Crapo: GOP said all along it was a tax

The Republicans said all along that the individual mandate was a tax, Sen. Mike Crapo said this morning after the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the Affordable Care Act on that point. Democrats had insisted it wasn't.

“It's an incredibly big irony,” the Idaho Republican said.

President Obama rejected the GOP arguments that the penalties contained in the law amounted to a tax, and promised the American public he wouldn't raise taxes, Crapo said.. During the Senate debate on the Affordable Care Act, Crapo said he offered an amendment that would have stripped the bill of anything that violated Obama's pledge. It was rejected.

“Now, we're back into that argument,” he said. Although the law is constitutional, “this is still the bad law we said it was.”