85Wall Street Journal A Romney ad attacks Obama for earlier saying health-care law is "absolutely not a tax increase." http://on.wsj.com/OJewt4 #scotus
When the Supreme Court gives you lemons, make… a tax ad.
That’s at least what the conservative advocacy group Americans for Prosperity did less than 24 hours after the high bench upheld Democrats’ health-care overhaul, putting more than $8 million behind a TV spot that calls the law “one of the largest tax increases in American history.”
“President Obama promised us his health care law is, ‘absolutely not a tax increase,’” the ad says, pulling the last five words from a 2009 Obama interview. “Now we know that’s not true.”
Seemingly minutes after the court ruled the health-care law is legal under Congress’ taxing authority, conservatives made a coordinated pivot to attacking the law as a tax increase, referring to the penalty some Americans will have to pay if they decline to purchase health insurance.
The conservatives’ attack line could be risky for Mitt Romney, who enacted a very similar mandate while governor of Massachusetts.
AFP president Tim Phillips said he hadn’t fully anticipated the court’s reasoning, but noted, “if they were going to uphold it, this was the most helpful way to uphold it.”
“This is indeed a tax increase,” he said. “We’re not going to let the debate move on to other issues, as much as the president would like that.”
Mr. Obama, meantime, is expected to tout the more popular parts of the law, such as its requirements for insurance companies to cover those with preexisting illnesses and children as old as 26 though their parents’ health plans.
The AFP spot is running in Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Wisconsin and Minnesota, the last of which has not been a usual target for Republican
