I have a slightly different take. I believe that Roberts has cleverly boxed obama into a corner. There are so many interviews with dims and Obama indignantly proclaiming obamcare was not a tax. And now obama’s four supreme court lackeys call it a TAX to try to save the monster. By Roberts agreeing with their decision to call it a tax, obama has effectively enacted the largest tax increase in American history. Heck maybe the largest tax increase in the world.
You can just imagine the campaign commercials. And how does obama now criticize the supreme court? They saved his baby...but at what cost.
Every minute that goes by I see this more and more as an albatross for obama. heh heh Be careful what you ask for, you just might get it.
Leftists look long term. They don’t care about Obama. They want socialized healthcare entrenched so that it will never be repealed, like Social Security and Medicare.
Your take, like Roberts' decision is nonsensical and wrong, and by ruling as he has Roberts has just handed the Left a blank check; to the complete undoing of Constitutional government and even basic logic.
Congress' authority to tax presupposes the existence of a preexisting Constitutional authority for the purpose for which the tax is raised. That authority cannot be the taxing power itself, else there would need be no reason for the Constitution at all.
That is why people who actually understand the Constitution (for example: not John Roberts) realized a Constitutional rationale would have to exist for the imposition of this penalty or tax to begin with.
There is no silver lining.
America: RIP.
Exactly! And maybe Roberts saw that too. His ruling has thrown ObamaCare under the tax bus and it will be flattened. Remember that they passed it by swearing that it was not a tax, then argued before the Supreme Court that it is a tax.
Now, they have an increasingly unpopular tax/healthcare law that will not survive politically, financially or (if it ever gets that far) constitutionally. SCOTUS can not rule on the issue of taxation until somebody actually pays the tax in 2014 and files a suit. (Anti-Injunction-Act) That issue is still up in the air.
Every Democrat who voted for ObamaCare because it was NOT a tax, now has to defend their vote for it when it IS a tax. Vote them all out!
I can’t help but think that something is afoot. This week’s rulings on the surface are disastrous. When you get into the weeds, though, you see subtle legalities that only work in favor of a) getting rid of obama, and b) paving the way for future liberal political and legal defeats.
Still, I cannot see how you can argue that a) you can tax someone for commercial non-activity and b) a tax, that originated in the Senate is constitutional.