Hi jrgquirino,
Please allow me to address a couple of things that you mentioned in your last post.
For my last statement, neither you or the the others have made sense in your responses. In my last statement, let me remind you, that I said how the The Affordable Care act is in place like a law. Yet the President has dared to challenged that all the way up to the Supreme Court.
I wouldn't quite word it this way. The president did NOT challenge the ACA (Obamacare) in court. He certainly didn't file a lawsuit against it. In fact, the case that the U.S. Supreme Court will hear about Obamacare was filed while Obama was still president.
So, what did President Trump do? He publicly challenged individual parts of Obamacare that could be handled via legislation. After all, Obamacare was just that -- legislation. So, he pushed the Republicans to strike down the "individual mandate." He supported legal challenges against religious (faith) exemptions to the ACA legislation when it comes to contraceptives and abortion.
The individual mandate was a perplexing part of the law that required people who did not have insurance to buy insurance or face a very large tax penalty. That penalty was 2.5% of your yearly household income or $695 per person -- whichever is higher. For people who were earning a decent income yet still could not afford insurance, that was a very large financial hit -- a tax for simply being alive.
As favored by President Trump, Republicans in Congress changed the law to effectively eliminate what Obamacare architects designated as the "Shared Responsibility Payment." So, the new legislation made that penalty nothing ($0).
President Trump did not do this unilaterally. He did not act on his own -- because a president does not have that authority.
Other challenges to Obamacare happened even before President Trump was elected. For instance, the Hobby Lobby decision happened in 2014. As a result of that case, Hobby Lobby (a private company) had a religious exemption that was upheld. This exemption was one in that they did not have to provide contraceptive coverage that was part of the mandates from the Obamacare law.
This had an important moral component. Remember when Sandra Fluke, a 30-something year old student at Georgetown University was trying to sue in order to force the school to provide contraceptives. The issue was that Georgetown is a religious college. As a Catholic school, the ACA would force it to:
1.) Violate its own doctrinal views on contraceptives; and,
2.) Provide sexual contraceptives to unmarried students.
Obviously, there was a conflict of interest built into the Obamacare law. While not everything in the law was wrong, the fact that it would violate the free exercise of religious faith (for individuals and religious organizations) was wrong and unconstitutional.
In the case of Hobby Lobby, an existing law (known as the Religious Freedom Restoration Act) was used as the basis to protect businesses -- comprised of individuals -- the same protections as the individuals. This would allow religious organizations and even private corporations with a strong religious component from violating the free exercise of the faith of the owners.
The irony is that the law itself was passed in 1993 -- when Democrats controlled both houses of Congress. Yet, ironically, these were the same individuals who opposed its use in the Hobby Lobby case. Apparently, they wanted a law that didn't protect the actual free exercise of Christians if that free exercise included views that differed from their own sociopolitical groups.
Either way, the law and the Supreme Court decision was passed before President Trump was elected. So, the notion that President Trump challenged the ACA all the way to the Supreme Court isn't true. He simply urged and supported challenges to the law. A president does not have the power to challenge it unilaterally (due to the limits placed upon his office by the Constitution).
There is a case on the docket that will be heard by the Supreme Court on November 10, 2020 (eight days from now). The case is actually two separate cases: CALIFORNIA v. TEXAS and TEXAS v. CALIFORNIA. The Court decided to consolidate and hear both cases at the same time since they address the same (or similar) constitutional issues. The constitutional issues that are being decided are:
(1) Whether the individual and state plaintiffs in this case have established Article III standing to challenge the minimum-coverage provision in Section 5000A(a) of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA); (2) whether reducing the amount specified in Section 5000A(c) to zero rendered the minimum-coverage provision unconstitutional; and (3) if so, whether the minimum-coverage provision is severable from the rest of the ACA.
Texas v. California
(1) Whether the unconstitutional individual mandate to purchase minimum essential coverage is severable from the remainder of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act; and (2) whether the district court properly declared the ACA invalid in its entirety and unenforceable anywhere.
The future of the ACA (Obamacare) is at stake in both of these cases. Simply put, the Supreme Court is going to decide whether or not the lack of an individual mandate (or an individual mandate of $0) that was a requirement in the ACA (as it was rewritten) will now make the law null and void in its entirety.
The Court could rule that the law is now unconstitutional. At that point, the ACA would no longer exist. Or, more likely, the Court would allow it to continue for a specified period of time until it could be either revised or replaced in a way that would make it constitutional.
Otherwise, the Court could decide that the law can continue to exist without this particularly crucial part (the individual mandate).
Either way, the decision by the Court will be momentous. Allowing it to stand without a fundamental part within it would mean that the ACA is here to stay -- but without a federal mandate that forces all Americans to buy insurance. Moreover, the Court could even go so far as to prohibit states from penalizing individuals and families with their own individual mandate via a STATE tax penalty (which became the law in California in 2020).
Many liberals in America actually want the law to be declared unconstitutional so that it would be replaced by their own version of "universal healthcare" (which they favored before the ACA was created). Essentially put, they are looking for either a single payer system or some other type of universal system that would replace the current healthcare system in America.
This would set up a major battle for control of Congress in 2022. I suspect that Democrats (if they continue to control the House and won control of the Senate and White House) would try to rush such a bill through Congress and make it the law of the land before the 2022 elections.
How then so you and everyone else who tries to cover the evil sins of this man say that he cannot but yet he challenges the ACÃ?
Which man are you referring to? President Trump? Which "evil sins" are you saying that "you and everyone else" are trying to "cover up?"
I think that you misunderstand the position of believers when it comes to President Trump. Sister Natalie (romanchog) is correct when she stated that it is the work of the Holy Spirit to change society. I don't think that ANY believers would try to "cover the evil sins" of anyone. Rather, this election is about policy.
With this in mind, the hearts of individuals influence morality. Morality influences policy goals. Policy goals result in bills. Bills become laws. Those laws affect society.
Arguably the greatest power that a president has is that of nominating justices to the Supreme Court and lower courts. Whereas Congress and states pass laws, the Courts decide whether or not those laws are constitutional.
During the Great Depression, President Franklin Roosevelt was having difficulty with part of his "New Deal" economic policies. He was facing opposition by courts. So, he devised a plan to pack the courts. This failed miserably. Most Americans saw through his efforts -- no matter how noble they may have been (or not).
So, FDR began to appoint new justices when older Supreme Court justices retired. In some cases, he convinced some sitting justices to retire (under dubious circumstances). Over the course of his presidency (roughly 12 years), he appointed EIGHT out of the nine members on the Supreme Court. He shifted the Supreme Court very notably to the left.
This was the beginning of very apparent ideological appointments. This continued through the 1970s when the court had shifted to a center-left position. During that time, liberal politicians began a secularization of their states. Prayer in schools was unconstitutional. Teaching about Judeo-Christian individuals (like Jesus or Moses) was opposed. Abortion was legalized.
Things changed a bit when President Reagan was elected. He installed more conservative justices that counteracted the more liberal justices. Yet, even one of those justices (Sandra Day O'Connor) was more of a moderate. Bush added Clarence Thomas and moderate/libertarian David Souter. Still, this brought near-balance to a court that had shifted to the left for a half-century.
The most crucial thing that President Trump has done was appoint three justices to the Supreme Court who are conservative in how they interpret the law. That is, they interpret the law on the basis of the original construction of the law.
In the Book of Acts, Paul the apostle used the Roman legal system to carry out the work of Christ. Once, when he was to be released from prison, he demanded that the magistrates escort him out of the prison -- because he knew that they had broken Roman law (for which he was a citizen). He later used that legal system to "appeal unto Caesar" -- despite being innocent of the accusations against him for which he would have been released.
The Constitution is not a perfect document. However, it was inspired by many men who believed in our Lord. The very first clauses of the very First Amendment was to prevent a state-established religion and, simultaneously, to protect the free exercise of one's faith.
If nothing else, I am very happy that President Trump has nominated three individuals who have a record of protecting a "right" to exercise one's faith.
If your major concern is in regard to abortion, then there is no greater step that President Trump could have legally taken than to nominate (and have confirmed) three justices who will view the issue of abortion from this perspective. Abortion was not legal in this country until a stacked court decided it was due to a "right of privacy" (via Roe v. Wade in 1973).
I'm not saying that these justices (or a majority) would overturn Roe v. Wade. However, I do think that they would agree to states that restrict access to abortion and not view abortion as any sort of intrinsic constitutional "right."
Each day, my wife and I pray about this. Moreover, we also pray for the President, Vice-President and other political leaders. We pray that they will yearn for God as much as we yearn for the Lord.
At the same time, we are under no deception that you can legislate salvation or a revival of faith in God. However, there is a "immorality" in this world that is counter to "morality." There is a commonly understood view that law is based upon the consent of the majority governed. Human law exists because of the morality of those consenting to be governed by those laws and representatives.
While standing in one hearing, Paul said that he would not appeal if he had done anything deserving of death (according to Roman law). Yet, he knew the law and knew that he was innocent. So, he appealed unto Caesar. In this election, we are appealing unto God to influence the laws by which we -- the elect -- can appeal to earthly magistrates regarding the issues that affect us.
I hope that this makes sense. While writing it, we had a power outage. My desktop computer (that I was typing
this on) wouldn't restart. After prayer, I decided to reset the CMOS on my motherboard (by removing the internal battery on the motherboard). Thankfully, my computer restarted! To my astonishment, when I restored by browser, this message was still in the text box!
The Lord bless you and keep you!
