"What's in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet."
Romeo and Juliet (II, ii, 1-2)
The sublime verse of Shakespeare comes as scant but welcome compensation to all of us who will endure the tedious semantical debate over whether Obamacare's individual mandate is actually a tax or not everyday until November 6th.
Whether it is or it isn't, Juliet's assertion is apposite here: By whatever name you want to call it (a "tax", "penalty", or "fee"), the fundamental issue is that the individual mandate -- and Obamacare, in general -- constitutes an additional expense on both individual Americans and businesses.
The contest over whether it is a "tax" or not is simply whether this fact is enveloped in a fatty layer of euphemism or not.
