-board by $500 billion in one year.