CNSNews.com is still clinging to its misguided editorial policy of attacking anyone — well, any non-conservative — for claiming that the individual mandate in President Obama’s health care reform law isn’t a tax.
In a July 2 article, Patrick Burke goes back all the way to January 2011 to bash then-White House Council of Economic Advisers chairman Austan Goolsbee for claiming it’s not a tax.
In a July 3 blog post, Eric Scheiner asserts that calling the mandate a penalty and not a tax is a “Jedi mind trick.”
But as we’ve noted, Romney adviser Eric Fehrnstrom has pointed out that “the governor has consistently described the mandate in Massachusetts as a penalty” — and went on to defend that description. Of course, neither Burke nor Scheiner — like the other CNS writers making the same attack — mentioned that inconvenient fact.
CNS has noted the debate in Romney’s campaign over the issue — but not in an original article. It’s mentioned only in a July 4 Associated Press item.