Commerce Clause For Alarm

Megan McArdle sees this week's ruling on the health insurance mandate as a victory for liberty, and has some questions about the Commerce Clause.

I have been reading a lot of well-meaning liberals who are befuddled by the notion that conservatives are going after the mandate, when that runs the risk of bringing on single payer.  Personally, I kind of doubt that, but this is completely beside the point.  On a reading of the commerce clause that allows the government to force you to buy insurance from a private company, what can't the government force you to do?

This doesn't seem to be a question that interests progressives; they just aren't very excited about economic liberty beyond maybe the freedom to operate a food truck.  And so they seem genuinely bewildered by a reading of the commerce clause that narrows its scope, or an attempt to overturn the mandate even though this might lead us into a single payer system.  If you view this solely as tactical maneuvering, perhaps it really is preposterous.

And of course, for some conservatives, these operations are tactical, but for a lot, it's an actual horror at the ever-expanding assertion of government powers.  I'd like it if they'd get equally horrified about, say, the TSA and the drug laws, but there you are: neither side is as consistently supportive of liberty as I'd like.

While I agree with Megan that draconian TSA and drug law provisions are harsh, there are far worse things our government does now (up to and including assassination of US citizens without due process in the name of Warren Terrah).  A provision to buy health insurance is driving conservative-minded libertarians crazy, but the power to declare war, wiretap our citizens, turn our schools into joyless boxes where kids have no rights, causes nary a blip on the radar.

I'm supposed to believe that the Commerce Clause is the worst thing the government has ever done?  It's not even the worst thing the government has done this year.

Please, save your outrage for things that matter.  The government can already compel citizens to do anything it wants.  Equating the health insurance mandate with the far worse things done in our name is what's truly preposterous.