So . . . .
if the mandate is upheld as a tax,
and
if Congress can impose taxes,
does that mean that a simple vote repealing the tax would kill Obamacare?
Congress can now apparently pass taxes while never having to admit they are taxes but the courts will uphold them anyway. A real Pandora’s Box was opened here.
I think how they slipped around that is ... the mandate is not a tax, but the PENALTY if you don’t follow the mandate is a tax.
Extremely shaky reasoning IMO. If you follow this logic, then legal penalties of any sort are a ‘tax’. So taxes are penalties ... penalties for making a certain amount of money.