Posted on 03/23/2010 9:46:46 PM PDT by jsdjason
Just a few salient points from the case closest to being on point regarding Congress trying to disguise an illegal regulation of interstate commerce as a TAX. Hint, this is exactly what they are arguing in this healthcare bill.
259 U.S. 38: "Where the sovereign enacting the law has power to impose both tax and penalty the difference between revenue production and mere regulation may be immaterial, but not so when one sovereign can impose a tax only, and the power of regulation rests in another. Taxes are occasionally imposed in the discretion of the legislature on proper subjects with the primary motive of obtaining revenue from them and with the incidental motive of discouraging them by making their continuance onerous. They do not lose their character as taxes because of the incidental motive. But there comes a time in the extension of the penalizing features of the so-called tax when it loses its character as such and becomes a mere penalty with the characteristics of regulation and punishment. Such is the case in the law before us. Although Congress does not invalidate the contract of employment or expressly declare that the employment within the mentioned ages is illegal, it does exhibit its intent practically to achieve the latter result by adopting the criteria of wrongdoing and imposing its principal consequence on those who transgress its standard."
259 U.S. 41: "the court, speaking of the extent of the taxing power, used these cautionary words:'There are, indeed, certain virtual limitations, arising from the principles of the Constitution itself. It would undoubtedly be an abuse of the power if so exercised as to impair the separate existence and independent self-government of the States, or if exercised for ends inconsistent with the limited grants of power in the Constitution.'"
259 U.S. 43: "The court, there, made manifest its view that the provisions of the so-called taxing act must be naturally and reasonably adapted to the collection of the tax and not solely to the achievement of some other purpose plainly within state power [my words: to regulate an authority solely within the state]. For the reasons given, we must hold the Child Labor Tax Law invalid...."
Posts like this are what made FR the powerhouse it is today. Nice!
I am ridiculously hopeful about all this.
Somehow I just can’t believe America is going to fall this far, this fast.
Perhaps I am a fool and will have mud on the face soon. But I really the DC judge and the Supreme Court will do the right, the only right thing.
Self tag for reference tomorrow when I’m awake and alert enough to read SCOTUS cases.
Can you forward that to the VA and Florida AG offices?
BTTT
This case should be a powerful weapon for McCollum. This was an 8-1 decision and written beautifully by Chief Justice Taft. If this was good enough for Oliver Wendell Holmes, one of the greatest jurists in our history, it’s good enough for me.
Thanks for this post.
Ping.
And without seeing this case O’Reilly called this exact point tonight...inflicting a penalty but calling it a tax is a ruse to skirt the law.
Let me ask you, what is to stop them from just amending the penalty into a tax, and then issuing a tax credit equal to the tax to all who purchase health insurance?
Granted they would have to force EVERYONE to file and the poorest to actually pay them, but wouldn’t that be an out?
I’m positive they are aware of it. I just did a quick LexisNexis search and it popped up near the top of my query, which was “the validity of taxes as regulation.”
But anyways, I shepardized and it has never been overturned, so it is good law, but has not been cited to that often in other cases. I think that is only true because we have not had many cases like that Bailey or like the one coming through the courts now. We are truly in uncharted territory, as even Bailey is not directly on point. In Bailey, they were trying to regulate child labor through a tax. Here they are trying to regulate mere existence as a U.S. citizen. This case should not even be close in my eyes.
"An act of Congress which clearly, on its face, is designed to penalize, and thereby to discourage or suppress, conduct the regulation of which is reserved by the Constitution exclusively to the States, cannot be sustained under the federal taxing power by calling the penalty a tax."
Yea isn't that the "tax" for not purchasing insurance?
Very interesing, however I don’t know how much faith I have in this current court, to get it right.
USUAL DISCLAIMER: I’m not an attorney...yet. But to answer your question, I think this is pretty much what they are doing now. They are disguising a penalty for not buying insurance by calling it a “tax” that the IRS will collect if you don’t buy. The “tax” is nothing more than a penalty. But the most perverse thing about all this is they are penalizing not child labor, not sex offenders, no nothing like that, they are penalizing you for being a citizen. Even illegals don’t have to pay the “tax.”
Gotta love ‘Big Bill’ Taft!!!
>regulation of which is reserved by the Constitution exclusively to the States<
have a cite for that?
bttt
Sadly, this was among many other cases that have been left stranded on the quicksand shores of precedent superceded by the so-called New Deal cases.
Dissenter was a ‘Wilson’ man, go figure.
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