The reasoning the Obama administration uses to justify the individual mandate is that the law is supported by Section Eight, Article One of The Constitution. This is also known as the “commerce clause” that allows for the government regulation of commerce and trade. The actual wording of the first part of the commerce clause is as follows;

“The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defense and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States…To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes.”

While The Constitution gives the government the right to regulate commerce, like health care for instance, it does not give the government the power to force anyone to engage in commerce. What this law is trying to do is force economic activity to happen so it can then be regulated.

Another argument in support of the law is that not purchasing health insurance would have a negative effect on in-state commerce and therefore can be regulated. The equivalent would be like punishing an SDSU student for not purchasing a book at the University Bookstore. Just because a producer has lower profits is not a reason to force citizens to engage in commerce and then punish them for it.

The last important aspect of any law that the Supreme Court examines is the precedent that the law would set. In this case, the individual mandate would set a horrible precedent. If this law is approved, it would give congress nearly unlimited power to control and regulate every aspect of the lives of American citizens. The government could mandate citizens purchase anything from vegetables to luxury cars.

This law should be ruled unconstitutional because the government cannot regulate someone solely due to the fact that they exist.

Anyone who has filled up at their local gas station has seen that the average price of gas is $3.84 per gallon according to AAA. In many parts of the country the price of gas is well over $4 per gallon. This increase is a painful cost for many Americans, especially in a fragile American economy. Something needs to be done to bring down the price of gas and our dependence on imported oil.

High gas prices have a negative encompassing effect on the entire economy by making everything from driving to production more expensive. Something needs to be done about the rise in prices to protect the economy’s slow and fragile recovery. What we need to do is to access the oil resources that we already have in the United States to bring down the price of gas and help our financial recovery.

Unfortunately, the administration is not as concerned about spiking gas prices as many of Americans are. It appears that President Obama’s Energy Secretary Steven Chu was quoted in 2008 as saying, “We have to figure out how to boost the price of gasoline to the levels in Europe.” Recently, his comments in front of the Senate Energy Natural Resources Committee suggest that the administration plan for high gas prices is not to lower them. They believe that the high gas prices will encourage the average Americans to use different forms of energy and to use more fuel efficient vehicles like the Toyota Hybrid and the new Chevy Volt.

The problem with this logic is that many Americans cannot not afford new technology like the Chevy Volt. In fact, Chevrolet has halted production of the new cars because they are being sold at a much slower rate then anticipated.

It will still be some time before a suitable replacement for gas and oil is developed and produced at a cheaper price than gasoline. There is no reason why the average American has to suffer at the pump when we can access our own oil here in the United States like the oil fields in North Dakota, where billions of barrels of oil are estimated to be. That is not even considering how many jobs would be created by harvesting those resources. Of course it is inevitable that oil and natural gas will be replaced by alternative forms of energy but that is the energy of the future, not of the present. The present, right now, is very important and we need to utilize all the resources we have to keep our economy afloat.

Anyone who watched or read President Obama’s State of Union address a few weeks back saw a very rosy picture of the state of our nation, a representation that unfortunately is not true. The fact is the President still has not learned anything after the midterm election two years ago. Despite the president’s claims, the country is still in rough shape economically.

While Obama listed reasonable goals like bringing down unemployment by starting new jobs and reducing our reliance on foreign oil,Obama also preached unity and urged the country to come together to climb back to prosperity. Most of the speech as expected focused on the jobs and the economy, but it was more of the same, like the last three years. Obama, during his whole term in office has made promises and then failed to keep them. His policies have not only failed to improve our economic situation but have stunted the country’s economic recovery. This speech was more about Obama rallying his base then laying down a successful plan to improve the economy and reduce the national debt.

The content of his speech was nothing new, the president still wants to tax and spend our way back to prosperity even though the results have been minimal at best. Once again the president dumped the blame on everyone but himself, portraying a professor scolding his students. Again he proposed bigger government over creating an environment that encourages job creation.

Another interesting aspect, I noticed, never mentioned in the speech was the Keystone XL oil pipeline that would run from Texas to Canada. Obama shot down the proposal that would have brought tens of thousands of jobs to the United States, including South Dakota. Not to mention the added benefit of bringing down gasoline prices, this would have an exponential boast to the economy as well — another of his “goals”. But inexplicably he rejected this proposal. Obama talked about rewarding businesses to create new jobs in the U.S., instead taking them to overseas to countries like China, which is what this particular oil company is considering now.

It appears he would much rather give millions and billions of dollars in bad loans to green energy companies like Solyndra that went bankrupt and fired all their workers. This is just one example of how the current administration says one thing and does another.

The current system cannot keep up with  growing costs; for the first time since 1983, the costs of benefits will be greater than revenues coming into the program. This means that Social Security is now in the red and will continue this trend into the foreseeable future.

According to a Gallup poll earlier this year, most Americans believe that the costs of Medicare and Social Security are creating a crisis now or will sometime in the next 10 years. If we continue in this direction the Social Security trust fund will become exhausted and there will not be anything left for younger generations: our generation, which is something no one wants to see happen.

We cannot afford to stick our heads in the ground and pretend there is not a problem.

The best way to make the needed adjustments to Social Security is to enact reasonable reductions to benefits, such as raising the retirement age to reflect the rise of life expectancy. These changes would not affect those who are already receiving benefits from Social Security. Other options include decreasing benefits for higher-income Americans who tend to have more retirement savings and who will not need the same level of benefits as the average American. This is fair because it reflects a person’s lifetime earnings.

Changing Social Security would not be throwing Grandma under the bus despite what some critics might say. Reducing benefits is not an attempt to strip these social programs; they are an attempt to preserve Social Security for later generations.

If the Obama administration is really open to restructuring and revamping programs like Medicare and Social Security, then they should consider more reasonable measures, not writing IOU’s and sticking their heads in the ground.

The cost of these benefits contributes to the budgets deficits that many state governments now face. According to Milton Ezrati, senior economist at Lord Abbot & Co. in a column by Patrice Hill in The Washington Times; “The $3.4 trillion total set aside for public pensions understates the burden for states and taxpayers since the plans collectively are underfunded by as much as $2.5 trillion…The undeniable fact is that most states and municipalities offer more generous pensions than they can afford”. What this means is that state governments like Wisconsin need to make cutbacks or else they will be forced to increase taxes and layoff workers.

One reason for the expensive costs of these benefits is because many public unions give millions of dollars in campaign donations to politicians who support big government. According to The Washington Times, public employees gave $77,722,313 in don