Posted on 06/29/2012 9:09:23 AM PDT by 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.
(Excerpt) Read more at npr.org ...
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.
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!
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.
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