Mandate

The Sun portrays the defeat of George Bush's immigration reform bill as due to the fact that he "failed to get [it] past his own party" ("Obama's mandate," Nov. 7). In fact, 15 Democrats in the Senate failed to vote for the bill; it would have passed with their support. Why not mention that as a reason why the bill failed, rather than blame it on Republicans? I thought all Democrats were for immigration reform. Perhaps President Obama should "start talking about climate change," but he should do nothing.

Regarding your editorial "Obama's mandate" (Nov. 7), can someone please tell me how much longer things will all be former President George W. Bush's fault? Brian Miller, Ellicott City

President Barack Obama won re-election yesterday thanks to a narrow edge in a swath of key battleground states. His prize: another four years as the leader of a sharply divided nation facing a series of seemingly intractable problems, chief among them the economy, the debt and employment. The first order of business must be to avoid the fiscal cliff looming over the country at year's end that will mandate tax increases and deep, across-the-board cuts to defense, entitlement programs and domestic spending programs unless he and Congress can agree on a way forward.

Thanks to Charles Campbell for his very enlightening commentary about the huge international costs resulting from our national ethanol mandates in gasoline, resulting in dire increases in food costs worldwide ("U.S. must abandon corn-based ethanol," Aug. 29). Looking closer to home, in addition to grocery costs, ask any waterman or boater on the Chesapeake Bay or elsewhere and you'll hear of the extremely common mechanical breakdown of marine engines due to the fact that ethanol absorbs water which then corrodes the fuel system from the inside.

A federal appeals court has granted a new hearing in a case challenging whether Baltimore can require faith-based pregnancy counseling centers to post signs saying they don't offer abortion or birth control advice and services. The decision filed Wednesday allows a rehearing before the full 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Va., voiding a decision made in June by a panel of three judges from the same court. The panel had voted 2-1 to uphold a lower court's opinion that the ordinance to require signs was unconstitutional, violating the free-speech rights of the pregnancy centers.

This year's drought has already raised wholesale corn prices dramatically, and consumers will likely soon feel the pinch at the grocery store checkout. Economists are warning of a 3-4 percent rise in food prices this year and next as well, an especially poorly-timed circumstance given the recent weakness in the economy. Nobody is feeling this pain more sharply than Maryland's poultry producers, who have traditionally relied on corn above all else to feed their chickens. They have called on theU.S.

I read with interest columnist Robert L. Ehrlich Jr.'s commentary regarding the recent Supreme Court decision on the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act ("Constitutional - but contemptible," July 9). I am still confused - indeed baffled - why the Republican Party proposed an individual mandate in 1993 as part of their response to the Clinton administration's health care proposal yet now consider it to be an assault on freedom. Several GOP senators who supported this bill are still in the Senate, including Sen. Orrin Hatch.

So much to say and only 800 words to say it. So let's break the Supreme Court's Obamacare decision down between the law, politics, and the real world. • The decision : A monstrous new social program was found constitutional. A mandate the president insisted was not a tax was found to be a tax - and fully constitutional under an aggressive interpretation of congressional taxing authority. It was indeed fortuitous for President Barack Obama that Chief JusticeJohn G. Roberts Jr. read the mandate as such; the majority opinion made clear his opposition to such drastic federal intervention under the Commerce Clause.

Remember in March, when former senator Rick Santorum got a lot of grief for saying that Mitt Romney was the "worst Republican" in the country to challenge President Barack Obama on health care reform? Well, turns out he was right. That was evident Wednesday when former governor Romney decided he couldn't leave well enough alone and, in a CBS television interview, declared Mr. Obama's individual health care insurance mandate was a tax. That directly contradicted what his campaign had been saying on the subject for two days and left the Republican in the uncomfortable position of having to explain why his own version of health care reform in Massachusetts, which also carried a mandate and a similar penalty, was somehow not a tax. The candidate's logic is, to put it kindly, nuanced.

When President Barack Obama at his inauguration swore upon his word to the "best of my ability to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States," he should have included, "except when I want to ignore it" ("Reform moves ahead," June 29). When our Constitution was ratified in 1789 it was the product of years of stubborn deliberations, significant writings, precise opinions and highly charged arguments between the most brilliant minds of the time. But it was because of this interplay that our Constitution has become the most important work in political history ever written for the establishment of a free and governed people.