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The Vindication of John Roberts
American Thinker ^ | 11/19/2014 | Gene Schwimmer

Posted on 11/19/2014 5:12:10 AM PST by Servant of the Cross

At the time of this writing, six “Gruber videos” have been released and “gone viral,” as they say in YouTube land. These are the videos of course, in which “Obamacare architect” Jonathan Gruber lets the cat out of the bag on the process of enacting the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacare, aka The Greatest Consumer Fraud Perpetrated on the American People, Ever.

Of the many Gruber quotes burning up the internet, I was especially struck by this one, to which Charles Krauthammer refers in a recent article:

Gruber said, the bill’s authors manipulated the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, which issues gold-standard cost estimates of any legislative proposal: “This bill was written in a tortured way to make sure CBO did not score the mandate as taxes.” Why? Because “if CBO scored the mandate as taxes, the bill dies.” And yet, the president himself openly insisted that the individual mandate – what you must pay the government if you fail to buy health insurance – was not a tax.

Obviously, writing a bill “in a tortured way” to prevent scoring the individual mandate as a tax is to admit that the individual mandate is, in fact, a tax.

But the Gruber did something else, too, which was to trigger a memory of another, earlier quote (emphasis mine, citation omitted):

In answering that constitutional question [of whether the Affordable Care Act’s individual mandate is a tax], this Court follows a functional approach, “[d]isregarding the designation of the exaction, and viewing its substance and application.”

Such an analysis suggests that the shared responsibility payment [i.e.¸ the individual mandate] may for constitutional purposes be considered a tax.

(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...


TOPICS: Constitution/Conservatism; Culture/Society; Government; News/Current Events; US: California
KEYWORDS: aca; americanthinker; california; cbo; datamanipulation; dreadjohnroberts; geneschwimmer; gruber; grubergate; johnroberts; jonathangruber; nancypelosi; obamacare; robertscourt; scotus; scotusobamacare
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To: Servant of the Cross

“The IRS will hold back the amount of the fee from any future tax refunds. There are no liens, levies, or criminal penalties for failing to pay the fee.”

Is anyone sure this is entirely correct? The organization that withholds refunds is the Financial Management Service. This office can withhold refunds from any federal payment to a recipient.

So if you don’t have a refund to snatch up, they can also withhold it from future social security payments.

So if you try to get away with things by not doing insurance and structuring your taxes so you don’t get a refund (have to send a check every year), are you just racking up fines and interest that will ultimately taken from SS?


21 posted on 11/19/2014 5:44:56 AM PST by fruser1
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To: Servant of the Cross

Juan Roberts should be impeached.


22 posted on 11/19/2014 5:46:55 AM PST by VRWC For Truth (Roberts has perverted the Constitution)
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To: originalbuckeye
I do wonder what the evil ones have on him

Assume they have something on him. History would forgive whatever that is. History will never forgive that he traitored us on Obamacare.

23 posted on 11/19/2014 5:46:57 AM PST by grania
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To: Servant of the Cross
No vindication here.

Even if it is a tax, there cannot be a precedent set where Congress gets around the politics of passing a tax increase by lying that it's not a tax, only to have the courts later -- after it's passed -- rule to be, in fact, a tax.

The point is moot. The dirty deed is already done. The law is passed that otherwise might not have.

-PJ

24 posted on 11/19/2014 5:49:03 AM PST by Political Junkie Too (If you are the Posterity of We the People, then you are a Natural Born Citizen.)
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To: Iron Munro
After all - Obama and Holder still have the blackmail evidence and aren’t afraid to use it.

Nah. I'm pretty sure all Roberts would have to do today is take the kids to Mexico, then re-enter the country illegally. Then they would be amnestied. In fact, it would probably be a smart investment, as they would get illegal alien affirmative action preferences and benefits for the rest of their lives.

25 posted on 11/19/2014 5:50:38 AM PST by sphinx
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To: pgyanke

“compel free citizens to enter into private contracts”

Right - if the law was written such that you were taxed X amount and could deduct the value of privately obtained insurance from X, it would be more appropriate.


26 posted on 11/19/2014 5:53:55 AM PST by fruser1
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To: 9YearLurker
If it was, for Constitutional purposes a tax, then the bill needed to have originated in the House in order to be Constitutional

Also,,,it doesn't have a severability clause......so any part found unconstitutional makes the whole thing void...

and what about the many changes to the bill that were pasted in by Obama without any voting process.

27 posted on 11/19/2014 5:54:14 AM PST by spokeshave (He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people,)
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To: newfreep

“Than just repeal this “tax”....”

Plus, since the bill was passed under revenue rules, meaning they only needed 50 votes for cloture, that can bring a repeal to the floor w/50 too.

Too bad McConnell won’t do that, though.


28 posted on 11/19/2014 5:55:48 AM PST by fruser1
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To: Servant of the Cross
“This bill was written in a tortured way to make sure CBO did not score the mandate as taxes.”

Because it wouldn't have passed. Nelson, Landrieu and one or two others as well as some Blue Dogs in the House would not have signed on to a bill that openly raised taxes. It was worded to give those members cover when they voted for it.

29 posted on 11/19/2014 5:55:58 AM PST by randita (Obama entrusted the transformation of the best healthcare system in the world to a scam artist.)
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To: Kozak

“If in fact it’s a tax, and the bill originated in the Senate, then it’s unconstitutional.”

This is the black-and-white correct conclusion and at the time of the USSC decision I could not understand why this wasn’t offered as the straightforward reason why the bill had no legitimacy. It should simply have been erased just as if I had created my own bill raising my salary by 500 percent with annual cost-of-living increases of 100 percent. The ACA originated outside of Constitutionally-prescribed location just as does the “iacovatx pay fairness” bill.


30 posted on 11/19/2014 6:00:31 AM PST by iacovatx (Conservatism is the political center--it is not "right" of center)
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To: randita

“The Greatest Consumer Fraud Perpetrated on the American People, Ever.”.....

How are we to handle all those new “prisoners” who pulled that fraud off? Worse, what Attorney General will be the one to prosecute them all. That could take the rest of my lifetime.........
Geeeeeeeeesh, I wish you people would speed things up.


31 posted on 11/19/2014 6:00:55 AM PST by DaveA37
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To: fruser1

He’s a GD whore if he won’t.


32 posted on 11/19/2014 6:01:34 AM PST by OKSooner
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To: Servant of the Cross
At the time, I wrote that while Roberts' decision was wrong IMHO, his blow against the commerce clause uses was huge. However, I think the question of whether this as a tax "originated in the senate" has been run up the court chain and rejected. I don't see how, constitutionally, but someone correct me if I'm wrong, that has been the ruling.

It will for the next 30 or so years be impossible to know if Roberts was a traitor, a genius who thought he was handing the Congress a constitutional way to eliminate this, or a fool who bungled the law. Most Freepers think the former, but I'm not sure.

All that said, I COMPLETELY disagree with your approach that "well, look at all the bad stuff that happened and opened peoples' eyes." This is trying to win by losing, and is almost always a bad plan. I fail to see how we have gained by having this obscenity now fixed into American law. Yes, horrible laws can be overturned (Sherman Silver Purchase Act, Prohibition), but their destruction is not worth the object lesson.

33 posted on 11/19/2014 6:08:07 AM PST by LS ('Castles made of sand, fall in the sea . . . eventually.' Hendrix)
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To: C. Edmund Wright

I hated this article - queasy thesis, wrong conclusion.
_________________________________________________

I call the weak brained analysis verbal gymnastics. I do not care how they characterize it, forcing someone to buy something under duress, which means you are using state action to steal his personal property, has to be unconstitutional.


34 posted on 11/19/2014 6:12:27 AM PST by iontheball
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To: Servant of the Cross

I agree with what you said in #10.


35 posted on 11/19/2014 6:13:49 AM PST by Graybeard58 (Fear God, and keep his commandments: for this is the whole duty of man. Eccl 12 V.13)
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To: Servant of the Cross
What kind of "tax" is this, direct, income, or excise? Remember, "No capitation, or other direct, tax shall be laid, unless in proportion to the census or enumeration herein before directed to be taken."

Amendment XVI does not apply since this "tax"/penalty does not originate from income, just a refusal to purchase a good or service. "The 16th Amendment must be construed in connection with the taxing clauses of the original Constitution and the effect attributed to them before the Amendment was adopted." Eisner v. Macomber (1920)

Direct = goes against Article I S. 9. (Roberts avoided this issue especially tackling the enumerated "apportioned"/proportion aspect) Excise = some type of action that needs to occur, doing nothing and being "taxed" expands Article I S. 8 to perverted levels.

Roberts, if he claims this is a tax, has just given Congress the power to tax an individual for just existing along with the power to force the individual to purchase goods or services at the government's command. Read the Constitution/case law, I don't see anything that gives Congress the right to tax an individual based on "conscious continuity" or forces them to buy "anything".

The Founders would have probably tarred and feathered someone attempting to introduce a Negative Tax just for the pleasure of existing after coming off a Revolution for control of their colonies partly over taxation policies. Pro tip, head/poll taxes were instituted so that you could vote, which means an action "charged" for back in the day.

If this ACA penalty is not dead in the water, I figure someone who his forced to pay this "tax" will have a lot of merit for an appeal.
36 posted on 11/19/2014 6:14:16 AM PST by rollo tomasi (Working hard to pay for deadbeats and corrupt politicians.)
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To: Servant of the Cross
Nonsense.

It merely proves that Roberts is one of the stupid Americans Gruber was talking about.

37 posted on 11/19/2014 6:15:10 AM PST by Savage Beast (Hubris and denial overwhelm Western Civilization. Nemesis and tragedy always follow.)
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To: Servant of the Cross

Roberts had to twist and rewrite the law to make it “constitutional”, even though he knew better.

If you’re fined for an offense, such as speeding or hiring an illegal alien, is that a tax or a penalty? Well, the Obamacare penalty is the same thing as that.


38 posted on 11/19/2014 6:15:23 AM PST by TBP (Obama lies, Granny dies.)
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To: Servant of the Cross
 photo gty_john_roberts_obama_jef_120628_wblog.jpg The private swearing in.
39 posted on 11/19/2014 6:16:47 AM PST by RetSignman (Obama is the walking, talking middle finger in the face of America)
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To: iontheball

Isn’t that what every tax does? We are “forced” to buy fire trucks, police uniforms, road graders...and pay people to use them. If you fail to pay, what happens?


40 posted on 11/19/2014 6:17:24 AM PST by bigbob (The best way to get a bad law repealed is to enforce it strictly. Abraham Lincoln)
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