TMJ 4: Sen. Johnson on Supreme Court ObamaCare case: 'Pivotal moment in American history'
On the day the United State Supreme Court wraps up the oral argument phase of the case involving ObamaCare's insurance mandate Wisconsin's junior senator calls the case a "pivotal moment in American history.
"I certainly understand the seriousness of the moment and the historic nature as the moment," Senator Ron Johnson told Newsradio 620 WTMJ's Gene Mueller during "Wisconsin's Morning News."
"This was the reason I ran, the passage of the health care law, I really view as the great assault to our freedoms in my lifetime."
The court is deciding whether it is constitutional or not to require individuals to buy health insurance. Johnson believes that Justice Anthony Kennedy will have the deciding vote in what is otherwise known as a split court.
"Justice Kennedy framed the issue with great clarity when he said, right out of the box, basically said 'Can you create commerce in order to regulate?' Can the federal government force an individual to engage in commerce, buy a product for the purpose of being able to regulate it? He said that if that is the case, that changes the relationship of the federal government to the individual in a very fundamental way."
Johnson claims that for decades, the federal government has taken away individuals' freedom to make their own decisions.
"The precedent this is all based on was 70 years ago, when the Supreme Court ruled in a unanimous decision that a wheat farmer could be fined for growing wheat for his own personal consumption," Johnson told Mueller.
"I can't think of any more basic freedom, more basic human right than growing food for your own purposes, yet the federal government, 70 years ago, said 'No, we can regulate that.' We're begging the federal government to let us be able to decide what products we actually buy. If the Supreme Court doesn't allow us that freedom, what is left?"
The Senator says he ran and won his seat based on his opposition about the ObamaCare plan.
"We need to bring free market reforms. We need to get government out of health care, instead of interjecting more government into it."
