Congress tried to make SCOTUS shine this turd, and Roberts told Congress and the American people to put their big boy pants on and clean up this mess that THEY MADE.
The limits on taxation are the votes of our representation!!!
That's the deal. Tax law can be changed every two years. Commerce Clause expansions can last centuries.
If we let a future Pelosi do this again, then we deserve it. If we're not going to participate in the political process, then SCOTUS has said they're not going to become a subcommittee of Congress.
Roberts put a wall up at Wickard. The Commerce Clause expansion of the last century has stopped.
The above could've just as easily come from Scalia, but if Kagan or Sotamayor had written the opinon it would've read like a Marxist manifesto. Remember, lower courts MUST use the reasonings in here immediately. This may have an effect on interstate CO2 regs, who knows?
For those who say this is a novel "tax." What is an earned income credit? It's a NEGATIVE TAX on income you didn't create.
Repeal it. It didn't originate in the House.
Kudo's to Roberts for telling the American voter to get their act together.
And so can the precedent of using the government's taxing powers to compel citizens to do anything the government wants. The individual mandate was upheld, which is the real bottom line. Trying to put a smilely face on this usurptation of our individual liberties is sophistry.
That is a nice sentiment, but Roberts is dead wrong. It is his job to determine the constitutionality of a law in accordance with the letter and spirit of the Constitution. What he did here was a violation of his oath. I would bet he didn't read this legislation before ruling on it. Nobody did. Both the law he ruled unconstitutional and his reasoning for upholding it were incomprehensible. Roberts has concluded that the Federal Government can compel anyone to do anything and if they don't do it, they can be taxed.
Eat your broccoli or be taxed.
Brush your teeth or be taxed.
Lose weight or be taxed.
Ride the bus or be taxed.
Don't have more than 2 children or be taxed.
What Roberts ruled in this case is 100 times worse than anything anyone could have dreamed. He has expanded the taxing power of the Federal Government beyond all limits. There is nothing that Congress cannot tax. The power to tax is the power to destroy.
Roberts should be impeached. However I believe he has secret plans to announce his immediate retirement.
Kudo's to Roberts for telling the American voter to get their act together.
You need to change your freeper name.
BS. It is the job of the SCOTUS to protect us from politicians who pass unconstitutional laws. This statement is a cop out. Roberts was wrong in his decision, he is wrong with this BS statement, he perpetrated a crime on the American people. His ruling is a contradiction. You can't say the commerce clause doesn't allow this and then turn around and allow it by defining it as a tax, which it isn't and never was intended to be a tax. According to Roberts we can be taxed for anything and be forced to buy, or do, anything the government wants or suffer a tax.
Get your head out of your a**, it smells much better out here in the fresh air.
I don't buy that. So, according to Roberts, Congress cannot legislate me to buy a product, as that would be unconstitutional. But Congress can *coerce* me, through punitive taxation, into doing what it cannot legislate me to do.
Am I to believe the Authors of the Constitution -- who were by no means fans of either government coercion or taxation! -- framed the Constitution in such a way that there is no practical limit to Congress' power to tax. Or rather, is it far more likely that this perceived "limitless" power of Congress to tax is pure bullsh!t, based on a gross distortion of original intent?
He could just as easily done that while throwing out the law. That he treated it as severable at all, much less offered his redefinition of interpretation, is totally out of line.
Also he had the perfect case to squash the abuse of the Commerce Clause and strike down Obamacare.
Lastly, he has thrown the door wide open for them to claim it is a tax, and see if there are enough tax paying voting citzens to do something about it.
I do not share your kudos for Roberts.
Yep, start with that (and I won't get into the monkey business of actual passage...) Then face the challenge from the first taxpayer who goes before the court to challenge being charged a tax for not doing something. This bill is far, far from being settled law, as much as the liberals want to imagine it is.
Would I have preferred Roberts to simply toss the bill in it's entirety? Yeah, I would have. Will I settle for vast openings to dismantle it as well as a 9-0 vote on the commerce clause being limited? I'll pop the bottle of bubbly for that and make ready for the next battle.
Kudo’s to Roberts for telling the American voter to get their act together.
Really the fake CC argument should have been an embarassment to any American who has a half a clue but I guess we have to pretend to take this rediculous stretch from the left seriously?
I mean the CC argument is elivilent to someone suing you because they slipped on an alleged banana peal on someone else’s property.
Although, it kind of makes Obama look like an ass or I should say even more of an ass. I mean he insisted in wasn’t a tax.
Now the left is spinning it as a win.
it seems nearly impossible that even bone head Team Obama will raise the needed taxes needed to fund this spruce goose.
Or, the votes to fund it...?
He could just as easily done that while throwing out the law. That he treated it as severable at all, much less offered his redefinition of interpretation, is totally out of line.
Sure, we just have to rely on our elected leaders right? Not like they have any real skin in the game. Their own health and retirement plan remains. I am entirely too pessimistic to attempt to see any silver lining to a ruling that could have killed the bill. I think the liberals on the court are laughin their butts off! Rely on the voters and who they elect to make it right? Ha! Have you seen who we have been electing for the last 20+ years?! Mostly traitors and Lilly-livered weasels. Roberts tried to be smart? Maybe, but he fooled himself and will be remembered as the guy who helped kill America.
I wonder how this same reasoning might apply to Roberts decision in the Arizona case.
If tax law can be changed veery two years, then how do we change the tax law ROBERTS enacted yesterday?
Tell me, how do we vote Roberts out?
When’s he up for re-election, and what is his district?
Sam Paine?
Please change your freeper name.
Samuel Paine is turning over in his grave today. John Roberts has declared the constitution to be nothing more than meaningless words on an old piece of parchment. John Roberts has expanded the power of the Federal Government beyond all known limits and has destroyed any semblance of Liberty that we once had in this country.
Don't torment Samuel Paine's soul by taking his name on this forum and then promoting the most massive government expansion against Liberty this country has ever witnessed.
Samuel Paine you are not.
Jim, could you force this guy to relinquish that freeper name and open it up to someone who actually believes in Liberty?
If The Supreme Court isn't going to clean up any unconstitutional mess, why do we bother taking any law to that court.
Roberts did shine this turd.
Tell me how ostensibly limiting the Commerce Clause has any meaning at all when the crackpot who supposedly did so voted to twist logic into a tornado pile to uphold the most vile, fraudulent “legislation” in history. Roberts is an anti-Constitutionalist fraud, and I can’t think of a man in America short of Obama who deserves more derision. Bob
First, the argument that the Court does not have the job of "protecting the people from the consequences of their political choices," is amusing nonsense. John Marshall demolished this argument with one phrase in 1803: “A law repugnant to the Constitution is void.”
The concept actually predates that precedent, and is articulated in a weaker form in The Federalist. It is the duty of the Court to protect the people from their political choices when those choices do violence to the Constitution.
If you don't understand something that basic, there really isn't a lot more to say to you.
That's the deal. Tax law can be changed every two years. Commerce Clause expansions can last centuries.
Actually even sillier than your last argument, and that's saying something. A law grounded in a precedent based on the Commerce Clause is no more durable than one based on taxation.
Roberts put a wall up at Wickard. The Commerce Clause expansion of the last century has stopped.
Rubbish.
Liberals no longer need the Commerce Clause, and in fact no longer need to make arguments about any specifically enumerated powers. Congress power to tax is now a justification IN AND OF ITSELF for any legislative undertaking. What part of precedent do you not understand?
This may have an effect on interstate CO2 regs, who knows?
Wow. Those rose-colored glasses of yours not only make you see things that aren't there, they also cause you to see things absolutely backwards: CO2 regs which involve a fine, penalty, or tax (they all do) will now and forever be inviolate and untouchable by the Court.
For those who say this is a novel "tax." What is an earned income credit? It's a NEGATIVE TAX on income you didn't create
Derp a lot?
Amendment XVI has long been recognized as a carte blanche and the EIC is no exception.
Repeal it. It didn't originate in the House.
Roberts has already ruled out that appeal, genius.
Roberts' opinion already violates the law by bypassing the Anti-Injunction Act. But never fear! Our intrepid amateur Chief Justice has a ready answer to that: The AIA doesn't apply because Congress didn't realize they were passing a tax when they passed it. So, the fact that this didn't originate in the house can't be challenged either, because Congress didn't realize it was a tax when they passed it.
Kudo's to Roberts for telling the American voter to get their act together.
He's an ass. And so is anyone defending him. Curses to Roberts' for failing so spectacularly to do his duty to support, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States. He has a lifetime appointment for a reason. Telling voters to do his job after he's failed to discharge it is a steaming pile of condescending "Roberts."
Not according to Mark Levin. The Roberts remarks about the Commerce Clause were from Roberts alone and were not part of the majority opinion.
Mark Levin, from http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/304459/mark-levin-not-so-fast-commerce-clause-kathryn-jean-lopez:
Notably, this does not explicitly state that the dissenters joined with the Chief’s opinion respecting the commerce clause. If five justices had intended for their view of the commerce clause to be controlling as the majority view of the court, they would have said so by joining or concurring in each others’ parts. They didn’t. There was no formal majority on the commerce clause issue. Should this matter come before a court again, it is not settled as a matter of precedent and no doubt the litigants will still be fighting over it.