Posted on 11/16/2012 5:36:50 PM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
Edited on 11/16/2012 5:40:29 PM PST by Admin Moderator. [history]
I have been reading this Cato Institute legal research paper by Michael Cannon and it’s making me realize that the GOP governors could really make Obamacare a political liablity for the Democrats by refusing to set up a state run health exchange. It is a fascinating read and I highly recommend it. In summary, it looks like the Obama Adminstration ultimately is going to have to count on a second John Roberts rescue. Here’s why. First, from Philip Klein:
With the election over and Obama reelected, repealing the law is not going to happen over the next four years. So 30 Republican governors will have to make a decision about whether they want to help the federal government implement Obamacare, or keep the onus on the Obama administration.
One of the silver linings of the Supreme Court decision is that it gave states the ability to opt out of the Medicaid expansion. Medicaid is one of the programs that is crushing state budgets and if implemented as intended, Obamacare will add 18 million beneficiaries to the program’s rolls. Though the federal government lures states with a honey pot in the short term – covering all of the expansion through 2016, by 2020 the states will be asked to kick in 10 percent of the cost, amounting to billions of dollars of spending imposed on states nationwide each year. It would be to the long-term benefit of governors to opt (out) of the expansion...
That is a well-written and thoughtful piece. Good score, and worth preserving for future reference.
Roberts has two adopted kids, from Latin America, if I remember correctly.
It would be a damn shame if those birth mothers appeared claiming their kids were stolen, wouldn't it?
Traitor John Roberts File.
And that's exactly what will happen, eventually a Democrat will be elected Governor and that state will take the federal goodies never to give them back.
It is becoming more clear that 0bamacare taxpenalty is neither.
Besides, a tax on inactivity does not fall within the prescribed functions for which taxes may be levied, nor the forms of taxes permitted.
AND the bill originated in the Senate. All revenue bills (i.e., tax bills) must originate in the House.
“Either the tax has to be apportioned or it must be uniform”
Not true, methinks. All indirect taxes must be uniform and almost all direct taxes must be apportioned. The income tax, which is a direct tax, does not need to be apportioned, per the 16th amendment. No doubt the Obamacare mandate taxalty/penatax will be deemed an income tax.
By the way, the correct answer for what is the taxalty is that it is a tax on insurance owning status, and therefore an illegal direct tax. SCOTUS will, if it hasn’t already, declare it either an income tax or to not know what the hell it is except that it’s legal.
“a tax on inactivity does not fall within the prescribed functions for which taxes may be levied”
It is not so much a tax on nonaction as on the status of not possessing insurance. Which makes it akin to all manner of direct taxes, for instance the tax on having earned so much income in the last year or a tax on ownersio of property.
“nor the forms of taxes permitted.”
True. If it us a direct tax, and it is, it must be apportioned. If it is an income tax, which it isn’t, it wouldn’t need to. But it isn’t, so it doesn’t.
“All revenue bills (i.e. tax bills) must originate in the House.”
All spending bills must, too. So it was illegal on those grounds whether or not it made a new tax.
I read on FR fairly recently that the blackmail on Benedict Roberts re his cute adopted kids is that they are illegal because they came from !Ireland!. ~~~~~~ Makes sense to me.
That is a problem. They have justice Roberts by the short and curlies over the unorthodox adoption of his children. He would do anything to avoid losing his children.
What was it about the adoption of his children, I forget?
Roberts in this picture is beet-red. The younger man also needs a Mediterrean-diet, Omega-3 pills, Niacin, Folic Acid and Plavix.
*
It’s exactly a “tax” on inactivity. (Actually, it’s not a tax at all — it’s a penalty.)
“It’s exactly a ‘tax’ on inactivity”
Yes and no. Yes in the sense that the income tax, for instance, is a tax is effectively a tax on the activity that earned you income. No in the sense that the income tax, for instance, is a tax on the status of having earned a certain amount of money in a certain period of time.
I see where you’re coming from; it’s the same place that recognizes the absurdity of regulating inactivity. You can’t regulate something that doesn’t exist. But taxation is different: you can tax something that doesn’t exist by taxing the status resulting from its nonexistence.
“Actually it’s not as tax at all — it’s a penalty”
Absolutely, but as in many things SCOTUS forces us to play makebelieve.
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