The White House insists, pace SCOTUS, that the individual mandate in ObamaCare is not a tax.

White House spokesman Jay Carney told reporters traveling with Obama on Friday that the mandate enforces a penalty, not a tax, because people have a choice whether to obtain health insurance.

"You can call it what you will, but if [sic] affects 1 percent" of the population, Carney said, according to a White House pool report.

Apparently all the president's men have coordinated their stories, for here's one Jonathan Gruber, who made things even clearer:

Jonathan Gruber, a healthcare economist who helped design Obama's healthcare overhaul, made the same point as Carney on a conference call with reporters Friday.

"It's not a tax on the middle class," Gruber said. "It's a choice they're making."

So when I write a check to the IRS rather than take up residence in federal housing, it's strictly voluntary. I'm just making a choice. I hope the people who create Romney's ads saturate the airwaves with these precious sound bites in the coming months.

And who is Jonathan Gruber? Professor of Economics at MIT. A "numbers wizard." Apparently he skipped the classes in logic. See him here with his pet cockatoo.

Henry Percy is the nom de guerre for a technical writer living in Arizona. He may be reached at saler.50d[at]gmail.com.