Posted on 07/06/2012 4:25:12 AM PDT by ShadowAce
OK, this was this first thing that sprung to mind last week when SCOTUS announced its decision. Since then, I've been surprised by both the Administration's response and the media. No one has brought this up:
Since the opinion read like Obamacare is only constitutional as a tax and not under the Commerce Clause, and since (to my utter surprise) everyone in the administration insists on calling it a penalty and not a tax, doesn't that make the whole law unconstitutional?
Why is everyone going along with the idea that the law is OK no matter what it is called when the ruling made it very clear it is OK only as a tax?
Doesn't this give Congress the go-ahead to nullify it even without a vote?
Why yuh gotta be a hate-uh? /s
The court said the mandate wasn't valid under the Anti-injunction Act as such.
The court said the mandate wasn't valid under the Commerce Clause either.
Those two rulings make it very clear it must be a tax in order to be Constitutional.
You also see in the ruling where the government changed positions and basically said, ‘fine...it is a tax.’ And argued that it was a tax. Now the regime is standing by post ruling saying it is NOT a tax.
There is the other saying too...when your enemy is falling on his sword...don't stop him.
The intent of the law before the ruling was it was not a tax under the two provisos. The court struck that idea down.
The intent of the law was not to lay it as tax, but the court said it looks like duck, quacks like duck...then it must be a duck.
Post ruling they are still crowing it is not a tax...?
Then logically, they cannot implement it and the government committed perjury in the Supreme Court in an attempt to argue the law as a tax.
I just want to point out Obamacare wasn’t challenged in toto. The court, unless I’m mistaken, only considered the Medicare and individual mandates. It can be challenged again and again as other issues arise, like forcing religious institutions to violate their beliefs by providing insurance with contraceptive and abortion services. It’s NOT carte blanche for the administration to do whatever it wants.
Additionally, even the individual mandate stands only as an income tax. It can be legislatively rescinded.
Oh brother!
Maybe they can nullify the law of gravity (without a vote) while they are at it too.
.....then nullify Obama’s 2008 election without a vote.
You think congress has a magic genie?
Basically, what happened was that the Senate took an unrelated bill that originated in the house, “amended” it so that the original language was removed and replaced with the text of the Obamacare bill, and passed that bill. So, technically, the bill did originate in the house. It’s a parliamentary trick the Senate uses from time to time.
Post #11
Unfortunately...and very few people know this...the bill DID originate in the House, TECHNICALLY.
In substance, it ended up as a bill that had in it what Harry Reid wanted it to have, in the Senate, then it went to the House...the reverse of what a tax bill is supposed to do.
However, Reid pulled a technical trick.
He took a bill that came to him from the House, which wasn’t even about healthcare, and literally kept the NUMBER of the law, then added the Senate NUMBER, which is routine, then stripped out the words in the bill and substituted the words of his version of Obamacare.
Yes, apparently this is a legal loophole.
It is totally deceitful and wrong, but apparently Reid could do that. THe Democrats get away with this kind of stuff all the time. Most of the public never knew it happened. Even you did not, and you care about this.
THerefore, the law has been treated as a legitimate law and would be so even if described as a tax, because of the trick Reid pulled by using a vehicle, a piece of paper passed from the House, with a number on it, to make it a Senate bill with a number, and claiming it originated in the house even though every word was obliterated and Obamacare was substituted.
-By Charlie Reese
Politicians are the only people in the world who create problems and then campaign against them.
Have you ever wondered, if both the Democrats and the Republicans are against deficits, WHY do we have deficits?
Have you ever wondered, if all the politicians are against inflation and high taxes, WHY do we have inflation and high taxes?
You and I don’t propose a federal budget. The President does.
You and I don’t have the Constitutional authority to vote on appropriations. The House of Representatives does.
You and I don’t write the tax code, Congress does.
You and I don’t set fiscal policy, Congress does.
You and I don’t control monetary policy, the Federal Reserve Bank does.
One hundred senators, 435 congressmen, one President, and nine Supreme Court justices equates to 545 human beings out of the 300 million
are directly, legally, morally, and individually responsible for the domestic problems that plague this country.
I excluded the members of the Federal Reserve Board because that problem was created by the Congress. In 1913, Congress delegated its
Constitutional duty to provide a sound currency to a federally chartered, but private, central bank.
I excluded all the special interests and lobbyists for a sound reason. They have no legal authority. They have no ability to coerce a senator,
a congressman, or a President to do one cotton-picking thing. I don’t care if they offer a politician $1 million dollars in cash. The politician has
the power to accept or reject it. No matter what the lobbyist promises, it is the legislator’s responsibility to determine how he votes.
Those 545 human beings spend much of their energy convincing you that what they did is not their fault. They cooperate in this common con
regardless of party.
What separates a politician from a normal human being is an excessive amount of gall. No normal human being would have the gall of a Speaker,
who stood up and criticized the President for creating deficits. The President can only propose a budget. He cannot force the Congress to accept it.
The Constitution, which is the supreme law of the land, gives sole responsibility to the House of Representatives for originating and approving
appropriations and taxes. Who is the speaker of the House? John Boehner. He is the leader of the majority party. He and fellow House members,
not the President, can approve any budget they want. If the President vetoes it, they can pass it over his veto if they agree to.
It seems inconceivable to me that a nation of 300 million cannot replace 545 people who stand convicted — by present facts — of incompetence
and irresponsibility. I can’t think of a single domestic problem that is not traceable directly to those 545 people. When you fully grasp the plain truth
that 545 people exercise the power of the federal government, then it must follow that what exists is what they want to exist.
If the tax code is unfair, it’s because they want it unfair.
If the budget is in the red, it’s because they want it in the red.
If the Army & Marines are in Iraq and Afghanistan it’s because they want them in Iraq and Afghanistan ...
If they do not receive social security but are on an elite retirement plan not available to the people, it’s because they want it that way.
There are no insoluble government problems.
Do not let these 545 people shift the blame to bureaucrats, whom they hire and whose jobs they can abolish; to lobbyists, whose gifts and advice
they can reject; to regulators, to whom they give the power to regulate and from whom they can take this power. Above all, do not let them con you
into the belief that there exists disembodied mystical forces like “the economy,” “inflation,” or “politics” that prevent them from doing what they take
an oath to do.
Those 545 people, and they alone, are responsible.
They, and they alone, have the power.
They, and they alone, should be held accountable by the people who are their bosses.
Provided the voters have the gumption to manage their own employees...
We should vote all of them out of office and clean up their mess!
Yes, but it didn't thanks to John Roberts and his act of what Sowell rightly called 'judicial betrayal'.
Congress can now tax or regulate anything it chooses. SCOTUS was supposed to serve as a check on such things. I'm not sure a lot of folks are getting just how bad this decision screwed the country.
What you are missing is that bills do not become unconstitutional because of what people in the administration call them. The Supreme Court ruled (incorrectly) that Congress passed Obamacare constitutionally, based on Congress’s taxation power. The fact that people are (for political purposes) now calling it something other than a tax does not mean that the bill is now magically overturned.
Do you have any idea how the constitition setup the Federal government to operate? A introductory course sounds in order.
What you’re missing is that the RINOs have a new political toy to play with for the next umpteen years, while they dally and tinker with this unconstitutional monstrosity. Within a year or two, no one will even pretend to be talking about repeal, it will simply be “Vote for us, WE can do government intrusion the RIGHT way!”
Obama’s presidency and his handmaidens on the Left have furiously tried to hammer a square peg into a round hole and cannot make it fit.
Debate over definitions and Constitutionality of this “laughable” “Cornhusker Kickback” bill of deception (while the country sinks into an abyss of debt due to it) shows the pure evil and twisted methods done to assist Obama’s socialist push to control our rights.
This is Obama’s legacy.
Justice John Roberts cannot paper over and rebrand this slap in the face.
The people must go to their governors and state legislators and demand action.
Roberts essentially ruled that the administration and Congress can call the tax whatever they want. It doesn’t change a thing. They could call it a ham sandwich if they wanted, but from a SCOTUS perspective it’s still a tax. I think the four conservative justices had it right, but I didn’t think Roberts’ ruling was incoherent.
I don't agree with it, but it's politcally, twistedly, logical.
You’re asking the wrong guy here ShadowAce. I’ve been asking some of my friends the same thing; they don’t know, and I still don’t know.
Let me spell this out for you, the process to repeal it is identical to the one used to pass it:
1) Repeal it in the House
2) Repeal it in the Senate, full repeal 60 votes, partial repeal 50 votes +VP
3) get the POTUS to sign the common bill
That is how it was passed, that is how it is repealed.
DUHH!
My original question asked how could it be constitutional?
I believe my question was answered in Post #30.
Once Post #30 is taken into account, then I can see the process as you outlined it (and I knew it to be for "normal" laws).
Thank you.
Then are you saying it is unconstitutional?
If the Admin. want to call it a mandate/penalty, they should be asked why they support an Unconstitutional law.
The law was intended to be a tax all along, it never would have passed as one, so they called it a mandate to more or less get it through Congress. Knowing they already had 4 votes on SCOTUS to support it, no matter what it was called; all they needed was to convince 1 of the other 5 to go along. In rode Benedict Roberts(apologies to Benedict Arnold) to save the day.
So now the Admin. is trying to have it both ways. They're calling it a penalty now, so they don't have to defend passing the largest tax increase in the history of the world 4 months before the election. They hope if they say it enough, they'll convince enough people that it is so. They're counting on the stupidity of the American electorate.
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