United Liberty

The White House has insisted that the individual mandate, the requirement on all Americans to purchase health insurance, is not a tax; even after the Supreme Court decision. President Barack Obama insisted on this point in a 2009 interview with George Stephanopoulos during the debate over the law. But within months after passage, the administration began arguing that the mandate was valid, not only through the Commerce and Necessary and Proper Clauses, but also through the Taxing Power of Congress.

While the furor over the Supreme Court’s decision in the ObamaCare case has somewhat died down over the last week — though there is little doubt that it’s still there, a new poll from Quinnipiac shows that Americans disagree with the White House over whether or not the individual mandate is a tax:

The Affordable Care Act (ACA) is a tax hike, American voters say 55 - 36 percent, but in a mixed message, voters agree 48 - 45 percent with the U.S. Supreme Court decision upholding the law, while they say 49 - 43 percent that the U.S. Congress should repeal it, according to a Quinnipiac University national poll released [Thursday].

The reason the Obama and company doesn’t want own up the tax angle is because this is a tax hike that would hit lower and middle class Americans the hardest. Raising taxes on the evil and hated rich is, apparently, one thing. But a politician admitting that he’s supported a tax hike on the middle class is unpopular.

This is a reason that Republicans should push the tax angle in the upcoming election, assuming Mitt Romney’s campaign doesn’t try to undercut them again.