On the question of repealing Obamacare:
The first question is, will the courts act on this. I think there is a very good case, a very strong case, you can make that the commerce clause has never been used to force an individual to engage a contract with a private institution, i.e., an insurance company, here.
Although — so I think there is a strong case. But I cannot imagine that the courts will overturn a piece of legislation this large. So, just as a practical prediction on this, I think it’s unlikely. Although I would like to see Justice Alito write the overturning opinion.
But then I think there is a larger issue here. I think ultimately Obama understands that he has just added an unbelievably large entitlement onto a country drowning in debt. He is not stupid. I think he anticipated this, and I think he, from the beginning, had a plan.
And the plan is he is going to use the deficit reduction commission, which will report only after November — and I’m absolutely sure it will recommend something new in American history, a national sales tax which is called a VAT [value-added tax] in Europe.
All the Europeans who have the kind of entitlements America is now going to have — health care and all the others — need the VAT, because it’s a gusher of income for the government. And once you have that — even the very small level of one percent or two of a national sales tax — that’s how the liberals think they will be able to fund this new, very expanded entitlement state.
It’s the way it’s done in Europe. It’s going to have to be done here. And that, I think, is going to be the argument in the presidential election of 2012.
On the agenda of the Netanyahu-Obama meeting:
The question is will they [the Obama administration] insist on no Jewish construction in Jerusalem. No government of Israel, left, right, or center, would ever accept that. But . . .
Israel wants negotiations. It’s the Palestinians who have said no negotiations unless you have got a [settlement] freeze, which has never happened in the 17 years of Israeli negotiations with the Palestinians.