Yes he did. Now congress can pass a tax on anything or nothing. I think it’s pretty clear that this is the first tax for not purchasing or using something.
Let’s see: first Bob Tyrrell, and now this clown, masquerading as a constitutional scholar. The “backlash” against the “backlash” campaign seems well and truly under way, with the “silver lining” crowd trying to recapture their lost ground.
Not buying.
Did’t Roberts set dangerous precident by changing the wording in a statute under review in order to approve it?
Couldn’t future courts do the reverse?
Once upon a time an old man was trying to nap in the town square in Hammama, while some children exuberantly kicked a ball. Eventually their youthful play became too boisterous for the old man to ignore. He sat up and said, "Why are you children kicking a ball in the square in Hammama on such a hot day? Don't you know that over in the square in the next village they're handing out oranges?"
Upon hearing this, the children ran off, leaving the old man to drowse in peace. But within just a few minutes, he sat up, scratched his head, and thought, "Why am I napping in the square in Hammama on such a hot day, when they are handing out oranges in the next village?"
Conservatives, sadly, seem to have a capacity at least as large as the Arabs to delude themselves, as this article (and many others like it) prove.
Here's just one example of how tortured the author's "thinking" is in the instant case: He claims that people with the same income are paying two different tax rates if one buys an electric car, while the other fails to, because there is a tax incentive to buy electric cars. So far, so good... He then assures us that this is the same thing as paying a higher tax rate if one doesn't insure for health care.
"Consequently" he reasons (and I use both words very guardedly with respect to this author) Congress already has the power to do what Roberts' claims in his ruling.
But he is apparently unaware of the nature of the argument against the mandate. Whatever the tax consequences, neither of the taxpayers' in his example is forced to buy an electric car. Both make a voluntary decision. Neither would pay any penalty for refusing to buy a car. The author's argument that the differential tax rate is the same thing as a mandate to buy health insurance is as silly as the argument that I did not buy my daughter a car this year, but my neighbor did, and that therefore I have "saved" $30,000.
This idiocy has to stop.
The people trying to make an argument that Roberts has handed the left a stinging defeat are jackasses, and they need to be anathematized from conservative, libertarian, and Constitutionalists' company.
We lost. The decision is a shattering betrayal of the concept of limited government. It is the Dred Scott decision of our time.
Hey Trende, Roberts voted with Kagan, Ginsburg, Sotomayor and Breyer! Do I need to say anything more? He’s a freaking, cowardly traitor!
There is so much social engineering already in the income tax code that either taxes you; or exempts you from taxes; or grants you a “tax credit; that I don’t really know why this particular one makes people more upset than all of the other ones...
Yeah, maybe this one is the first one to “penalize you for not doing something” but that is just one little slip down the slope from all of the paragraphs that “reward you for doing something” that have been in the income tax code for decades.
...traitor Roberts commanded that, unlike any other tax in US history, the Obamacare tax cannot be constitutionally challenged once it takes effect.
the treasonous bastard is a one man Warren Court!!!
Justice Roberts actually echoed the same reasoning as a prior Justice Roberts in regarding the federal power to tax and spend for the “general welfare,” in U.S. v. Butler, 297 U.S. 1 (1936) regarding the Agricultural Adjustment Act. http://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/297/1/
That Justice Roberts (for the Court) stated:
“The clause thought to authorize the legislation, the first, confers upon the Congress power ‘to lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States. ...’ It is not contended that this provision grants power to regulate agricultural production upon the theory that such legislation would promote the general welfare. The government concedes that the phrase ‘to provide for the general welfare’ qualifies the power ‘to lay and collect taxes.’ The view that the clause grants power to provide for the general welfare, independently of the taxing power, has never been authoritatively accepted. Mr. Justice Story points out that, if it were adopted, ‘it is obvious that under color of the generality of the words, to ‘provide for the common defence and general welfare’, the government of the United States is, in reality, a government of general and unlimited powers, notwithstanding the subsequent enumeration of specific powers.’ The true construction undoubtedly is that the only thing granted is the power to tax for the purpose of providing funds for payment of the nation’s debts and making provision for the general welfare.”
In that case, as in the current case, the Constitution grants the power to lay taxes for the common defence and general welfare of the United States. However, this does not extend to the creation of a federal program that exceeds the limits of the enumerated powers and invades or compels an area reserved to state jurisdiction.
Looks to me that these principles were decided decades ago.
What a friggin' ASS CLOWN.
Transcript...@Supreme Court: The Health Care Law And The Individual Mandate
It's got this little number in it...
The legislative history is replete with members of Congress explaining that this law is constitutional as an exercise of the taxing power. It was attacked as a tax by its opponents. So I don't think this is a situation where you can say that Congress was avoiding any mention of the tax power.
It would be one thing if Congress explicitly disavowed an exercise of the tax power. But given that it hasn't done so, it seems to me that it's — not only is it fair to read this as an exercise of the tax power, but this Court has got an obligation to construe it as an exercise of the tax power, if it can be upheld on that basis.
Sounds to me like Congress knew it was a tax during debate.
@It Was Always a Tax
In part...Mr. President, the bill before us is clearly an appropriate exercise of the commerce clause. We further believe Congress has power to enact this legislation pursuant to the taxing and spending powers.
Snip...House Democrats likewise argued that Obamacare is constitutionally justified as an exercise of Congress’s power to levy taxes and spend money. Thus, Rep. George Miller of California said:
A really good article, IMO.
Be sure to read this...
I rather liked this towards the end...
I love all of these posts. The more people see what was actually done the more irate they'll be.
Right. Sure.
And this is why Scalia and Thomas dissented.
COME ON, GET A CLUE.
Silly me. I thought the purpose of a tax was to raise revenue. Roberts says it can be used as a punishment imposed on those who fail to do what the government wants them to do. I also thought a tax was constitutional only if the revenue it raised was used to fund the common defense or promote the general welfare. If Roberts wanted to OK the mandate under the government’s taxing power he should have said so and sent it back to Congress to be re-written as a tax law. But no-—he, in a classic example of judicial activism, re-wrote the law himself.
Uh...what?
This is crap. The outcome is everything. This entitlement is the final nail in the American coffin & it will never be undone. SCOTUS was the last hope.
Since all this bullshit would be impossible without the 16th Amendment, it confirms my suspicion that we have always been potential slaves ever since the the Marxist abomination known as the "progressive" income tax was implemented.
Repeal the 16th Amendment, and there is no such thing as a non-apportioned direct tax, thus there is no effectvie mechanism for Congress, the President, or the Judiciary to enslave the People in this manner.
Income taxation has always represented the power to turn us into virtual slaves, and it's time to admit the truth and repeal this central plank of the Communist Manifesto.
So whoever doesn't like this decision (I sure don't) should change their focus to repealing the 16th Amendment, IMHO. The enforcement and taxation mechanism under which this tax is being justified is the income tax, and I just don't see how the ferragummit could justify such power in the absence of the 16th Amendment.
To me, this is an epiphany. I've always hated the income tax, and now I see more clearly than ever why. The 16th Amendment is Tyranny incarnate...
