fed s argument? jim engle knows. a bit of a conflict for the administration here. reporter: well, yeah, in order to fend off the lawsuits from some 20 states and any number of individuals, abdel basaet al-megrahi the justice department is flatly disputing the president s earlier remarks you mentioned, those in which you insisted the individual mandate to buy insurance is absolutely not a tax. the justice department was apparently having some difficulty identifying a constitutional reason, a constitutional power to force people to buy insures shaourpbs insurance so the administration is now arguing that it is a tax and part of the government s power to raise revenues. part of the administration says the individual mandate is a form of a tax increase while the president has argued exactly the opposite. megyn: it s in writing in the lee albrief saying this is essentially a tax and we ve passed it pursuant to our power to tax which is a 180 from what president obama said in that abc
pressure readings they do suspect that possibly a leak could occur, so they are watching this very closely. bp has to provide the federal government and admiral thad allen immediate notice on this. as soon as that happens they will immediately open up the pipelines up to the ships. megyn: it s a nice picture to see without the oil gushing. everyone is being cautiously optimistic for the time being. phil, thank you. the obama administration today is taking new heat over the federal healthcare overall. critics of the president s healthcare plan originally attacked it as a new tax, a claim the president tpaeup us lee denied going so far as to argue with an abc news anchor over the dictionary definition of the word tax. now that the justice department is defending against healthcare lawsuits, meaning lawsuits challenging the new law and the individual mandate in it guess what they are using as the cornerstone of their, mean the