I haven't suggested that the bishops will “capitulate,” if by capitulation one means that the bishops will generally voluntarily pay for the HHS mandate.
I've never suggested any such thing.
All I've said is that IT WILL NEVER COME TO GOING TO JAIL.
The standard way these things go is:
1. The federal government says ABC Co. owes the government a million bucks.
2. ABC Co. denies it.
3. The government and ABC duke it out. Maybe before an administrative law judge, or a federal court, or a tax court.
4. If ABC Co. wins (and once the government exhausts any appeals available to it), then all is well for ABC Co.! They don't pay, and they certainly DO NOT GO TO JAIL.
5, If ABC Co. loses and exhausts all appeals, well the, the government will expect its money. If ABC Co. refuses to pay, the government will send a note to ABC's banker, the holder of ABC's stock portfolio, etc., and will instruct these folks to forward the assets found within to the government.
ABC Co. is pretty much powerless to keep the government from raiding their accounts. No bank or brokerage is going to fail to execute this instruction from the government. The government gets its money, plus fines, penalties, interest, and goes away happy. ABC Co. is diminished by it. They didn't cooperate or capitulate, but the government got its money, anyway. But, and this is critical, NO ONE GOES TO JAIL!
6. If ABC Co. persists in the behavior (or lack thereof) that brings about the government's previous actions, the government will just provide a standing order to ship ABC's cash to the government from its accounts as soon as the money hits the accounts. And guess what? NO ONE GOES TO JAIL!
7. Eventually, ABC Co. will find it doesn't have enough cash to a) pay vendors; b) pay utilities; c) pay rents; d) pay its employees, etc.
When this happens, ABC Co. is pretty much out of business. The company must lay off its staff.
Once staff are laid off, then from the government's perspective, the issue is resolved. ABC, having no business, no employees, will incur no new violations of the civil code, and will thus stop generating fines, fees, penalties and interest.
AND NO ONE WILL GO TO JAIL!
Now, there ARE ways to go to jail when messing with the federal government. First and foremost is if you commit an actual felony that can be criminally prosecuted and that can draw a jail term. A lot of environmental protection laws are like that. Violate them and you could wind up paying fines and such AND going to jail.
But Obamacare is not such a chunk of law. There are no criminal penalties associated with failing to comply.
But, even if the underlying matter isn't a criminal matter, there are some ways you could go to jail. I doubt any bishops would do these things, because I think most bishops would hold them immoral. One thing you can do is lie to the government about your obligations to the government under law. If you have 100 employees and claim only 49 (since Obamacare only really applies with 50 employees or over), you could conceivably go to jail. Although there are probably a few ways you could game the system that, in the short term, would provide you the ability to maintain solvency, but would keep you out of jail. But if you lie blatantly enough, you might go to jail.
You could violate money laundering laws to keep your money out of the government's clutches. That could easily get you put in jail.
But I don't think the bishops will do that sort of thing.
No, DBeers, I'm not suggesting the bishops aren't resolute in refusing to obey the mandate. I'm saying failure to obey the mandate will only result in forced forfeiture of monetary assets. But, especially as Obamacare is presently written (specifically without criminal penalties), NO ONE WILL GO TO JAIL for failing to comply with the mandate.
The disingenuous part is not that they won't stay resolute, but that, despite their claims that they will go to jail rather than comply, THEY WON'T GO TO JAIL EVEN IF THEY DON'T COMPLY.
That's all.
sitetest
I've never suggested any such thing.
All I've said is that IT WILL NEVER COME TO GOING TO JAIL.
Okay. I apologize for the incorrect characterization.