"Hatch just wants to sink it, whether it's unconstitutional or not"

By GottaLaff

Here's another L.A. Times letter to the editor that I found interesting, this time on the health care mandate:

Hatch and Utah Atty. Gen. Mark Shurtleff write: "The mandate that individuals obtain health insurance . . . would be the first time in American history that Congress has required all Americans to purchase a particular good or service."

That's incorrect. We are already forced by the federal (and state) government to buy goods or services we might not desire. The feds require me to buy Social Security insurance; the state requires me to buy disability insurance.

The feds can coerce states into action when the general public welfare is served. The federal government can withhold educational funding to states that don't implement the No Child Left Behind Act. In the 1970s, it threatened to withhold highway funds to states that didn't implement the 55 mph speed limit.

Amar makes sense: The healthcare bill is constitutional.

But that really doesn't matter. Hatch just wants to sink it, whether it's unconstitutional or not.

He sure got that last part right.