[publiusF27]

The question is rhetorical, but not legally meaningless. Sanchez and Sonzinsky specifically say that they are sustaining the taxing power, and that what is before them was NOT a regulatory penalty.

Congress and the President, both in speeches and by rejecting the word "tax" in favor of the word "penalty" in the final version of the bill, have specifically said that this is a penalty, not a tax.

I note that you did not address this point, nor the significance of it:

'Few principles of statutory construction are more compelling than the proposition that Congress does not intend sub silentio to enact statutory language that it has earlier discarded in favor of other language.'

Is the Court really going to go fishing around for a source of Congressional power that Congress itself specifically rejected?

[Mojave]

Sanchez and Sonzinsky specifically say that they are sustaining the taxing power, and that what is before them was NOT a regulatory penalty.

Would you mind providing me with the quote where that is specifically said? What I read in Sonzinsky was, "Every tax is in some measure regulatory."

The question is rhetorical, but not legally meaningless.

Sonzinsky said otherwise: "Inquiry into the hidden motives which may move Congress to exercise a power constitutionally conferred upon it is beyond the competency of courts."

I note that you did not address this point, nor the significance of it:

Okay, the district court judge, in a memorandum on a motion, said that "the penalty here is not a tax, and a regulatory penalty must be supported by an enumerated power other than the taxing power." The purported absence of a single word seems to be a very slim reed for him to use to arrive at that conclusion. Apparently the language says neither "regulatory penalty" nor "tax penalty", so he concludes that it must be a regulatory penalty. He then asserts that a "regulatory penalty" can't be imposed by a tax, apparently based on some penumbral emanation he intuited that congress can't simultaneously exercise multiple powers. (Just a quick reminder here: "Every tax is in some measure regulatory.")

Didn't I already just finish pointing out to you that the Supreme Court in Helvering and in Flemming refused to hold Congress subject to inflexible language requirements? Didn't I point out that Social Security was premised on the General Welfare, as well as on taxing powers? If Social Security can stand on the General Welfare, how then is that different from the healthcare bill? Far from failing to address your arguments, I anticipated them and tried to keep them on point with the Social Security vs healthcare question that I previously raised.

Did you not see that? Or did you not want to?