Transcript...@Supreme Court: The Health Care Law And The Individual Mandate
It's got this little number in it...
The legislative history is replete with members of Congress explaining that this law is constitutional as an exercise of the taxing power. It was attacked as a tax by its opponents. So I don't think this is a situation where you can say that Congress was avoiding any mention of the tax power.
It would be one thing if Congress explicitly disavowed an exercise of the tax power. But given that it hasn't done so, it seems to me that it's not only is it fair to read this as an exercise of the tax power, but this Court has got an obligation to construe it as an exercise of the tax power, if it can be upheld on that basis.
Sounds to me like Congress knew it was a tax during debate.
@It Was Always a Tax
In part...Mr. President, the bill before us is clearly an appropriate exercise of the commerce clause. We further believe Congress has power to enact this legislation pursuant to the taxing and spending powers.
Snip...House Democrats likewise argued that Obamacare is constitutionally justified as an exercise of Congresss power to levy taxes and spend money. Thus, Rep. George Miller of California said:
A really good article, IMO.
Be sure to read this...
I rather liked this towards the end...
I love all of these posts. The more people see what was actually done the more irate they'll be.
In answering that question we must, if fairly possible, Crowell v. Benson, 285 U. S. 22, 62 (1932), construe the provision to be a tax rather than a mandate-with-penalty, since that would render it constitutional rather than un- constitutional (ut res magis valeat quam pereat). But we cannot rewrite the statute to be what it is not. [A]l- though this Court will often strain to construe legis- lation so as to save it against constitutional attack, it must not and will not carry this to the point of perverting the purpose of a statute . . . or judicially rewriting it. Commodity Futures Trading Commn v. Schor, 478 U. S. 833, 841 (1986) (quoting Aptheker v. Secretary of State, 378 U. S. 500, 515 (1964), in turn quoting Scales v. United States, 367 U. S. 203, 211 (1961)). In this case, there is simply no way, without doing violence to the fair meaning of the words used, Grenada County Supervisors v. Brogden, 112 U. S. 261, 269 (1884), to escape what Congress enacted: a mandate that individuals maintain minimum essential coverage, enforced by a penalty.
Our cases establish a clear line between a tax and a penalty: [A] tax is an enforced contribution to provide forthe support of government; a penalty . . . is an exaction imposed by statute as punishment for an unlawful act. United States v. Reorganized CF&I Fabricators of Utah, Inc., 518 U. S. 213, 224 (1996) (quoting United States v. La Franca, 282 U. S. 568, 572 (1931)). In a few cases, this Court has held that a tax imposed upon private conduct was so onerous as to be in effect a penalty. But we have never heldneverthat a penalty imposed for violation of the law was so trivial as to be in effect a tax. We have never held that any exaction imposed for violation of the law is an exercise of Congress taxing powerevenwhen the statute calls it a tax, much less when (as here)the statute repeatedly calls it a penalty. When an act
19 Cite as: 567 U. S. ____ (2012)
SCALIA, KENNEDY, THOMAS, and ALITO, JJ., dissenting
adopt[s] the criteria of wrongdoing and then imposes amonetary penalty as the principal consequence on thosewho transgress its standard, it creates a regulatory penalty, not a tax. Child Labor Tax Case, 259 U. S. 20, 38 (1922).
So the question is, quite simply, whether the exaction here is imposed for violation of the law. It unquestion-ably is.
http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/11pdf/11-393c3a2.pdf