Hey, in case you missed it because the media cannot comprehend the impact of it, Obamacare died Monday afternoon.

Basically, this is true. Before you get overwhelmed with optimism and put on your Ronald Reagan straw hats and fire up the banjo bands, understand that the Czar is speaking from a practical standpoint. But this practical standpoint is far more than theoretical—the President killed it himself.

To back up a bit, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) is a non-partisan group—and in Washington, “non-partisan” means 90% liberal, 10% conservative—who issued a frank report that confirmed two things: first, that 31 million Americans will remain uninsured under Obamacare, whereas before the law it was only 30 million Americans. At best, the law has no effect. At worst, one million fewer Americans will be covered. Second, we learned that the employer mandate will cost America the equivalent of 2.5 million jobs. We say “equivalent&#148 here because the math doesn’t point to 2.5 million specific jobs, but enough lost hours of work to equate that much. This is a useful metric from the CBO because it factors in full-time jobs being cut to part-time, as well as medium-time employees cut to a few hours a week.

Democrats first attempted to explain this by refuting the conclusion: the CBO did not exactly say that Obamacare will hurt the economy—until one of the report’s writers came out and confirmed that, yes, that is what the report says. Democrats then had the temerity to suggest that this was a good thing because Americans work too many hours anyway. As far as the Czar can tell, that’s still the message. We have struggled to come up with an analogy for how pathetic an excuse this is, but everything we try winds up being less stupid. This may be the dumbest thing ever uttered in politics—well, until the next one comes along—and Dr. Krauthammer reasonably suggested this statement could well become the epitaph on the tombstone of modern liberalism.

In due order, of course, the White House quietly announced Monday that the employer mandate will be, um, postponed until 2015. Actually, more like 2016. And then, not all of it—there could be an additional delay until after 2016.

You might think this was a quiet concession that the White House concurs with the CBO report. The Czar recognizes that the White House has thrown in the towel and knows Obamacare is a failure. They blew it.

Here’s why.

In 2016, we will elect a new president.

If this president is a Democrat, he or she will be badly criticized as millions lose their jobs and tens of millions lose large portions of their paychecks to rising healthcare coverage costs, right in that first, critical year of the new presidency. If you were a Democrat, what would you do? You would either postpone the employer mandate again, or you would simply revamp the law—possibly with Republicans in charge of both houses. Or, you could terminate the law and be seen as a reformist hero. It will be one of these scenarios, but you would not bet that the president would commit political suicide by detonating the bomb on his or her watch.

If this president is a Republican, he or she will do exactly what Mitt Romney intended to do if elected and issue an executive order to exempt all Americans from the tax. Alas, President Obama made it extremely easy for presidents of either party, going forward, to issue all sorts of nolo exercere orders. Conservatives howled when Obama did it, but each time liberals told us to suck it. Within months, the law will be either repealed or neutered.

This is good news, right? After all, no matter who wins in 2016, the law will be dismantled simply because no new president wants that disaster happening in his or her first (and likely only) term. So we should celebrate.

Unfortunately, not quite. Because the concept of the employer mandate still exists even in theory, there is the threat of lingering economic uncertainty. By only delaying its implementation (or delaying its repeal), employers will be slow to hire and expand for that time as long as the possibility remains of enactment. That means that this sluggard economy will linger for another couple of years. The easiest way the President could focus like a laser on jobs is to eliminate the employer mandate entirely, admit the law is a near-total failure, and call for its dissection. This would restore significant confidence among employers, release all sorts of withheld cash accounts set aside to pay for the tax, and allow full-time hiring to begin in earnest.

This would, logically, call for Obama to swallow his immense pride and admit he failed. Think that will happen?

The Czar of Muscovy

Божію Поспѣшествующею Милостію Мы, Дима Грозный Императоръ и Самодержецъ Всероссiйскiй, цѣсарь Московскiй. The Czar was born in the steppes of Russia in 1267, and was cheated out of total control of all Russia upon the death of Boris Mikhailovich, who replaced Alexander Yaroslav Nevsky in 1263. However, in 1283, our Czar was passed over due to a clerical error and the rule of all Russia went to his second cousin Daniil (Даниил Александрович), whom Czar still resents. As a half-hearted apology, the Czar was awarded control over Muscovy, inconveniently located 5,000 miles away just outside Chicago. He now spends his time seething about this and writing about other stuff that bothers him.