Senator Rand Paul on opposing the health care law
Jeremy Hobson: We’ll start with some reaction to the Supreme Court’s historic ruling on President Obama’s health care law.
Senator Rand Paul is a Republican from Kentucky who opposed the law and opposes the Supreme Court’s decision on the law. Good morning.
Rand Paul: Good morning, glad to be with you.
Hobson: Well thanks for being here. I want to start by asking you about some comments that you made yesterday that have gotten a lot of attention. You said: “Just because a couple people on the Supreme Court declare something to be constitutional, does not make it so. The whole thing remains unconstitutional.” Do you stand by that statement?
Paul: You know, I still agree with Scalia, Thomas, Kennedy and Alito that the Constitution doesn’t justify the law.
Hobson: You’re agreeing with the dissenters — but that was not the ruling that the Supreme Court came down with.
Paul: Right, but that’s all I’m saying, if if you ask Justice Scalia if he thinks the law is Constitutional, he’ll still tell you “no.” So I’m entitled to have my opinion as to what is constitutional and what is not. No one’s talking about whether the ruling has validity or not, I’m just saying that I agree with the dissenters that don’t believe the law is constitutional.
And I think Madison would also agree. Madison said that the laws — you know, when we talk about the tax and spending power, that it’s regulated by the enumerated powers that are given to Congress. That the powers are enumerated doesn’t mean that you can have any sort of tax that you want to do any sort of policy you’d like.
Hobson: But you respect the ruling now that it’s the law of the land?
Paul: Yeah, nobody’s questioning the law, and nobody’s questioning the Supreme Court. So all the ridiculous left-wing bloggers need to get a clue. All I’m saying is that I agree with Scalia that I don’t believe the law was constitutional.
Hobson: Well what is the next step for you, Senator, in terms of getting this law repealed — which I assume you want to do now?
Paul: In that we need the ballot box, and I think this is going to energize the Conservative base; the Tea Party wing of our party. I predict that you’re going to see increasingly larger and larger crowds as we talk about trying to have an election where we overturn this. And by saying “overturn” this, it still doesn’t mean we actually overturn the ruling. There are a lot of things that could probably be deemed constitutional that we don’t have. But we can repeal this through an election.
Hobson: Senator Rand Paul is a Republican of Kentucky. Thank you so much for talking with us.
Paul: Thank you.
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