Prior to this morning I had actually thought the law, specifically the individual mandate would be struck down.
This morning I woke up thinking there was a good chance I might be surprised at the ruling.
With the report the individual mandate had been ruled unconstitutional, I thought we had a victory. I never imagined Roberts would ‘create a tax’ against what Congress had as a single voice claimed they were not doing.
Roberts had every opportunity to study and understand Congress’ intentions here. There was plenty of public evidence that Congress had forcefully denied they were creating a tax.
Roberts should have held them to that. It seems to me that if you are a believer in original intent for some things, you should be in favor of it for other things. Evidently Roberts is quite selective in his belief in ‘Original Intent’.
There are two reasons I see to have thought this:
1) Wishful thinking, and I got pinged with lots of it here for sure
2) Media/Republicans hype over the justices critical questions on the mandate. This was coming on real strong.
So the 'conventional wisdom' was that the mandate would go. The 'wishful thinking wisdom' was that the whole bill would go.
The unpopular personal ‘mandate/fine/tax’ in the bill was so watered down it was a joke, and the theory was it would bring the whole bill down. The Federal government has been using the tax code to control us for decades, and if you dont pay your income tax you can go to jail or have property seized, unlike this joke 'mandate'.
While the Dems are celebrating and Republicans are commiserating all based on hyped ‘expectations’, we should learn exactly what was thrown out of the bill and how it affects it.