How Obama Distorted the Obamacare Ruling
It upheld the principle that despite Obama’s ongoing claim to the contrary, Congress has no power under the commerce clause to force Americans to buy a product or service of the federal government’s choosing. Chief Justice John Roberts, speaking for the Court, writes,
The Constitution grants Congress the power to “regulate Commerce.” The power to regulate commerce presupposes the existence of commercial activity to be regulated….
The individual mandate, however, does not regulate existing commercial activity. It instead compels individuals to become active in commerce by purchasing a product, on the ground that their failure to do so affects interstate commerce. Construing the Commerce Clause to permit Congress to regulate individuals precisely because they are doing nothing would open a new and potentially vast domain to congressional authority.
Chief Justice Roberts adds, “The Framers gave Congress the power to regulate commerce, not to compel it, and for over 200 years both our decisions and Congress’s actions have reflected this understanding. There is no reason to depart from that understanding now” — even though “[t]he Government [the Obama administration] sees things differently.”
He concludes,
The Framers knew the difference between doing something and doing nothing. They gave Congress the power to regulate commerce, not to compel it….
The individual mandate forces individuals into commerce precisely because they elected to refrain from commercial activity. Such a law cannot be sustained under a clause authorizing Congress to “regulate Commerce.”
Thus, the chief justices writes, Congress only has the power to impose the individual mandate because — contrary to what Obama has repeatedly claimed — the individual mandate is a tax:
The Affordable Care Act’s requirement that certain individuals pay a financial penalty for not obtaining health insurance may reasonably be characterized as a tax. Because the Constitution permits such a tax, it is not our role to forbid it, or to pass upon its wisdom or fairness.
As this passage suggests, one might also add this: The Court upheld the principle that, when it comes to matters of policy, the American people should decide. Accordingly, if this election was ever primarily about the economy (a doubtful notion), it is no more. It’s now about Obamacare.
Thumbnail image and illustration courtesy shutterstock / dubassy
Why parse Obama’s words? He is an Alinskyite so he says whatever it takes to support his argument.
In fact, yesterday Jay Carney once again insisted that the ObamaCare mandate penalty is not a tax.
http://www.nationaljournal.com/whitehouse/carney-a-penalty-not-a-tax-in-health-care-law-20120629
But since the Supremes declared it to be like a tax in order to leave it constitutional, Obama is pleased.
What the Obama Administration has done, is like an accused suspect who gets acquitted in court–and then walks out of the courtroom and admits to the whole world that he committed the crime after all.
Thus taking his cue from his buddy Bill Ayers.
Yup, and Yup, and Yup!
The guy’s a “µSlim” who “taquias” his right to lie to any and all who are “not true believers” from his particular “holy book”, i.e. the “Alinsky Bible”! That’s what he does, has always done (remember his 2 “autobigraphies?), and will continue to do until he’s removed from office. Maybe not even then. — That Bill Ayers “taught” him that, is coincidental, even if true. I think it’s false. He was well “into” this MO long before he even heard of Ayers or Alinsky! That’s my take!
Happy 4th! Enjoy the fireworks! — Think Nov. 6th!
Let’s all share bad luck, like a frickin’ ant colony. It’s a great idea when it’s voluntary. When it’s forced, it collectivist bulls–t.
The relief provided on the Commerce Clause is, at best, trivial, when the Supreme Court provides the legislature the means to achieve the same thing — mandate that someone buy something they may not want, or be punished — through taxing authority. And in the bargain, rewards institutional deceit (while arguably contributing to that deceit).
You appear to be unfamiliar with the concept of taking with one hand and giving with the other. Or maybe you’re the guy who thinks if you play the game long enough he can beat the dealer in Three Card Monte.
Wake up.
Exactly correct!
Even Democrats turn off the TV when Clueless One speaks.
Why not?! — They already know what he’s going to say, and that none of it is true!
Besides, the guy’s a grandstanding, “guest-lecturing”, bore! Who needs to revel in boredom?!
Happy 4th! Enjoy the fireworks! — Think Nov. 6th!
It’s worse than you think. John Yarmuth, D-KY, sound bite was used on all the Ohio Valley news stations: “The Supreme Court has recognized that health care is a basic right” which, of course, is an out and out lie.
Yarmuth is the best indicator of what the talking points are from the Left since he’s basically a Pelosi wind-up doll.
Its not a Tax its a PENALTY
Its not a Tax its a PENALTY
SC says if its a Penalty its COMMERCIAL and cant be allowed so the nice Judge Roberts fixes it for them and says its a TAX. The Dems and the Lame Stream EneMedia and the moronic moonbats say ‘Thank you Judge yes its a TAX.
But now Obambi and all the DISGUSTING Dems are all over the Airwaves saying Its NOT a TAX its a PENALTY again.
So why doesn’t Judge Roberts say OK you win its a PENALTY and THAT is UNCONSTITUTIONAL.
Or is he going to let the Dems run rings around him and laugh at him and the US Voters.
Well, Roberts certainly screwed us in one manner. Even if you cannot be compelled to engage in any form of commercial activity, the ability of the Feds to penalize someone for their failure to do so is still being compelled against your will.
It’s a semantical game, one is a penalty, but if it’s a tax it isn’t. Bullshit! If there’s no illegality in not engaging in any form of commerce, then what are people being penalized for?
I particularly don’t like this as I think it alters the fundamental nature of the IRS. Failure to pay taxes can lead to assessment of guilt and punative actions, but it’s limited. Here, it turns the IRS into a near-law enforcement agency, who determines “guilt,” and levies penalties.
Where does it end?
Just look at history to answer that question! It ends with us all in the rice fields wearing funny hats and attending indoctrination sessions around the fire every night. Then as we are all starving we can argue who gets to eat the grasshoppers and punish anybody who takes from the collective.
This ends in abject poverty and ultimately genocide and mass starvation as they economic system totally collapses.
This ends in ‘free’ health care for all but the doctors and all the other educated elites along with the EEEEVIL capitalists are dead.
how about continuing with the fact that the SC just jumped into the unconstitutional pool with the O’s administration, rewriting the law to change the terms – penalty to tax, commerce to taxing power – something specifically not authorized for the judicial arm in the Constitution
Mark Steyn nails it with humor and aplomb
Well, the only good thing about this is that the Supreme Court has now literally turned back the clock to 2010. People going into that election also had a bad economy and a huge hatred for Obamacare. Nothing has changed since then. So tell me why people would be any less angry now than they were back then? I think this court decision will light a fire under people like you’ve never seen before. And we all know how 2010 turned out for Obama. No reason why it can’t happen again, regardless of how the Hispanics vote. Always remember that the Hispanics are still a MINORITY, and if they weren’t much of a factor in 2010, why should they be an overriding factor in 2012? There are fewer and fewer reasons for Americans to vote for Obama. The Supreme Court’s decision only gave Americans one more reason NOT to vote for him.
The reason that Hispanics may be more of a factor in 2012 is that Romney is doing worse among Hispanics than McCain did. Right now, Obama beats Romney 3 to 1 among Hispanics. And as a result, Obama leads Romney by 5 points in Florida, a must-win state for Romney and a state he should be winning.
Hispanics are the only group in America whose approval of Obama has increased rather than decreased in the last 4 years. (Even blacks’ approval of Obama has declined by about 10 points.)
It isnt rocket science. All John Roberts had to do was point out that it was a tax and therefore it would need to be re submitted to congress as such by the originators. Case closed, Obamacare dead.
It turned out to be a useful mechanism for Roberts to rehab the image of his court ie to be liked by the liberals rather than to be respected by the conservatives. Its great to be the King. Roberts folded like a cheap robe.
It is futile to look into Robert’s motivation for his distorted and fallacious reasoning to uphold “Obamacare” as lawful according to the constitution. There were obviously outside considerations that influenced him to render such a verdict. Taxing for “inactivity” is just as fallacious as “mandating” an activity. It is equivalent. Both amount to the same thing and both are fundamentally unconstitutional.
Could be worse — how about taxing an impossibility? http://hotair.com/greenroom/archives/2012/06/22/epa-fines-oil-refiners-for-failing-to-use-nonexistent-biofuel/
No. He’s just doing what he does…LIE!
All day long; each and every day; overtime on weekends.
When your whole life is a fabricated fantasy, one begins to not recognise reality at all. If he told you what he was planning, you wouldn’t like it. So, he tells you what you want to hear. What he says has no bearing on the truth of the matter. It’s called running the con, and since his Mom and Pop were both conmen, he’s merely extending the family business.
Thus, our Narcissist-in-Chief.
If he steals the election, which must be the plan, have plenty of ammunition handy, or leave the country.
Unless, of course, you love good fight.
it’s a tax…
it’s a penalty…
it’s two, two, two for one!
can’t resubmit it, they’d have to read it (in theory)
Umm, did the ‘Justices’ actually, uh, read the bill?
Scalia refused to read it–he joked that reading that bill would be “cruel and unusual punishment.”
So, lemme get this straight…
Congress can tax me with NO LIMITS?
So, I could be taxed 99.9% and be basically enslaved?
Wow. Just effing wow.
Is this the USA? Really? REALLY?
Want to know where the REALLY is? Right in the middle of the deeply entrenched entitlement mentality that has completely absorbed the majority of the American people. At the zenith of the Tea Party movement many shouts to “leave my Medicare alone!!!” could be heard. All fine & dandy to march on the town square fighting the evil Marxist devildogs as long as one’s pet ox is not being gored. This is a real problem.
We will never be free as long as we support so much public funding for soooooo many things. When one arranges for someone else to be in charge of one’s needs, one becomes a slave to said someone. It really isn’t any more complicated than that.
Bobbie, this is what terrifies me…the “entitlement mentality” where the lesser productive people want to mooch off the more productive people.
Where does this end? It doesn’t!
America, where are you?
“the “entitlement mentality” where the lesser productive people want to mooch off the more productive people.”
It’s far worse than that. As all workers have paid into the system (SS & Medicare) through mandatory payroll deduction, they all have skin in the game. Thus the feds have us all by the short hairs. We need to push for laws that allow workers to opt out of these programs if they so choose. This would open the door for all sorts of competition to take place, with employer-funded retirement programs proliferating like mushrooms in the wake of a heavy rain storm. Again, we have allowed gov’t to overtake too many things that should be operated by the private sector. Many years of media manipulation of public opinion to be against private-sector approaches to these things has taken too big of a toll, with way too many people drinking the proverbial gov’t Kool Aid. As a result, we find ourselves in this horrid mess from which there will be no easy escape.
The vast majority of tea party members receive Social Security and Medicare, probably Meals on Wheels as well. Do you want to talk about moochers? Their only beef is that they don’t like the idea of other piggies sticking their nose in the same trough. But you are probably OK with those kind of piggies.
“At the zenith of the Tea Party movement many shouts to “leave my Medicare alone!!!” could be heard. All fine & dandy to march on the town square fighting the evil Marxist devildogs as long as one’s pet ox is not being gored.”
Exactly, and 10-15 years from now when we are discussing single payer the same tea party clowns will be holding up signs that say, “get the guvmint out of my Obamacare!” You gotta laugh …
It doesn’t have to go that way (toward a single-payer system). It’s a shame that people are gullible enough to believe the Big Lie that health care is a “right.” One has the right to seek it but not to demand it without arranging to pay for it. We have allowed our gov’t officials to adopt the approach of requiring the taxpayers to pick up the tab for all these people who get care but don’t pay for it. Single-payer would put everybody on that public dole. What part of We. Don’t. Have. The. Money. is so difficult to comprehend?
Health care should be looked upon as a commodity; unfortunately though, many people react to that like it’s a four-letter word. It’s the reality though. If we do manage to delve into a publicly-funded, single-payer system, the people with money will get better access while everybody else scrambles for the scraps. This happens each & every time this arrangement is tried.
▲WHAT Bobbie said +10000▲
P.S. Cynical blunder is a lefty POS troll (just an FYI lol).
Some strange legal reasoning from the Chief Justice. But first a serious question concerning if Conservatives know what they are doing here. And that was their insistence that with strong and clear voices, and shiny faces, Conservatives should argue that the Mandate is illegal because it is takes the Commerce Clause to a place it ought not to go.
This was foolish because no one on the Court would likely ever find the Mandate valid under the Commerce Claus – independent if the exaction is a tax, a fee or a penalty. That had been fairly established a long time ago that regulating a person is not the domain of the Commerce Clause.
Congress exercises its authority under the Commerce Clause over industries not individuals. Although this distinction is not written in stone, it is fairly clear – even to a Liberal – that regulating an industry isn’t the same as policing an individual. So it was fairly clear (albeit nothing is certain) this had been a settled issue on arrival and wasn’t really in any danger of being changed by the Court.
This had been clear since a case during the Depression where a farmer grew corn to feed his chickens. The government arrested him for it based on a new Deal law that regulated prices in the corn market. Their justification was that because the farmer grew the corn to feed his chickens, he did not buy corn in the market to feed his chickens. And because he did not buy corn in the market he was involved in – because he was affecting – interstate Commerce.
The Courts struck this down. So there is a long precedent in the Court not to confuse laws that regulate industries and laws that regulate individuals – under the Commerce Clause. Questions of tax, penalty or whatever do not enter into it.
Roberts Strange Reasoning –
Here is the core of the Robert argument as I understand it.
1. The Court has an obligation to find interpretations that permit Congressional Laws to stand. OK – not saying much and not a bad idea. But not frivolous interpretations.
2. Our standard in finding such interpretations in this case is if there is a fair possibility to call the thing a tax, not a mandate, then it is a tax. Utterly wrong. There is not the slightest doubt that fair possibility is not strong enough. Clearly if his overall method is correct, the standard is fair likelihood.
3. The specifics of the Mandate as written by Congress is not a penalty. A thing is a penalty when the person paying the penalty is in some general sense a person who committed an unlawful act as far as the bar of Justice is concerned. All people are assumed to having done their civic duty by buying or not buying health insurance, and if you do not buy you are charged a fee. And a fee is more like a tax than it is a penalty.
This is Roberts strangest thinking because a penalty is not defined as an exaction on someone for in a sense an unlawful act. Even allowing Roberts that in some sense a penalty is always associated with in some sense an act that is in some sense unlawful, it is still wrong.
A penalty is not connected in any sense with an unlawful act when the Congress has permitted penalties for the general public. There is not a single example. There may be with firms, but not individuals qua citizens.
The most ubiquitous penalty – in fact an extremely common one – the pubic pays are IRS penalties. Nothing about IRS penalties goes to, borrows from, is like, or derivative from an unlawful act – in any sense.
An IRS penalty is assessed when the IRS says they decide you owed more in taxes than your return configured. And the penalty is charged depending upon when you pay what you owe. There are no other considerations in the assessment of these penalties.And they likely have been invoked probably hundreds of thousands of times.
It isn’t as if we have no knowledge of these penalties. We have extensive experience with them. It isn’t as if these are obscure penalties that are an exception of normal Congressional standards and policies for penalties. And it isn’t as if there is something else about their exaction that fits Robert’s description of a penalty in any way.
Re penalties = what is Roberts talking about? Very strange.
Exactly! This is bordering on loony tunes thinking! WHACKY!
Maybe, just maybe, Roberts and his family was threatened (0bama has his ‘kill list’ after all and those drones)… Perhaps that’s why he caved in such a remarkably insane manner…
It’s all very disconcerting to be sure…
I don’t get it? WHY else would he practically re-write 0bamacare as a legitimate ‘tax’ and then go on to say that Congress has a virtually unlimited power to tax any activity or lack of activity?
Scary stuff.
If ObamaTax stays in play it will only be tinkered and changed by Liberals. This is what they do. Once they have a toe hold the will keep going and going for more power and cake. That’s what happened to Romney in MA. Liberals have a super majority there, they have change his legislation numberous times.
The ultimate goal of the DemocRats is single pay. ObamaTax will collapse, which they want. Insurance Co.’s will go broke because people will not pay for new policies but rather pay a small tax which is not equal to the policy premium. If they get sick they will be purchase a policy. This program will effect businesses, how they purchase insurance for their employees…etc.
Liberals will say that the free market can’t control costs and then will force a single pay on us.
Roberts you are an idiot. The whole thing should have been struck down and sent back to Congress to pass OC as a tax.
http://www.europac.net/media/video_blog/supreme_court_wrong_obamacare_unconstitutional
I’m furious with Roberts too.
Disgusting.
How our country disengages from this nightmare is going to be one helluva fight.
I’m so angry and…utterly disheartened…
Every word that comes out of the Marion’s mouth is a lie. Literally.
In those few instances where he says something factual, he only does so to prepare the ground for a future lie, so even those rare instances are lies.
He is so accustomed to lying that he probably can’t go for a few seconds, even in the most informal setting without lying. He lies to his children…he can’t not lie. He couldn’t exist without the rush. His life is a lie.
As cfbleachers said a few days ago, he isn’t a liar, he is the lie.
The only thing I can take away from the events of this past week is to know I did not participate in the socialization and ruin of America. Unfortunately we cannot think for other people and whatever facts or otherwise we present to them, if they choose to ignore them…. so be it. I have found that the best lessons I learned in life was to have to live with my mistakes. My children and grandchildren, their children…etc., etc. will have to live with theirs. I will always believe in the following words:
“The object of life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane.” Marcus Aurelius
At another site, someone posted an interesting interpretation of what Roberts did, and why.
Roberts wrote the majority opinion with the sole purpose of the ACA to fail financially, forcing a future Congress to re-write the whole thing. Calling the ACA individual mandate a tax, and allowing states to opt out of Medicare expansion, places the full financial burden back on the federal government. He knew darn well that increasing federal taxes and increasing the federal debt to pay for the ACA will not sit well with taxpayers in the future. What he did was carefully calculated and pure genius.
An interesting skew, yes?
YES! IF the Congress doesn’t fund it…no implementations of ACA.
YES. PURE GENIUS.
How did I not see this?
You earned your special shaft of light! lol
That is the way I see it, after taking some time to think it through; glad you posted that passage. It was pure politics (& that is onerous) but I am convinced that Roberts (& the court as a whole) was in an untenable position. There is little doubt in my mind that the Obama administration, with its Chicago-style mob tactics, managed to somehow scare the living daylights out of Roberts. Hopefully one day, the memos on that will ultimately come out on that.
Exactamundo, bobbie!
I think he WAS threatened somehow (Chicago style)…
He had to out-think and make ‘them’ feel like they ‘won’ while preserving our freedom. His telling words about leaving it to ‘the people’ was EPIC…
May hope and good sense prevail with the coming election…
Remember too how he has hobbled congressional power with regard to the commerce clause. That was huge.
Yes! Let’s hope there’s hope (and change). Ugh. lol
He set them up, pure and simple. An appealing little shiny prize, “we won!” without any consideration of what, exactly they’ve won. Or the longer-term consequences of it all.
So it playes as follows: if Obama is re-elected, his ACA will fail for the stated reasons. If he’s not re-elected, the Congress will eradicate the ACA anyways.
What’s funny is how Obama, supposedly the smartest man in the room, has displayed not a clue as to what has happened here. Yes, our side lost the battle so to speak, but now the war will most certainly be more easily won. It’s like telling someone to go straight to hell & have them be more than happy to oblige.
There is more to the theory than that. In addition to the finanacial angle, there are several other angles that he might have put in play:
2. it puts a boundary around the Commerce clause, while seemingly opening taxation to support any power grab. But like the financial point already made, it will be much more difficult in the future to increase power through taxation, because taxes are like the gas station. Everybody can tell the price. Who had even a clue about the price on obamacare except for the politically astute.
3. it disallows the odious (and unconstitutional) federal trick of forcing states to do things by withholding funding while still collecting the taxes from the states supposedly that are sent back as funding for something.
4. it avoids an, at the very least, angry, and probably violent, confrontation with the left if SCOTUS struck down the left’s baby. In a perfect world, this shouldn’t matter. in our world, a resolution through the ballot box is probably better.
5. it gives Romney a giant gift to help him win the election.
6. it insulates SCOTUS to some extent from future assaults by the left for striking down their crap sandwich.
7. obamacare might actually be constitutional if it is funded through taxes. I don’t agree, but many conservatives have have said as much.
People have argued against all of these, but there is at least some merit to each point. Many of the arguments have to do with purity; i.e., his job is strictly to interpret the law, period, case closed. Life informs us, however, that things are rarely pure.
Another point about it is a bit different. Many conservatives are arguing that Robert’s ruling is just plain dumb. Well, he isn’t dumb, so why did he do it?
I don’t know what was in his mind, and it may be years before he reveals his thinking, but it seems to me of the major prevailing theories: a) he’s dumb, b) he sold out, c) he was protecting SCOTUS’s reputation, and d) he was playing a sophistacated conservative long-term strategy…the long term strategy theory just described seems as reasonable as any of them and much more probable than “he’s dumb”.
I think you have it pretty much wrapped up. There are many ways to “skin the cat” as it were. Roberts was forced, IMO, to think outside the box. Calling it unconstitutional was the by-the-book appropriate approach; however, to declare that would have prompted ramifications for the court that would have easily rivaled those that came in the wake of Bush vs Gore. Roberts obviously does not want to go down in history as an activist jurist (albeit ironically many are labeling him as such). He had to split the baby; it was the only way.
Obamacare already exists in it’s variant form…Veterans Administration. Anybody remember the movie Forest Gump? That was then. Today, the situation is ten times worse, especially for special needs veterans. One VetAdmin Center announces “pacience” because just in one week they administer (in just their pharmacy) 45,000 scripts. One can imagine the outages, generics and substitutions taking place…if special needs vets get their meds at all.
Emergency, same day appointments? The employee sitting behind the counter, facing a PC, looks at the veteran and laughs, sure they say, there are 25 sitiing in the waiting room and chances of they or you seeing a practitioner anytime soon ar zero-to-none…and they laugh again.
Or, better yet, maybe in one weeks time that vet will get a call (at home)from some call center someplace, asking the vet a bunch of repetitious questions, and scheduling for an appointment with some practitioner some 5 or so months down the road.
While in the designated practitioners waiting room, hours goes by and soon triage gets underway, questions, background history and finally the proper practitioner to analyze that veterans special needs (if practitioner is available).
This is just for starters. So, if PharmaCare was raking in the dough before, with an additional 200 milion on the rolls…bonanza. Riches galore. Insurance companies, already with their states, regions and locales carved out are in a position to make gazillions (if anyone wants to find out what these insurance companies have done, attend an Insurance Agents employee introduction). Learn, open your eyes.
This is a third world’s dream come true. Want to see Obamacare in action, fully implemented and operational? Go to Cuba! Learn, open your eyes. Or a socialized democracy? Try Brazil. Remember, While at the World Cup in Rio, don’t get sick, hurt or indigestion…guaranteed, you’ll die. See, more patients die in Rio’s hospitals than from natural causes.
Hooray, hoorah for Obamacare…Universally saving America. HAH! God Bless America. Amen.
Yikes. How can people not SEE this? It’s a shame so many people are so ‘dole-minded’ that they are blind-sighted.
The parasites always end up consuming the host…
UGH
The Framers knew the difference between doing something and doing nothing. They gave Congress the power to regulate commerce, not to compel it…. The individual mandate forces individuals into commerce precisely because they elected to refrain from commercial activity. Such a law cannot be sustained under a clause authorizing Congress to “regulate Commerce.” Thus, the chief justices writes, Congress only has the power to impose the individual mandate because — contrary to what Obama has repeatedly claimed — the individual mandate is a tax: The Affordable Care Act’s requirement that certain individuals pay a financial penalty for not obtaining health insurance may reasonably be characterized as a tax.
Because the Constitution permits such a tax, it is not our role to forbid it, or to pass upon its wisdom or fairness. As this passage suggests, one might also add this: The Court upheld the principle that, when it comes to matters of policy, the American people should decide. Accordingly, if this election was ever primarily about the economy (a doubtful notion), it is no more. It’s now about Obamacare!
Uploaded by PoliticsNewsPolitics on Sep 20, 2009
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rL7ak__MGyw
So, legally, we could be taxed 100% until we re-elect someone or revolt? Ballot box or bullet box?
The Commerce Clause was not restricted by the ruling. CJ Roberts wrote an opinion that was not part of the majority ruling. His partners in crime did not agree that the Commerce Clause was limited so it becomes one man’s opinion and has no stature in case law.
This ruling makes me ill and what has to be done is:
1. Read the law
2.
WTF?
Seriously?
What now?
OH MAH GAH!
Sheet.
So. What IS law right now? Is 0bambicare LAW or not?
You can ignore it, because you cannot be compelled to engage in any particular form of commerce at governmental bequest. But failure to do so will nevertheless result in tax penalties for your perfectly legal decision to not purchase a thing.
Clear as mud, ain’t it?!
Clear as mud is right, Allston. lol!
This is a HOT MESS!
Obamacare is a valid exercise of the taxing power. EVERYTHING is now a valid exercise of the taxing power.
Well, maybe I am all wet here but I took Roberts’ position to be that of the notion that imposing a “penalty” or a “tax” (it’s money no matter which term you might wish to use for it & that is what really matters) for something one does not do is unconstitutional under the commerce clause. What he did establish though, through his rather convoluted logic, is that said “penalty” is a “tax,” thereby giving Congress wide latitude in exerting it’s power to tax what is not done versus that which is or was done. This is huge.
But it’s going to kill Obama politically. Hurray! Whatever works! (Yes, I have become pretty cynical over the whole Obama administrative debacle). He has to go, or we’re toast.
2. Pick out the most ridiculous parts of it.
3. Make the public aware of the absurdities until they are sick of hearing them.
Taxpaying voters need to demand that Justice Roberts explains why he referenced the Gibbons v. Ogden case in the Obamacare opinion, seemingly ignoring two statements in the Gibbons opinion which indicate that his tax argument doesn’t hold water.
Below are the two statements from Gibbons. Note that the first statement clarifies, in one sentence, that not only does Congress not have the power to address public healthcare issues, healthcare being a 10th Amendment protected state power, but also that Congress has no power to interfere with intrastate commerce; FDR’s activist justices got the Commerce Clause wrong in Wickard v. Filburn.
“State inspection laws, health laws, and laws for regulating the internal commerce of a State, and those which respect turnpike roads, ferries, &c. are not within the power granted to Congress.” –Gibbons v. Ogden, 1824.
“Congress is not empowered to tax for those purposes which are within the exclusive province of the States.” –Chief Justice Marshall, Gibbons v. Ogden, 1824.
Note that since Congress has no power to make public healthcare-related laws, Congress cannot make healthcare-related penalty laws, imo, any more than it can make healthcare-related tax laws.
Sadly, the corrupt federal government’s power grab concerning Obamacare is delaying states whose legal majority voters would approve their state establishing a healthcare program, Massachusetts’ RomneyCare for example, from doing so.
More of you law savvy guys need to come out of the woodwork and make a case against this hellacious overreach.
C’mon, lawyer men…
Well, I just said an important point in the prior post to you: How can you be penalized – regardless if it’s a tax, a fine, a shakedown – for not purchasing something at the government’s direction, lest you bear a penalty under the tax code. The “non-” activity is perfectly legal; what is a person being even fined fore then?!
Thank you, Allston…
This is a massive FAIL, right?
What? Is the IRS gonna drag us away in chains if we don’t partake?
Hmmmmm…
Believe it! That is EXACTLY what the IRS will do.
First they will kick down your door with a SWAT team, shoot he family dog, beat the crap out of your wife and kids and only THEN will they drag you away in chains. Then they will “tax” you, put a lien on your house and foreclose, and harass you until you lose your job- but only if you can make bail. Otherwise the plan is to throw you in a cell full of murders and rapists and turn away from your desperate cries for help while your are repeatedly assaulted.
I am serious and not exaggerating. THAT IS THE PLAN.
Lord please shed your blessings on all of US!
Michael Moore: Supreme Court Healthcare Ruling a Victory on the Path to Single Payer
http://www.democracynow.org/2012/6/29/michael_moore_supreme_court_healthcare_ruling
“Did the Court agree with the president that “no illness or accident should lead to any family’s financial ruin”?”
No, the court didn’t agree with the president. NEITHER DID IT DISAGREE. The court explicity said that it’s not up the court to opine or legislate on what is good or bad for the public. That’s up to elected officials who are chosen by the public. That means both the legislative branch AND the executive branch. All the court is authorized to do is to decide on the “constitutionality” of an issue, not whether the issue is good or bad.
The fact is, Obama (May Allah Bless and Grant him Peace) was elected WITH THE FULL KNOWLEDGE OF THE ELECTORATE that he would push to get ObamaCare on the books and he did just that. This was no surprise. Everyone knew that was a key issue of his presidential platform. Bottom line: The vast majority of the US electorate wanted some form of national health care……and…..they got it.
Everything else is just sticks and stones.
Further, the Supreme Court did not “change” the character of the nation (that’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard) by ok’ing Obamacare. Even SCOTUS rulings can be overturned by amending the consitutituion. It’s hard to do, granted, but it can be done.
The ultimate and final legislators remain the US public. That hasn’t changed a whit. If that were to happend, then we’d be in real trouble. But it hasn’t and won’t. obamaCare is just a blip on the screen in that respect.
If it makes you curious how Obama’s machine gun patter of lies could possibly be accepted as unquestioned truth by half the nation as well as the mainstream media, join the club. Either the polls are wrong or half this nation has gone nuts. Whatever the answer, Obama’s making full use of it.
It’s evolved into a base, core strategy of Obama.
In fact, I’d say that it’s the linchpin that holds his entire pack of lies campaign strategy together (lies about Romney at Bain, war on women, war on the first amendment, lies about fast and furious, leak of national security secrets, etc.) The linchpin lie machine allows Obama to avoid talking about his woeful record on the domestic and international front that have weakened this nation like nothing else in our 236 years.
Now if you ask me how to deal with half a country that’s been sucked in by Mr. Marxist Obama, I’m in a quandary. On the one hand, they’re ready to vote in an enemy of the United States as evidenced by three and a half years of anti-American actions. On the other, what do you do about them? I don’t know.
What I do know is that half this nation is ready to re-elect a proven Marxist. If that’s not pause for concern, I don’t know what is.
GOP governors open up new line of attack on Obamacare thanks to SCOTUS. GOP Governors can KILL Obamacare. Hold their feet to the fire. http://www.redstate.com/derkrieger/2012/06/30/can-gop-governors-kill-obamacare/
So the little skeevy wonder has taken his victory lap. That’s to be expected, after such a crushing victory over the American people.
Our homegrown Mussolini for Morons has collectivized U.S. medical care as completely as Stalin collectivized agriculture in the U.S.S.R.. And Obama will do as much good for medicine as collectivization did for the Soviet citizen’s diet. That is, it will go straight into the crapper.
Some other tweets and thoughts on the matter:
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Judge Roberts sez, “You wrote ‘mandate,’ and I know you meant ‘ tax.’ Lend me your eraser, will you? There! All fixed!”
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It’s a tax? It’s a mandate? It’s a candy mint? It’s a breath mint? It’s a Stalinist collectivization of medical care, that’s what it is.
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Prepare to play children’s games again: “I need to see a doctor. Mother, may I?” “No, you may not. You’ll go to the doctor I SEND you to! 1-2-3 red light!”
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Supreme Court says, “This law is legal because a magic unicorn flew out of my butt and told me so. You wanna make something of it?”
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Nancy Pelosi : “We made history.”
http://www.imao.us : “If that’s true, then my dog just made history on the living room rug.”
Larry, your posts are scary and funny at the same time.
Are you new here?
((WELCOME))
Please keep your posts coming…I love ‘em!
Hopefully, idiot will DROWN in his vaunted ‘victory laps’…one can only hope. pfft!
Thanks for the welcome. I’m a stranger here myself.
You won’t feel like a stranger here for long.
I miss a lot of ‘regulars’ who used to post here a lot though. Kind of sad when people just disappear after you are used to interacting with them. I won’t name names because I don’t want to single out anyone…but, you folks know you are and you are in my prayers…((HUGS))…
Anyway, like I said, Larry, I like your posts…keep at it. We are all Breitbart!
Saved once again.
Saved by the Left!
Then saved by the Right!
Then…
Just because an act or bill or law is absurd does not mean that it is perforce unConstitutional. That is what CJ Roberts seems to be telling us. In other words, if you want a fascistic healthcare system, you should re-elect fascists. Justice Roberts made it clear that the Progressives can’t load 21 new taxes on us and call them something else.
Likewise, if Nancy Pelosi votes for a bill, the contents of which she has not read, she is a failed “leader” and an egregious fool, but the bill is not therefore unconstitutional.
Maybe Justice Roberts didn’t sell us out afterall.
How this plays out is what is crucial.
If we don’t vote the scum out…we have only ourselves to blame.
Excellent post, btw.
Sen. Lee: States Can Refuse to Implement Obamacare
http://www.newsmax.com/video/
With the Supreme Court decision, don’t forget the most critical point now: the (now tax) bill didn’t originate in the House! The Democrats are in trouble either way. Either it’s an unconstitutional commerce bill or it’s an unconstitutional tax bill.
Reality Check: If Healthcare Law Is A Tax Is It Now Invalid?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iyLU9-VqVxY
By Robertising ObamaCare, John Roberts has taken moderation to the extreme.
Jan 31, 2012 George Soros support Mitt Romney, investor/communist and Obamas supporter want Mitt Romney. It’s not a good day for a republican to get support from communists. On Fed 2 Donald Trump announced his support for Mitt Romney. It can’t be a good day for a republican when Obama supporters see Romney as a good option.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f6aLQU_nYSM
And evidently you support the principle that “here in America illness or accident SHOULD lead to a family’s financial ruin”?
As it will with a vengeance when Obi-scare runs out of other peoples’ money, sooner than you think; when by then any private market will have collapsed and will no longer be available even for charity purposes.
As it would never if 3 generations of do-gooders like yourself had kept their greedy liittle pienkies off it and out of da collection basket. (Like, put in one thin dime and ask for three bucks back — yeah, that’s you! Enjoy!)
Yup, I’m “cool” with all that happening. Brothers, yous aksed for it!
Happy 4th! Enjoy the fireworks! — Think Nov. 6th!