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In Health Care Ruling, Roberts Steals a Move From John Marshall's Playbook [Comments Please!]
The Atlantic ^ | 6/28/12 | Daniel Epps

Posted on 06/28/2012 4:23:55 PM PDT by SoFloFreeper

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To: Houghton M.
You are flat out wrong.

Go read the dissents from the conservatives on the court.

Scalia, Kennedy, Thomas, and Alito Dissent: 'We Cannot Rewrite the Statute to Be What It Is Not' "Judicial tax-writing is particularly troubling."

41 posted on 06/28/2012 5:48:41 PM PDT by free me (Roberts killed America)
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To: semantic

The only solution to limit the governments power to tax us. It is used as a form of punishment to hard working people. The government has proven that unlimited power to do anything will be abused by them and with the welfare state seeming to be the most powerful. The only thing to do is limit their power to enslave us.

The government should never police the people. It is the people who need to police the government and one way to do that is to limit power. I do not care what it takes. An R by your name has proven to be a liability anymore. None of those creatures can be trusted with that kind of power.


42 posted on 06/28/2012 5:54:44 PM PDT by formosa (Formosa)
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To: MBombardier
if Roberts is cray like a fox . i hope so if he isn't he needs to be a bunk mate with Jerry sandusky. right now it looks like he just bent the whole u.s. over
43 posted on 06/28/2012 6:01:26 PM PDT by mt tom
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To: dfwgator
Maybe he's a Commie bastard.

lol, as reasonable an explanation as any I've seen. Levin called this decision, lawless, and Roberts' justification in his opinion, incoherent.
44 posted on 06/28/2012 6:09:51 PM PDT by Girlene (Chief AHat Roberts - should resign in disgrace.)
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btrl


45 posted on 06/28/2012 6:14:44 PM PDT by Clinging Bitterly (We need to limit political office holders to two terms. One in office, and one in prison.)
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btrl


46 posted on 06/28/2012 6:14:55 PM PDT by Clinging Bitterly (We need to limit political office holders to two terms. One in office, and one in prison.)
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To: jwalsh07

Gullibility not only on our side. The lefties have no clue what has happened either. But tell them you can’t wait for President Palin to tax non-ownership of firearms, and they might get a clue....


47 posted on 06/28/2012 6:18:38 PM PDT by kevao
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To: ConradofMontferrat

BUt that’s not Robert’s job. He took an oath to uphold the Constitution, not to affect politics/elections. He and the other four failed to uphold the Constitution. He is a disgrace for writing this majority decision.


48 posted on 06/28/2012 6:22:23 PM PDT by Girlene (Chief AHat Roberts - should resign in disgrace.)
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To: SoFloFreeper; zot

This article is interesting, especially in light of a thought that popped into my mind this morning as I was listening to the reports and initial rants against Justice Roberts. I was shocked and dismayed at the ruling and thinking derogatory thoughts about Roberts, whom I’ve seen as a conservative.

And then I got this thought popped into my mind: “Something else is at play here. Roberts is setting something up that is currently hidden.” And I had a sense of calmness afterward about the decision.

This article that Roberts playing a larger political game than is obvious at first glance at the ruling seems to me to be a possibility of the thought I got. Or it may be nothing at all other than a desparate subconscious wish for an over turning of Obamacare and his re-election defeat.


49 posted on 06/28/2012 6:25:41 PM PDT by GreyFriar (Spearhead - 3rd Armored Division 75-78 & 83-87)
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To: free me

I respect the four who dissented and I would have been perfectly happy if Roberts had stayed with them. I do not disagree with what you quote from them.

You, however, are
flat
out
wrong
in
the specific thing you wrote, namely that Roberts invented a new taxing power.

He
did
not.


50 posted on 06/28/2012 6:35:59 PM PDT by Houghton M.
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To: free me

Didn’t realize you jumped in on what I wrote to someone else. He was flat out wrong in the specific thing he wrote to me. You stuck your nose where it don’t belong. He was wrong in that specific point and I was not wrong to tell him so and your citing the dissent is

IRRELEVANT to the point at issue.


51 posted on 06/28/2012 6:39:54 PM PDT by Houghton M.
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To: Houghton M.; mojito

Don’t post if you don’t want others to comment on them.

The poster you replied to wrote:

“Roberts just invented the most pernicious new precedent for vastly expanded Federal power since the New Deal. Congress can now call any regulatory penalty under any circumstance a tax and it will now be upheld under Congress’ unlimited taxing authority.”

The poster was 100 percent correct, never claimed Roberts invented a new taxing power, and you are still flat wrong.

If you read the dissents you will see the difference between a penalty and a tax explained in relation to this ruling.


52 posted on 06/28/2012 7:27:53 PM PDT by free me (Roberts killed America)
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To: Houghton M.
The power to tax is not limited by Constitution but by politics, by the voters.

Is Congress' power to tax really unlimited? For example, if Congress passed a $10,000 per-gun, per-year tax on firearm ownership (effectively making gun ownership impossible for a majority of the citizenry) would that be a legitimate tax function of the Congress, a violation of the Second Amendment, or both?

53 posted on 06/28/2012 7:32:19 PM PDT by kevao
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To: GreyFriar

The line of argument in the article is interesting. I hope it is true.


54 posted on 06/28/2012 8:02:26 PM PDT by zot
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To: Houghton M.; free me
You're just plain wrong. In fact, it's even worse than I initially stated. The courts will now do the heavy lifting for Congress. Congress doesn't even have to call a tax a tax. The Congress can call what they do anything they think is politically expedient, and the courts will now come in after the fact and say “hey, Congress meant this to be a tax and as we all know Congress can tax anything they like, so Congress can do what ever they darn well please and it doesn't matter what the original intent may have been.”

Roberts today destroyed the Constitution. It's the worst decision of my lifetime. Worse than Roe. It might be the most evil decision since Dred Scott. And that lead to the civil war. And that's where we're headed.

55 posted on 06/28/2012 8:32:41 PM PDT by mojito
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To: Girlene

Oh, I agree with you wholeheartedly. Their job and their oath of office is to do just that, uphold and defend the Constitution.

I just wonder who managed to get the mushrooms into his food chain during the last week or so.


56 posted on 06/29/2012 5:55:54 AM PDT by ConradofMontferrat (According to mudslimze, my handle is a Hate Crime. Hope they don't like it.)
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To: mojito

Roberts did not invent any expansion of taxing authority. The virtually unlimited taxing authority of Congress has existed since Hamilton won the debate.

The limits on taxing rest with the People, not the Constitution.

I addressed a SPECIFIC point.

On
that
specific
point
you
are
wrong.


57 posted on 06/29/2012 7:45:49 AM PDT by Houghton M.
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To: Houghton M.
From the dissent:

“Of course in many cases what was a regulatory mandate enforced by a penalty could have been imposed as a tax upon permissible action; or what was imposed as a tax upon permissible action could have been a regulatory mandate enforced by a penalty. But we know of no case, and the Government cites none, in which the imposition was, for constitutional purposes, both. The two are mutually exclusive.

[....]

In a few cases, this Court has held that a ‘tax’ imposed upon private conduct was so onerous as to be in effect a penalty. But we have never held – never – that a penalty imposed for violation of the law was so trivial as to be in effect a tax.”

Check out that damning “never” in the second paragraph. Alito, Scalia and Kennedy agree with me - or rather I agree with them. You're welcome to disagree. But that puts you with Roberts and rest of the liberals. In the old Constitution, Congress had the power to tax just about anything, but only if it called it a tax. As of yesterday, we have a new Constitution: one that allows Congress to concoct any sort of regulatory framework they desire so long as some sort of monetary penalty is associated with it, because that penalty is now a tax and thus permissible under Congress’ power to tax. Some conservatives think that they won some sort of victory because the decision places limits on permissible acts under the Commerce Clause. I say who cares? Roberts’ decision has rendered the Commerce Clause a dead letter.

58 posted on 06/29/2012 10:35:37 AM PDT by mojito
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