[Political Junkie Too]

There is one last chance to have the Court reverse itself, but it will take a lot of coordinated effort and good timing.

Since Roberts did rule the mandate a tax, and Roberts said that a tax can only be challenged once it's assessed, then we have to have a tax assessed and then challenged as an unconstitutional tax.

We still have to have the Congress move to repeal Obamacare, but we also have to have a court challenge ready to go once the government begins to collect the tax.

Once a mandate tax is assessed, Republicans have to argue that the Constitution does not allow that kind of tax and then have SCOTUS take a second look at it.

The arguments for it being an unconstitutional tax are:

1. It's a tax on something that the Congress is not allowed to do.

2. It's a coercive contract, that is, it's a mandate that is hiding as a tax because of the prison penalty for failing to pay the tax.

3. It violates the 8th amendment protection against excessive fines or cruel and unusual punishment. The person has no choice but to comply with mandate by paying the tax. Being thrown in jail for refusing to purchase health care insurance from a private provider is excessive punishment It's cruel and unusual because the costs of jailing someone will far exceed the cost of health care for the person. The prison environment will be a lot less healthy for the person, too.

-PJ

[uncbob]

Since Roberts did rule the mandate a tax, and Roberts said that a tax can only be challenged once it's assessed, then we have to have a tax assessed and then challenged as an unconstitutional tax.

In order for that Obamacare will have to have been in place with its gaggle of new IRS agents bureaus etc etc and NO judge Roberts is going to tell him to dismantle it PERIOD

[fuzzylogic]

This is what I was wondering about too. I wasn’t sure if he actually ruled on it - he can’t rule on it until the taxes are received and a case made.

Fundamentally, shouldn’t the law be null anyway? For a tax it didn’t follow the correct congressional procedure, the wording isn’t “tax” either? How can a law stand as a tax if it isn’t declared in the law that it is a tax?

[ding_dong_daddy_from_dumas]

Since Roberts did rule the mandate a tax, and Roberts said that a tax can only be challenged once it's assessed, then we have to have a tax assessed and then challenged as an unconstitutional tax.

Unfortunately, if logic mattered, Roberts would have had to rule O-care unconstitutional. But he made it a tax to get around the limitation on the commerce clause, while making it NOT a tax for the purpose of getting around the problem of not being able to rule on a tax until it had already been collected.

[MortMan]

You might want to check out the fact that “direct taxes” that are not apportioned are unconstitutional, as well.