CNN 2012-07-07

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First the tax penalty. Join us now Ari Fleischer, CNN political contributor and former White House press secretary for Gorge³ W. Bush. Also Bill Burton, senior strategist for the top Pro-Obama Super PAC and the senior legal analyst⁴ for CNN, Jeffrey Toobin.

Jeffrey, let me begin with you. It’s a pretty simple question, but it doesn’t seem to have a simple answer, tax or penalty?

 

Well, the Supreme⁵ Court John Roberts’ opinion said that this penalty, tax, whatever you want to call, this punishment, this payment, was justified⁶ under the taxing power of the constitution. That was why he approved the whole plan. That’s what he said what a bunch of politicians want to call it, that’s the fine we are having.

 

Alright, Fleischer to you then, why then is the senior adviser⁷ to Mitt⁸ Romney Eric Fehrnstrom say this is not a tax. It seems like things have been a little bit upside right now.

 

Well I check with the Romney campaign today, and I think the answer is actually very straightforward⁹. Mitt Romney has been consistent on this. In Massachusetts where they have a provision that was roughly similar to that, it was called a penalty. Now Massachusetts doesn’t have United States Supreme Court, which actually is a higher authority with the federal law is. So Mitt Romney has been consistent in calling it penalty just as he did in Massachusetts. President Obama, on the other hand, sold it to congress as penalty, and instructed his staff to go to the Supreme Court and called it a tax and a switch at the Supreme Court to say the legislation. And frankly¹⁰, actually if on the federal level, it is not a tax, it is not a law. It would have been struck down. So I think what we have here is the President really tried to have it both ways and succeeded.

 

So Bill Burton jump in on this if you would because regardless what the law actually says, there is a lot of talk out there, and sometime it sticks rightly or wrongly, and the word tax is toxic¹¹. 

 

Here is to be backup, take a look at this. Mitt Romney and President Obama have the exact same position on whether this is a penalty or tax, and when the American people are choosing between these two candidates when it comes down to this issue, there isn’t any difference. They read it as a penalty, and the people who would try to free load down the system and make all of us pay for their house insurance or to be penalized¹². And that was what President didn’t explain, and that’s just where this debate is. Now the fact is that there is a muddle¹³ of message and the Republican groups versus¹⁴ the Republic national committee versus what Romney and his campaigners said. I think that is a message confusion issue that they have on their side. Or when you just distill¹⁵ it down to, well, who this race is between, President Obama and Governor Romney, they are in the same place on this issue. 

 

Alright Fleischer, Bill Burton and Jeffrey Toobin, thanks of the review. 

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