Posted on 06/28/2012 5:34:54 PM PDT by ScottfromNJ
“Simply put, Congress may tax and spend.” With those historic words, the Supreme Court forced upon the United States a bleak dawn of a brave new world in which the federal government cannot be checked in its march toward totalitarianism.
In a 5-4 decision the Supreme Court upheld the joint venture of the President and Congress to force every American, regardless of ability or desire, to purchase a qualifying health care insurance plan by 2014 or face a tax penalty for failure to comply.
Chief Justice Roberts, writing for the Court, held while the “individual mandate is not a valid exercise of Congress’s power under the Commerce Clause and the Necessary and Proper Clause,” it is valid as an exercise of the taxing power granted the federal government by the Constitution.
One practical effect of today’s ruling is that by removing the ObamaCare scheme from its safe and secure Commerce Clause mooring, the Supreme Court has rewritten the law and converted the individual mandate into a tax, thus placing it within the authority of Congress to define.
This is judicial activism at its finest. The Supreme Court was so determined to endow the federal government with unlimited power and to toss the notion of enumerated powers onto the scrap heap of history that it was willing to effect a fundamental change to the law as enacted by Congress and the President.
Today, the U.S. Supreme Court not only re-wrote ObamaCare, but it simultaneously united the power of making and interpreting law into their own unelected hands.
As the states have become servants, they may yet regain their proper role as masters. In this there is hope, in fact.
The states, through the exercise of the Tenth Amendment and their natural right to rule as sovereign entities, may stop ObamaCare at the state borders by enacting state statutes nullifying the healthcare law and criminalizing state participation in administering or executing the unconstitutional provisions thereof.
“Roberts knows that. That’s the loophole for all of us to get out of this.”
Then Why did he ‘pretend’ to Not know it and Not side with the other 4?
Why put us through this?
Yes it does. Not gonna happen. But Congress under this ruling can mandate most anything. Sad day. I will not be at all surprised that Congress will tell me I need to buy an apple a day to keep health care costs down. If I don’t swipe the issued fruit card I will be subject to a tax.
Can Roberts show me where in his job description it says he’s free to revamp a case presented to the court? No, I didn’t think so.
That was already possible before; Congress has always had the power to equip/arm the militia.
Alito, Kennedy, and Scalia argue persuasively that it’s not a tax:
http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/304323/no-its-not-tax-samuel-alito
How can you pay a tax on something you don’t buy or gain benefit from.......it’s basically a “Head Tax”, you pay it just for existing.
Not persuasively enough.
My heart is in compete & enthusiastic agreement with the notion that we demand our Liberty or Death!
There is no doubt that Patrick Henry’s cry is being heard today
**
Agreed. I really do not want to live life like a DOG, led around on a chain by our governmental masters. I’d rather drive over a cliff.
All I can say, as the wife of a soldier, is that Americans need to make a choice. Either sit there, shut up and take it, or SUIT UP, be willing to give up EVERYTHING — your family, your home, your possessions ...your life — and fight this progressive bullsh*t — Our soldiers do this everyday for this nation, supposedly, to preserve our freedoms.
We really need to fight for it, if we consider it worth saving.
What have we got to lose???
The dissenting justices wrote that something can be either a tax or a penalty but not both. These are well defined legal concepts and are mutually exclusive. And it's pretty obvious that the mandate functions as a penalty, not a tax.
Actually it does function as a tax, but only in a nod nod wink wink kind of way -- in that it doesn't explicitly make it unlawful to defy the mandate and instead pay the tax/penalty. But by the formal letter of the statute, it's a penalty. The dissenting justices judged it on the formal language whereas Roberts broke ranks and engaged it on the nod nod wink wink level. He accepted the Government's implicit (but unstated or ambiguously stated) premise that the penalty is really a tax, whereas the others rejected it.
The result is an opinion that piles his own gamesmanship on top of the Government's gamesmanship giving us something completely incoherent. The dissenting justices were right in wanting to just chop the whole thing off and throw it in the fire. But Roberts decided that that was too extreme so now we're stuck with a mess.
Where is the flaw in their argument?
Interesting.
Bush Sr and Sununu gave us Souter.
Bush Jr and Gonzales gave us Roberts.
What would Jeb do?
-PJ
Well, you pay it 1) for existing and 2) for failing to comply with the mandate. In that way it seems more like a penalty than a tax.
Exactly. There are two kinds of legal taxes...a use tax, or an income tax....You aren’t using anything, and it’s not based on income....so by definition, it cannot be a tax.
I can buy that, although I think it’s more fundamental than that. If something is a penalty — which this self-evidently is — then it can’t be a tax either legal or illegal. Penalties and taxes are two different categories.
Has anyone mentioned how much the tax will be? I have heard comments all day from people saying, “Well, if I don’t want to have health insurance, the fine will still be cheaper than health insurance would cost.” Really?? How do we know that??
The problem for Romney is that he levied a tax on Massachussets people with his “Romneycare.” He used to call it a “fee, not a tax,” but according to Justice Roberts it was a tax.
But this will have to be done by spineless Republicans. I'd put our chances at less than 1%.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.