The payroll Inquisition

In response to Obamacare’s Directive 10-289:

I kept waiting for some kind of punchline to this story, some walkback that would make it less creepy and totalitarian, but no, they’re serious.  They really are going to make executives sign Thought Crime affadavits swearing that they didn’t have any regime-disapproved ideas in their heads when they fire people.  The perjury trials ought to be interesting, as inquisitors use… what, statistical analysis?  Whistleblower testimony from disgruntled ex-employees who swear they heard the boss complain about ObamaCare right before he fired them?  A history of political donations to Dear Leader’s opponents? … to “prove” that certain managers were lying when they swore they didn’t cut hours to evade the mandates.  I’m sure the process will be conducted with the stringent non-partisan corruption-proof professionalism we’ve come to expect from Obama’s IRS.

Or maybe they won’t even bother with show trials, trusting that the requirement sends the proper message.  What they really want is that stack of signed paperwork “proving” that the coming recession wasn’t caused by ObamaCare.  I don’t think anyone in the business community should be willing to give it to them.  Resist, resist, resist.  Tell them to shove their totalitarian paperwork where the sun doesn’t shine.  Explain that your hiring and firing policies are absolutely no business of Barack Hussein Obama, or any of his minions.  

Look at it this way: if every businessman in America refuses to fill out these Thought Crime affidavits, then nobody gets the illegal exemption from the employer mandate Obama is trying to hand out.  What a triumph for the rule of law that would be!  Instead of getting folders full of talking-point ammo, let’s see to it the actual consequences of the law these nitwits passed occur, and the full weight of the consequences come crashing down on them.

Is it hopelessly antique of me to be troubled that the President is proposing to unconstitutionally wave a tax by executive fiat, in exchange for signed documents expressing support for his political agenda?  

Here’s a question that occurred to me earlier this afternoon, which I’ll throw out there for all my Conversation colleagues to take a swing at: why confine these Thought Crime prosecutions to ObamaCare?  Why not force businesses to sign affidavits swearing that they won’t fire anyone in response to the next minimum-wage increase?  That would be right in line with the “Atlas Shrugged” scenario you mentioned.  Wouldn’t it be great for the Left to have a cabinet full of paperwork “proving” that a minimum wage hike didn’t kill any jobs?

As you noted, the very fact this requirement has even been proposed is proof that Obama and his allies know damn well what the employer mandate is going to do to the job market.  If ObamaCare was so wonderful, we wouldn’t be watching the President illegally delay portions of it a dozen times.  If Obama’s objective was to free Americans from the slavery of employment, he should have mentioned it once during the campaign where he postured as a job-creating dynamo of economic growth.  

If Republican candidates in 2014 have any political skill at all, every Democrat in the land will be made to choke on this nonsense.  They’ve all got to be sweating bullets right about now.