Limited powers?

In Florida, this week or next, federal Judge Roger Vinson has said he may throw out several counts in the lawsuit filed by 20 states seeking to overturn the vast expansion of federal power under ObamaCare, but that he expects to allow “at least one count” to go forward.

Grounds for the challenge include the contention that Congress has no authority to require individual Americans to buy health insurance.

Meantime, a Michigan court on Thursday tossed out a request by the Thomas More Law Center to issue an injunction blocking the federals from taking any further steps to implement the law.

Given that the Supreme Court since the New Deal has proven reluctant to do its primary job — blocking the usurpation by the other branches of powers not specifically granted in the Constitution — do the ObamaCare challenges really have any chance?

The closely split court has had its statist wing reinforced by two recent Obama appointees. A dramatic, decisive and sweeping rebuff of federal expansion would seem unlikely.

On the other hand, some 60 percent of the electorate opposes the power grab, which may lend the constitutional wing of the court some added backbone.

And the grounds for legal action also continue to proliferate, including even a First Amendment challenge contending religious exemptions under the law are too narrow.

Oddly, the strongest arguments against the law come from those who step forward to support it.

USA Today reported Wednesday that Justice Department lawyers “argue that dismantling the statute … would be a first step in rolling back laws dating to the New Deal that have given the government broad authority to regulate the behavior of individuals and states.”

Read it again. Laws cannot give the central government new powers. Only constitutional amendments can do that. Any law that has “given the federal government broad new authority” is unconstitutional, and must be thrown out.

Finally, USA Today reports, “Supporters of the law say healthy people must be required to buy coverage to offset higher costs that insurance companies face under the new law — otherwise, insurance will be too expensive for everyone.”

Actually, private health insurance used to be quite affordable, before legislators started larding on politically popular new “coverage mandates.”

But more to the point, when asked for a constitutional justification for their mandates, the Obamaites merely argue it’s mathematically necessary to make their scheme work … at least for awhile, till all the private insurers go broke and they’re “oh-so-reluctantly forced” to impose socialized medicine out of whole cloth.

That’s like saying you have to rob banks to make the payments on your new mansion and sports car. If bureaucrats can usurp any power they find necessary to make their newest hare-brained scheme work, we no longer have a constitutional government of limited powers, at all.