TRANSCRIPT & AUDIO: Supreme Court: The Health Care Law And The Individual Mandate Day 2

NPR ^ | 3/27/12 | SCOTUS

[Til I am the last man standing]

CHIEF JUSTICE ROBERTS: Why didn't Congress call it a tax, then? SG VERRILLI: Well - CHIEF JUSTICE ROBERTS: You're telling me they thought of it as a tax, they defended it on the tax power. Why didn't they say it was a tax? SG VERRILLI: They might have thought, Your Honor, that calling it a penalty as they did would make it more effective in accomplishing its objective. But it is — in the Internal Revenue Code it is collected by the IRS on April 15th. I don't think this is a situation in which you can say - CHIEF JUSTICE ROBERTS: Well, that's the reason. They thought it might be more effective if they called it a penalty.

[Til I am the last man standing]

It doesn't matter what Axelrod or Obama or Congress says. Obama's Solicitor General argued that this was a tax or withing the "taxing" power of the Congress.

[Red Steel]

Hmmmm... Except on the first day of the 3 days of oral arguments, Obama’s lawyers argued that it was NOT a tax.

http://www.supremecourt.gov/oral_arguments/argument_transcripts/11-398-Monday.pdf

The gooberment got to argue for the Commerce Clause, a penalty, an/or it was a tax if everything else failed.

Throw everything against the wall and hope something sticks. SCOTUS allowed for this idiotic BS.

Change the argument on the fly nonsense.

[Boogieman]

Sure, why not? Roberts said it was not a tax for the purposes of the injunction clause, but was a tax for the purposes of ruling on the mandate. Change arguments on the fly, change logic on the fly between opinions, whatever works to cram it down our throats!

[wildbill]

Everyone in the country should be required to read this oral argument transcript before commenting on the issue.

It’s long and somewhat arcane, but you can really get a sense of the various arguments—and why, in the end, Roberts made sure it was NOT a Commerce Clause issue.

I bet he horse traded with the 4 libs to find it Constitutional as a tax rather than via the Commerce Clause which would have been a very slippery slope for the future.

You can reduce taxes and coverages paid for by taxes much easier than repeal something that is set in stone under the Commerce Clause.