Krauthammer On Romney & ObamaCare: To Be Consistent And Logical A "Mistake"

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"I think this attempt, as you just heard, to be consistent and logical on the issue is a mistake," syndicated columnist Charles Krauthammer said about senior Romney adviser Eric Fehrnstrom not believing the individual mandate is a tax. "Even Chief Justice Roberts, in his opinion, is totally twisted in trying to decide if it's a tax or a penalty. In fact, at one point in the decision he says that for the purposes of the Constitution it's a tax, but for the purposes of the Anti-Injunction Act, an arcane reason why the suit would be invalid in the first place, it is not a tax, it's a penalty."

"So even he didn't have it straight. So don't worry about getting into a twist over this and forget about consistency. Use whichever end of the argument you need at the time, it's exactly what Democrats are doing," Krauthammer said on the panel segment of FOX News' "Special Report."

"What Romney ought to say is, 'Okay it's a tax and it's like many of the other taxes heaped on to you by ObamaCare.' The augmentation of the capital gains tax, the tax on medical devices so every time you need a stent you're actually indirectly paying a tax on this. And say this is just one of many things that you have to do to sustain a system, a law, that the CBO says will cost $1.76 trillion," Krauthammer said on Monday night's broadcast.

"The money is not coming out of heaven like manna, you're going to have to tax people for that. This is one of the many taxes. Stick with that, run with that and then use other arguments in other places. But trying to square a circle that even Roberts isn't going able to, I think is a mistake," Krauthammer concluded.