WHY JUDICIAL ACTIVISM ON SOMETHING SO CRITICAL TO AMERICA?

Ed Meese Explains Why the Sixth Circuit Was Wrong to Uphold Obamacare by Nathaniel Ward

A federal appeals court recently upheld Obamacare against a constitutional challenge to its onerous mandate provisions. Liberals were quick to argue that this ruling is an example of “judicial restraint” in action–the same restraint conservatives have long urged. The truth is that the ruling was an abdication of judicial responsibility, Heritage Foundation scholar and former Attorney General Ed Meese explains . Far from upholding conservative principles, Meese writes with Clark Neily of the Institute for Justice, the ruling does great damage to constitutionalism: Supporters of the law have made much of the fact that a conservative judge was in the majority. Whatever the merits of that judge’s analysis, it was not an example of judicial restraint properly understood. While restraint counsels against judges shaping the law to suit their own policy preferences, it must not supplant meaningful judicial review. Courts are responsible for enforcing constitutional limits on government power. The result when they abdicate that responsibility, as the Sixth Circuit did in upholding Obamacare, is the federal government we have today: spendthrift, unaccountable, and ever-expanding. A properly engaged judiciary would mean less government and a much brighter future for America. The courts have a role in setting things right and returning America to its constitutionalist roots, they conclude: Courts abetted America’s departure from the path of constitutionally limited government 75 years ago. Today, they can help guide us back to that path by affirming that the Constitution denies Congress more powers than it grants, including the power to micromanage individual decisions about health insurance. The greatest gift the framers gave us was limited government; but that gift is meaningless without judges who will understand and enforce it. Heritage’s Bob Moffit explained earlier this year why the individual mandate is an affront to liberty. What do you think? Was the Sixth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals right to uphold Obamacare as constitutional? The Burden of ‘Recovery’ The latest reports from the Bureau of Labor Statistics reflect a stagnant job market. The unemployment rate is 9.2 percent and the economy added only 18,000 new jobs in June. As this chart demonstrates, these numbers far exceed the White House’s 2009 projections for unemployment absent a “stimulus” plan. But it doesn’t have to be this way. The current problem is not an excess of layoffs — it’s a shortage of new jobs, Heritage Foundation policy experts Rea Hederman and James Sherk explain: New hiring has fallen sharply and has not recovered. Between the fourth quarter of 2007 and the fourth quarter of 2008, business hiring fell by about 20 percent. In the first quarter of 2011, employers hired fewer new workers than they did when the economy was melting down in the fourth quarter of 2008. Encouraging businesses to invest and expand—and thus hire—holds the key to reducing unemployment. Unfortunately, President Obama has subordinated the goal of creating a good business climate to his other policy aims. Read more and tell us what you think is the best way to encourage businesses to expand and hire new people.