I am still pondering the President’s plan for the individual mandate. I realize that the executive branch has been given a lot of leeway in implementing the Affordable Care Act but his recent actions concerning the individual mandate are humorous at best.  Just last year the Democratic party railed against the Tea Party as legislative arsonists for their efforts to defund Affordable Care Act. Here is a Nancy Pelosi quote from Mediate.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi appeared on State of the Union Sunday morning to discuss the looming budget showdown, and told host Candy Crowley that the House GOP, which just passed a continuing resolution that did not fund ObamaCare, were legislative arsonists intent not on cutting government but crippling it.

Although defunding the Affordable Care Act was not likely even to the Tea Party faithful there was a lot of political agreement by both parties to postpone the individual mandate. Postponing the individual mandate was the political middle ground since it polls badly and it is an election year. When life gives you lemons, make lemonade. The Administration had a great opportunity to give a little on the individual mandate in exchange for laying the ground work for bipartisan cooperation in fixing the Affordable Care Act. The greatest political opportunity to rescue the Affordable Care Act was staring the administration in the face and they fumbled it. Now we find that their plan is to postpone the individual mandate by executive order! They chose the solution with all of the problems and none of the benefits. I don’t get it! It is as if the Administration is deliberately setting fire to their signature legislation. Can we discern a difference between the Administration’s handling of the Affordable Care Act problems and the efforts of the Tea Party last Fall? Therefore if we  believe Nancy Pelosi’s definition that acting like a legislative arsonist is one of  the defining characteristics of the Tea Party then it follows that the President must have joined the Tea Party.