MARC THIESSEN: Obama validates the conservative case against the employer mandate.

For years, the Obama administration has been arguing that all this talk from Obamacare critics about how the employer mandate creates an incentive to lay off workers or cut hours was nothing more than a right-wing myth.

Well, apparently they believe the myth at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. How else to explain the Obama administration’s decision yesterday to delay the employer mandate for businesses with 50-99 workers — removing the incentives for layoffs? The White House knows that the employer mandate is a job killer — and they can’t afford to have millions of Americans losing their full-time jobs right before the mid-terms elections.

But the administration is doing more than removing artificial incentives for layoffs. They are also using coercion to prevent them — by informing businesses with 100 or more employees that they will not be allowed to lay off workers to fit into the 50-99 employee category.  Indeed, the administration is requiring employers to “certify” on their tax forms — on pain of perjury — that they are not laying off workers to avoid Obamacare mandates.

Think about what that means: American businesses now have to justify to their personnel decisions to the IRS. If you’re a business with 101 employees, and you lay off two workers, you have to explain to Big Brother why you did it.