re: compared the mandate to the government’s ability to set speed limits on interstate highways
Just because government has done it doesn’t mean they have the authority to do so. It’s a habit they fell into well over a hundred years ago. Do something, and if no one can find a way to stop you, then by default you claim to have Constitutional authority to do it.
And over the years they’ve tightened their grip on this folly by making the laws more and more confusing and by making the judicial system to difficult and expensive to use that it practically assures they can get away with their BS.
It’s a vicious cycle and until someone steps in and disrupts it there is no hope of it changing.
Yep. See the Heller case for an example of that. The feds make it difficult to own certain firearms (blunderbuss, automatic-fire weapons), then in 2009 SCOTUS says the test for "constitutional" is "commonly available," which short barrel shotguns and machine guns are not, and they are not on account of roughly being illegal. Bootstrapping of an unconstitutional law, by the lapse of time. Same weapons WERE commonly available before the law was passed in 1934.
The federal government built the roads, so they had the power to set the rules for the roads.
The had the power to build the roads under the interstate commerce act, and also because the roads were deemed important for our national security, to ferry troops and munitions around the country.
But they never tried to require citizens to drive on the roads.
The problem is, they can easily word this in a way that makes it totally like something they’ve done before.
For example, they could simply pass a “medical care tax”, that applies to all Americans. Every person would pay the medical care tax, so it would be “constitutional” in the same way other taxes are constititional.
Then, they could pass a bill giving tax breaks to people who purchase insurance. They give tax breaks for all sorts of stuff — home insulation, child care, hybrid cars, attending college.
In the end, you would buy insurance, or else “pay the tax”, effectively giving the same result, but using widely accepted practices.
So while i totally agree that they have no constitutional authority to do this, We let the cat out of the bag a long time ago when we supported tax breaks for people doing “government favored” activity, like getting married and having children.
This is why I believe they made this a tax. And why Obama, who clearly doesn’t understand the constitution, sounded stupid when he said it wasn’t a tax — he thought they could simply make it a crime not to have health insurnace, but some staff member knew the way to do this we through the tax code.