The GOP has been on an economic wrecking mission ever since the election of Barack Obama - indeed we now know that leading Republican strategists and legislators met and planned a course of economic sabotage and complete obstruction on Obama's very first day in office.
This obstruction has had a huge price - a deliberate price that the GOP is betting the American people will blame on President Obama. GOP obstruction did not prevent the passage of ARRA - the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act - popularly know as "The Stimulus" bill of 2009 during the height of the economic disaster as the economy was falling off a cliff - the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office estimates that ARRA has saved up to 3 million jobs. But nearly every economic measure since then has been blocked by GOP obstruction, filibusters and brinksmanship.
What has been the result of GOP obstruction? It is hard to quantify what constant obstruction has cost - you could tally up estimates of every measure that came along, but not all would have passed - nor even been introduced if previous measures had been adopted that obviated their need. But we can look at just two big examples and get a minimal measure of the human cost to American citizens of a deliberate policy to destroy the economy in order to bring down the president; 1) austerity, and 2) obstruction of the 2011 American Jobs Act.
Austerity is madness - many in the GOP actually believe that austerity during an economic downturn is the right thing to do - even 'socialist' Europe was convinced of this - although most realize it is not true, and has no history of success - even Mitt Romney unwittingly admitted as much in an unguarded moment. But that hasn't stopped savage austerity on the state and local level - which has cost over 600,000 public sector jobs so far.
Normally in a recession and recovery government at all levels increase public employment - this has happened in every GOP administration - and much of that increase is funded by federal government grants to the state and local governments. But since the Stimulus, the GOP has blocked any substantial help for the states, and in GOP led states severe austerity cuts have been the rule - even including GOP governors rejecting projects fully funded by the federal government. The economic cost of this is far more than just those 600 thousand jobs - the spillover effect on private business and local economies has been devastating - when you factor in all these effects the total job cost of austerity has been estimated at 2.3 million jobs.
President Obama proposed the American Jobs Act in his 2011 State of the Union address, and spent the next year promoting it at every opportunity. Although expensive - in contained a combination of tax cuts and increases, along with direct spending, designed to increase consumer spending and lower the cost to business of hiring new workers. The CBO said the bill would not only have paid for itself within 10 years, but would have reduced the deficit by at least 6 billion dollars. According to an analysis by Moody's it would have created about 1.9 million jobs.
The result of GOP obstruction with those two things cost us 2.3 million jobs and 1.9 million jobs respectively. US employment as of May 2011 is about 155 million jobs, which means those 4.2 million jobs that the GOP has prevented account for 2.7% of the unemployment rate. But let's be fair, there is a small amount of overlap in those jobs - a small portion (about 8%) of the American Jobs Act would have gone to State and Local governments to pay for teachers, first responders and the like - although for the most part it would have just prevented further layoffs rather than resulted in new hires. Also it is very likely that without the economic wrecking of GOP obstructionism the labor participation rate would be higher - so instead of a reduction of unemployment to 5.5% it would be slightly higher, but still well under 6%.
Now just for fun, consider if we had done during this recovery what every GOP administration has done, and substantially increased public sector employment.
That is the human cost of GOP economic obstruction.
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The argument that the government cannot require citizens to pay for something they don't want to is childish and wrong. It happens all the time. Taxes, licenses, garbage fees. So they pretzel their logic to say that what makes it unconstitutional is making people purchase it from a private source, even though you can be coerced to buy from the government - such as Social Security and Medicare social insurance contributions. Again, nonsense. One of the earliest acts of the Republic was to require merchant marines to buy private hospital insurance. Another required all free men of militia age to purchase and keep a firearm. Laws against public nudity require the purchase of clothing from private sources.
The 'broccoli' argument is the most absurd. Usually run along the lines of "if the government can require you to buy health insurance, what is next, broccoli?". As if the idea of buying broccoli is so morally bankrupt that anything that starts the slippery slope that ends with broccoli is evidence of unequaled tyranny. Here's the thing, not buying health insurance is very very costly, since lack of insurance does NOT prevent the delivery of medical care, it just pushes the cost onto others. This is not theoretical, we know that right now, every private health insurance policy in America is about $1000 more expensive because of the cost of treating the uninsured. People who can afford insurance but choose not to buy it are transferring real and substantial costs to others. This does not happen with broccoli.
On legal and logical grounds the case before the Supreme Court is groundless. But this is a political court, and this is a partisan political issue, so here it is. We know that a solid majority of the court is aligned with the political forces that want this law overturned. But will they?
Consider this. This court took this case politically, they will rule on it politically. But what is the bigger picture? Chief Justice Roberts is already worried about his troubled legacy, particularly due to his pivotal role in the disastrous Citizens United outrage. Scalia is concerned about his own reputation for making principled judgments narrowly focused on the minutia of constitutional law and history, yet always seems able to bend them to reach his desired political result. Alito is shedding his "Scalito" reputation as Scalia's second vote. Kennedy, who values his role as 'reasonable swing vote' has been anything but, he almost always swings right in politically charged cases. Only Thomas is unapologetically always political. The other 4 conservatives have reasons concerning reputation and legacy to at least consider being something other than a rubber stamp. But they are still going to make a political decision in this case.
What factors might influence their political decision? Well ... there is an election going on. What do you suppose will be the political fallout of a decision that overturns, or guts the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) just three months before the election? Probably not much on the presidential race, by all accounts the GOP will be putting up the most unpopular nominee in decades (no matter who gets the nod), so they will depend on their Citizens United enabled billions to use saturation attack ads to close the gap. The presidential election will depend on if overwhelming advertising is enough to decide the vote. But that is not the only election. The GOP has a commanding majority in the House to defend, and only need switch two or three seats to take the Senate. But in the aftermath of an anti-Obamacare SCOTUS decision, what happens? Outrage and anger in the Democratic base, and not a few independents too. When they lose it, they will suddenly notice all the very popular things in ACA that they and even Republicans like and overwhelming want, all taken away. Lots of outrage and anger.
Elections very seldom turn on persuasion, they are decided by which side is most effective at turning out its partisans and discouraging its opponents partisans - that's how negative ads work, they don't change minds, they make people stay home. But an anti-Obamacare decision will angerize the Democratic base, and they will turn out in numbers not seen since ... 2008. The GOP base is already energized in its hatred of Obama, and an anti-Obamacare decision will not increase that, indeed they may become less energized in their satisfaction with the political win and its slapdown of Obama.
So there you have it, the most likely political outcome of the Supreme Court overturning or gutting Obamacare will be new and larger Democratic majorities in the House and Senate - with the ability to repair Obamacare, or even replace it with single payer. That is what those four conservatives will have to consider while making their political decision on Obamacare. Are they willing to make a bad decision, that fulfills their partisans' political desire to kill Obamacare, knowing it will lead to GOP defeat and lasting harm to the conservative movement? Or will they burnish their reputations and save the GOP (despite itself) by reluctantly upholding it.
I don't know, they have proven themselves to be incredibly reckless, but I think there is a very good chance that at least one of them will choose to make the right decision for all the wrong reasons - and one is all that it will take.
UPDATE June 28, 2012
ACA UPHELD by US Supreme Court
It is surprising that the remaining 4 conservatives - including the so-called 'moderate' Kennedy - all dissented and were apparently willing to completely overturn ACA despite the likely adverse consequences for the GOP. However - I suspect one of the other conservatives would have found a reason to switch his vote if Roberts hadn't - partisanship trumps ideology for this conservative block, which is why they are always willing to be the most extreme 'activists' to uphold GOP interests no matter how much they claim to be strict constructionists.