The Supremes Get It Fundamentally Wrong
In a good example of that, the majority opinion says it would be perfectly fine if Congress enacted a law that made individual Americans pay a $50 tax to the IRS if they owned a house without energy efficient windows. Under that view, there is really nothing Congress cannot do in extorting certain behavior from American taxpayers, as long as it uses the threat of tax penalties to achieve the desired outcome.
This places us on the same road to tyranny (but perhaps at a slower pace) that we would be on if the Court had upheld Obamacare to expand the authority of the Commerce Clause even further, unless our aversion to tax increases imposes some political checks on its use by Congress. The Framers understood that there are at least some political checks on the use of the taxing power.
The Court did strike down, in a very narrow sense, part of the massive Medicaid expansion forced on the states by Obamacare. The Court held that the Medicaid expansion violates the Constitution by threatening States with the loss of their existing Medicaid funding if they decline to comply with the expansion. That violation can be remedied by preventing the secretary of Health and Human Services from withdrawing existing Medicaid funds if a state fails to comply with the new requirements.
Justices Antonin Scalia along with Justices Anthony Kennedy, Clarence Thomas, and Samuel Alito wrote a very impressive dissent that Chief Justice Roberts should have also joined. As the four justices said, Obamacare “exceeds federal power both in mandating the purchase of health insurance and in denying non-consenting States all Medicaid funding.
These parts of the Act are central to its design and operation, and the Act’s other provisions would not have been enacted without them. In our view it must follow that the entire statute is inoperative.” With just one more vote, the entire bill would have been declared null and void as unconstitutional.
This case shows just how important a president’s ability to pick members of the Supreme Court is. Roberts has shown just how disappointing some justices can be to their supporters and those who want judges who will abide by the limits that the Constitution places on our government.
With the failure of the judicial process, the only thing left to do now is to get rid of Obamacare legislatively. Congress passed this monstrosity, and the only path to lifting it from the backs of the American taxpayer is through the legislative process. That means that legislators should vote again to repeal all of Obamacare.
So we have come full circle. Congress is responsible for the mess that the Supreme Court has refused to clean up, and that leaves Congress with the responsibility to clean it up. Otherwise, they can be sure that voters will be watching.
Hans, can you tell me what limits on the power there were before this decision that aren’t there today? My understanding was that if this had been stated as a tax to start with, not only would there not have been a way to challenge it, but the Anti-Injunction Act would have applied too.
If it had been called a tax to begin with it would not have passed. This decision enshrined as a constitutional policy that our elected leaders should lie through their teeth about their intentions and the courts will bail themout after the fact. What we need is a rule that congress must specify what power they are acting under. The law must stand or fall on what they specify. If the law fails under any cited power the law fails. That rule protects liberals and conservatives. And it leads to accountability.
Maybe so — personally, I think it’s more like they said it wasn’t a tax and the SCOTUS said “Oh yes it is!” But that doesn’t answer my question: what new power to tax does this give the Federal government? I mean, we talk about a “broccoli tax” but no one has doubted the government has the power to tax, say, fast food to make it less acceptable or less affordable or even tax it more or less out of existence. “The power to tax is the power to destroy.”
It’s a serious question: if we’re going to have litters of kittens over this being a tax, tell me what new power to tax is supposed to have been affirmed.
The fundamental new aspect of this decision is that our government can now tax us as a punishment for NOT doing something. Every other tax to this point has been against some activity: income, transfer of goods, use of public roads, etc. This is a punative tax for not buying health insurance.
Under the definition of this ruling doesn’t that mean that all other charges by the Feds for not doing something, such as the fines of BP for not stopping the gulf oil spill, not controlling polution output, etc. are now taxes which are subject to challenge if they were not specifically passed by the congress?
If those in black robes had any sense they would understand that
Taxes are on activity (income) or assets (property tax) and
Penalties are charged for not doing something (following the law)!
Hogwash. What are tax credits? Penalties to those who do not do what it is being credited.
Mortgage credit? Child credit? That’s EXACTLY equivalent.
A lousy decision, the coward’s way out… but there is no new power granted here.
This is an extremely important question. This ruling makes us subjects and hands sovereignty from the individual to the central government. The government could ALWAYS tell the CITIZEN what he is not allowed to to in almost every case if there is a compelling state interest: Don’t smoke this. Don’t travel at this speed.
NOW the government can tell us what TO do. WE don’t get to decide what we do, the government through the new taxing authority gets to decide what we do.
Under Wickard V Filburn the central government gained the power to regulate farmers growing wheat for use on their own farm using the commerce clause power.
Under THIS ruling, the central government can tell the farmer WHAT to grow, when to grow, how much he can grow.
Even more important the central government can now tell the INDIVIDUAL CONSUMER what to buy, how much to buy, when to buy, who to buy it from. EVERY SINGLE PIECE OF MAJOR LEGISLATION FOR THE NEXT 100 YEARS WILL RELY ON THIS NEW TAXING POWER just as every piece of legislation since the new deal relied on Wickard.
On the upside, having SCOTUS say “you’re wrong, it’s a tax, even though it’s still constitutional” does not absolve this law’s proponents of political cost. Many of them still face election in November. And laws can be repealed.
Good discussion on the tax implications of how power has expanded, also discussed is the Anti-Injunction Act. Bad day for liberty, Roberts took the progressive path, rewrote the law from the bench…his job was to interpret the law not rewrite it.
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/real-news-from-the-blaze-what-legal-precedent-will-supreme-court-obamacare-decision-set/
“if this had been stated as a tax to start with”.
You just stated the very reason why I oppose the Roberts decision. Obama and congress were NOT willing to write the law as a tax, and admit it was a tax while the act was being deliberated, because they were not willing to take the political heat for it. The very reason why the taxing authority has less constititional limits than the commerce authority is taxes are not very popular, and their cost is more transparent, and thus they are harder to pass.
So then what gives Roberts the authority to do what Obama and congress were unwilling to do, rewrite the act, and say it was a tax after all. That is the very activism, the court rewriting laws and doing the job of congress, that Obama was falsely preparing to condemn the court for when it appeared they would strike down the act, something that clearly IS within the courts powers. The real irony is I have seen Obama surrogates on shows that were STILL unwilling to admit it is a tax. They said “Roberts may have said it was a tax, but the 4 liberal concurring justuces said it was not a tax, but justified under the commerce authority”. So even the left now says Roberts reasoning was stupid, but they will still take the foolish gift he gave them, in Roberts cowardly response to Obamas intimidation campaign against the court. And Roberts didn’t even get any concession from the leftist justices, that commerce clause mandates are wrong, and the mandate in ths act was only justified under the taxing authority. He just gave them what they wanted, approval of obamacare, and got zippo in return. Now the left has the law they want, and they still dont have to admit it was a tax, after all that is Roberts foolish notion, not theirs, they didn’t write the law that way, Roberts did. And if Obama wins, and he can appoint 1 more leftist justice, then Roberts limits on the commerce clause will be overturned, so even they will mean nothing. So basically, Roberts caved to Obamas orchestrated bullying of the court, gave Obama everything he wanted, and got nothing. And Roberts has set an even worse precedent. What if the left does the same thing again, calls something a mandate or regulation, instead of a tax, to make passage easier. Will a Roberts court have to rewrite the non-tax as a tax again, again having the cort doing the job of congress, amending and rewriting legislation, because he himself set the precedent for doing that.
I really have to wonder if the liberals somehow got to Roberts. His logic seems so far-fetched and outside the norm of consistent conservative rulings in the past. Perhaps someone blackmailed the guy. Or maybe it is as simple as a huge future payoff.
First of all, anyone who refers to leftists as ‘liberals’ is sure to be outwitted by them. You are conceding half the battle to them already.
Now, to answer your question, of course they got to Roberts. Just like they got to Bush in 2005, making him a much worse President from mid-2005 onwards, relative to the 4.5 years before that (when he was a good President with a mostly high approval rating).
Roberts is a dooosh, please people stop the mumbo jumbo. now the IRS will be on everybody’s backs if they dont “pay up”
Branwen? The same Branwen
Regardless.
Since ACA originated in the senate, as soon as the first ‘tax as penalty’ is levied, isn’t there an automatic re-visitation of the act?
How, exactly did they get to Roberts? What possible examples can we come up with? These ideas will be quite educational for us all. I am serious.
Bob Livingston, almost successor to Newt Gingrich 1998.
the more i thought about it today, the more i see something else at play here. anybody missing a horse’s head?
one thing robert’s did do today may well leave an embarrasing stain on his reputation as a sc cj forever. he has (against a large % of the people’s wishes) gone all out with our kool krackin’ kenyan and his disasterous health care monstrosity, put together w/o one doctor in the room. that’s like building a bridge w/o an engineer. good luck w/ that.
i guess holder dropped by disney today to try to see how a big time fun house is really run.
I’ve been crunching on this since it was announced.
It’s a difference that makes no difference. If we can be ordered to pay a punitive tax for the failure to engage in a particular form of commerce, then it’s the same as if they ordered us to engage in that for of commerce.
It’s a Non-Decision by the SCOTUS.
Allston- your post made this song start ringing in my head. The words are true on so many levels: Roberts chose not to decide but he “still has made a choice”; the people can still “choose from phantom fears and kindness that can kill” and I will still “choose freewill” but “those who think that they were dealt a losing hand” with “the cards stacked against them” have won because it was “preordained.” Or was that the American patriot “kicked in the face” and the victim of a “venomous fate?” Now I can’t get the d-mn song out of my head.
There are those who think that
life is nothing left to chance,
A host of holy horrors to
direct our aimless dance.
A planet of playthings,
We dance on the strings
Of powers we cannot perceive
“The stars aren’t aligned,
Or the gods are malign…”
Blame is better to give than receive.
Chorus
You can choose a ready guide in some celestial voice.
If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice.
You can choose from phantom fears and kindness that can kill;
I will choose a path that’s clear
I will choose freewill.
There are those who think
that they were dealt a losing hand,
The cards were stacked against them;
they weren’t born in Lotusland.
All preordained
A prisoner in chains
A victim of venomous fate.
Kicked in the face,
You can’t pray for a place
In heaven’s unearthly estate.
(Rush)
Congress does have unlimited authority to tax. That is now fixed in law. The sixteenth amendment permits taxation of income, leaving the definition of income to the discretion of Congress. Any kind of income can be taxed in any number of ways and the result is our bizarre tax code. I suggest that a special income or excise tax be levied on excessive public pension distributions. Defining excessive would be fun and it would certainly provide some revenue to pay for the inevitable bailouts of government pension funds coming down the pipeline.
Now: “Congress has unlimited power to tax”. Yeah, well, that’s only partly right.
Two major things more there be here. One, the lesser, the Judge, any Judge, can redefine ANY part of a legislation as a Constitutional tax. NOTHING precludes the ability to tax per Formulae Robertsae, and NOTHING prevents a Judge from declaring “why that’s a tax.”
Two, the greatest of all insanities: Roberts took the fact that the Constitution allows something, to mean that the Constitution ALLOWS ANYTHING, every legislation is now putty in the hands of a Judge who may by whimsy of magical redefinition declare something that is on it’s face patently unconstitutional, as something else that is constitutional. And by reflection so too a judge may say “that, by my decree, is something that the Constitution does not allow.”
Yet we are at that point of absolute insanity, that basic things known for thousands of years to have fixed definition may be declared to something else entirely. Marriage for one. But also by more subtle perversions other equally basic things, like son, daughter, father, mother, good, bad, and even as proto-Emperor Clinton noted “is”.
“Congress is responsible for the mess that the Supreme Court has refused to clean up, and that leaves Congress with the responsibility to clean it up.”
I think it’s much worse that this. While it is possible for Congress to repeal Obamacare there is no way to repeal this decision. “Do what we say or we’ll tax you” is now Constitutional.
Solar panels on every rooftop!
I agree this is a horrible precedent. That’s why when the Republicans take over Congress they should enact laws exercising this new power. The more outlandish the better. Until the courts are forced to overturn this precedent.
Why can’t a subsequent court decision invalidate this one? Isn’t that what happened with Plessy v Ferguson?
yes! Plessy was the “separate but equal” case that was overturned by Brown v. Board of Education in 1954.
I might also note that this Obamacare decision was one of the worst SCOTUS has made since that Plessy case.
I’ve already heard something to the effect that Roberts didn’t want this to be the modern Dred Scott decision.
I think, however, he was too clever by half.
Since the leftists have shown they are completely willing to lie, cheat, bribe, and otherwise ignore the laws and rules and the Constitution as they see fit – I suggest we likewise use any means just this side of being legal to reverse it.
Let’s see, there was a tactic proposed back during the Great Depression era by one of their own socialists that might work…….increase the court to 12 justices and elevate maybe Scalia to Chief Justice in the process.
Hey, their own hero first suggested it!
Then there is the case of Sotomayer and Kagan. You KNOW one or both were feeding inside information to Obama! I suggest a future president open Executive branch information up to perusal and if either one had any previous interaction while within the administration on the cases that have come before them and they didn’t recuse themselves – then they should be impeached and removed.
Roberts, perhaps an inquiry into his mental fitness for the bench? That should be an easy reach as his opinion is so convoluted! He basically is saying Congress cannot mandate behavior – but then says Congress can tax you to death (and in health care that could be literal) if you don’t do what they say!
Ridiculous.
The thing is, do we have an opposition that has finally opened their eyes to the danger and now sees fit to fight tooth and nail as if their political lives depended on it?
They must be willing to fight to win!
Dredd Scott 2?
For it to be a tax, don’t you have to tax SOMETHING????
I’m beginning to think I should be on the Supreme Court.
It begins to look like no experience is necessary.
No experience necessary for the Supreme Court? Precisely so. If I were writing a Constitutional amendment, I would require that no more than four lawyers could be on the Court at once. We need real citizens, not distinguished legal scholars, to make real-world decisions rather than legal hypothetical constructs that have no relationship to the real world.
That assumes our gov’t obeys laws – they don’t. They selectively pick and choose. Sanctuary cities that ignore Fed. law are okay but if AZ does it it’s not, even though in the case of illegal aliens both do harm to America.
The U.S. Constitution and the political correctness that supports it have turned America into a de facto suicide cult. The men who founded America would laugh at people who are so used to gov’t being up their hindends they come to like it.
Less is more is what our forefathers wanted and instead we have had the gov’t telling us what to do more and more and more. The populace have become sheep that guard feelings like precious jewels. The UK is going down the same path.
They say the meek shall inherit the Earth. Well, let me amend that to say, the least productive, the least deserving, the stupidest, the least capable and the least realistic. This faddist immunity from reality is just that, a fad.
Dredd Scott II, yes. A massively nasty ruling, that overturns those ancient boundaries of law known as basic word definitions. Dredd nor was any descendant of Black African was no full human, so tragically went the redefinition the Constitution’s word “person”. Today Roberts and the delusional chorus in agreement transformed the specific terms of allowed taxation in our dear inheritance of a Constitution, into a mush that can mean WHATEVER A JUDGE SAYS THEY MAY MEAN.
We have dropped through the looking glass into a full imperial judicial tyranny.
Here’s an idea for a 29th Amendment:
Congress’s power of taxation shall not extend to compel any person or entity to engage in commerce.
The only possible silver lining to this is that Roberts has made the only reasonable way to reclaim freedom the repeal of the entire 16th amendment. Removing the government’s confiscatory powers and starving the cursed beast down to size is now perhaps the only peaceful option left open.
That *would* fix this, and *might* prevent the recurrence of the gigantistate’s forceful coercion of every aspect of our lives in general. Either that, or this gets really, really, ugly, and we either refight the war between the states, or fail and enslave our families forever.
We are Breitbart. (John Galt was a wuss…)
Repealing the income tax would fix the governments ability to abuse the taxing power with other forms of taxation? Think about that.
Someone said, “We are all free to choose our actions, we are not free to choose the consequences of those actions”. The largest tax increase in History will lay like a wet blanket on the economy until repealed.
Exactly the intent of the leftist pieces of $hit who have taken over our government. Bring it all down, baby. Rebuild it in their communist image.
When I read someone on facebook or hear someone at the office cheer this ruling I think they fall into two camps: 1) $hit for brains morons who think Obamacare has anything to do with giving everyone free healthcare or 2) true believers who think they’ll be in the approved class when the communists completely take over.
Both camps need to be culled. And I say that with deadly seriousness. Living with these dunces and demons is an experiment that has failed.
Hugh Hewtt, on his radio show, noted today that Scalia’s dissent mentions the other side as “the minority” or “the dissent” suggesting that Roberts switched sides after Scalia’s opinion was written.
Very interesting observation, especially considering that “JoeSmoe832″, above, asked the question outright whether “someone from the Left had gotten to J. Roberts” in some way. If it turns out that he did change his mind after the vote (the vote must precede the writing of at least a part of the opinions) then what was the cause? Is it conceivable that he has some really embarrassing skeleton in one of his closets? Embarrassing enough to pressure him? Or worse? — Really hate to think the man is anything worse than the idiot he has just shown himself to be, but given the way our other cultural establishments have deteriorated in the last 40 years, and how governmental institutions appear to have become ever more corrupted and venal, I must admit that at this juncture nothing more would shock me.
Roberts punted the ball back to Congress, which is where the decision belongs, and refused to save Obama’s bacon. It’s “damning with faint praise”, and keeps the entire Obamacare debacle alive as an issue in the November presidential election.
Roberts specifically said that the Court wasn’t ruling on whether Obamacare was a GOOD idea; only that it can be construed as constitutional.
I’ll confess, I would rather that he had overturned the whole thing – but this was a second-best choice. Several pundits have already written that this seals Obama’s fate, by re-energizing the TEA Party just before the election.
So everybody, get busy and VOTE THE RASCALS OUT!
You said ” VOTE THE RASCALS OUT! ”
Mmmm, when I think “rascal”, I think of a mischievous kid. Dennis the Menace, maybe; or Spanky & Our Gang. To me, the word contains an element of “cute”, or at least SOME charming or endearing quality.
The Congress-Putzes who rammed this Load’O'Crap through, despite STRONG popular objections, have NO endearing or redeeming qualities whatever, IMHO.
Not that I don’t agree with your main point: Yes, vote the bastiges OUT.
(But we SHOULD have tried them all for malfeasance –or violation of the Oath of Office, or some such– several times over, for voting to pass 1800-2000+ page bills that they had OBVIOUSLY not had time to read. In MY universe, that would be a capital offense!)
Seems to me there was a fundamental flaw in our legal strategy in attacking the individual mandate, since the problem with the bill is the vast and unconstitutional expansion of the government’s power over our lives, not the lesser point about how to pay for it.
I wondered about this when the 4 things they were ruling about were recited in recaps recently. Sure, we care about more taxes, but we care a lot more about the massive expansion of federal power. It wasn’t one of the four points that SCOTUS was evaluating. Once again, the pea wasn’t under the rock solid chestnut we brought to the game. Basically, we got caught up in the dumb issue of whether a mandate is a tax or not. Roberts brushed it off the table. Probably took him 2 seconds when he put his mind to dreaming up the ruse to shaft the American public to stay on good terms with his Washington buddies.
Now it appears the thugs can do anything they want through the tax code. Somehow, that doesn’t strike me as what the founders were going for.
That’s where the real treat is if you think we citizens will pay a damn thing. Not happening.
The SCOUS is reaching the point where they must start being ignored. Remember Andrew Jackson who famously ignored their judgment against the relocation of Native Americans? Make the laws, but try to enforce them.
They are there now. We citizens ignore.
Brilliant! Ignore SCOTUS. Then, when the left declares itself in office for life, there will be no branch of government to say no. The rule of law having already been abandoned, there will be no choice but Phryric civil war; no Constitutional basis for the military or other portions of government to hang a legal hat on in refusing to obey; and no way to rally an outraged citizenry around a flag that would represent anything except the administration in power.
And no way to leave the “victorious” survivors crawling out of the wreckage at least a rule of law ideal on which to base a new beginning.
Ignore the rule of law to save it! Now there’s a battlecry.
What I would like to know is if the mandate now revealed as a tax,1% by reports, is designated to health insurance funds or like social security, does this Robert’s tax go into the general fund?
knock knock.
The head fake about fica taxes was debunked years ago. They spend 2x every dime they can get their hands on in any way they so choose.
Including (and mainly), by stuffing giant handfuls in their buddies and their own pockets.
I’m actually beginning to think our political leaders really are as evil as the Russian and Chinese commissars. They just have better publicity. If it wasn’t for that, their 9% approval rating would be much worse.
Marbury v Madison was a case that before the final ruling became moot. It should never have been accepted as law.
So now Congress can tax infant circumcisions at $100,000 each, to fund future psychiatric care caused by the trauma. Jews and Muslims have to pay the tax just as non-Muslims, so it isn’t discriminatory.
Does anyone have any idea what this could do to the follow on lawsuits such as the Catholic Church lawsuit against Sebelius?
I believe Hans has this right. There is no silver lining.
Question is, who with a straight face can say Romney’s druthers are to put more Thomases on the court instead of more Robertses?
exactly
Question is, do you really think that Obama Part Two’s picks (and we are talking probably three picks here) will be better than Romney’s.
Second question should be, do you think we’ll have more leverage over Obama or Romney.
No, the question was, which candidate was more likely to drag Boehner to the right? It wasn’t Romney, who is left of the national canter. His selection is an opportunity wasted.
I fail to see why people are so unhappy about this SCOTUS ruling.
Just pretend that people will get taxed a certain amount, and then they’ll get a deduction for getting health insurance.
Just like people get taxed a certain amount, and get a deduction for having a mortage on their house (oh, wait – people who own their own homes outright get screwed out of that deduction)
Just like people get taxed a certain amount, and then get a deduction for charitable donations (oh, wait – people who don’t have enough pocket cash to make a big enough charitable donation are screwed out of that deduction)
Just like people get taxed a certain amount, and then get a deduction for the number of kids they have (oh, wait – people without kids are screwed out of that deduction)
And so on, and so on… ad nauseum.
I haven’t seen ANY explanation about Roberts’ “this penalty can be reasonbly seen as a tax” schtick. If anyone knows of one, let me know.
As far as the POLITICS of this…
…well, let’s just say that “tax” angle cuts both ways.
Over at Ace of Spades:
http://minx.cc/?post=330548
Ace writes: “And so if I have this right: The Federal Government may now levy a special tax on me if I do not comply with their specific directives about what I should buy, or do?
Can they tax abortions at a high rate?”
To which Post #95 adds:
“Oh, and ace’s comment about abortion made me think of this…
Remember thay in China it isnt illegal to have a second child, you just have to pay a $6000 fine to do it. It’s when you can’t pay the tax that they kidnap you, abort your 7 month old baby, and rip out your uterus.”
THIS is how stupid Robert’s reasoning is.
Fascinating point. And absolutely on target. Roberts’ ruling would permit a “Child Tax” that would mirror the One Child rule in China. And Roberts is a Catholic. Pathetic.
On another blog it has been suggested that once we take back POTUS and the Senate in November we push to restore the old militia laws and require every household to have a working firearm, a full loadout of ammunition, and proper field kit for every militia member (back in the day that was males between 16 and 45, but being PC we should add the ladies, now shouldn’t we). Get that one passed and we can all sit back and watch a whole bunch of liberal heads explode.
Yeah — and a 10,000$ fine — errr, penalty — errr, tax — for non-compliance!
Also, fine them for not keeping the things serviceable — yearly gov. inspections. Also, for not practicing on the range at least once monthly.
Good idea!
There is no reason to believe that ObamaCare can be overcome legislatively, even if Romney is elected. You would need a super-majority in the Senate, and that will not happen.
Enacted by reconciliation, repealable by reconciliation.
Roberts reinterpreted the law for Congress in a way to make it Constitutional, which is not its role at all. And typical of the over-clever, he overlooked another Constitutional issue: if Obamacare is a tax, it has to originate in the House, not the Senate. So as a tax, isn’t it unConstitutional?
Well, Republican Senators, now that your boy Roberts has gone all Earl Warren on you what are you going to do about him? Just more proof that an ugly strain of Rooseveltian “Progressivism” still runs through the Republican Party, rendering it an untrustworthy vehicle for maintaining our liberties.
I know, I know: “How were we to know? He was an outstanding member of the Federalist Society.” Well, he’s a damn lawyer. Furthermore, he’s one from the fever swamp known as Harvard and, worse, Harvard Law School, where sophistry is taken to a high art form.
Republican senators should pledge to work to ensure not another damn Ivy League lawyer is given a seat on the Supreme Court (or any federal court for that matter) as long as they breathe the air of the Capitol Building. Better yet, not another damn lawyer on the Supreme Court. We’ve had far too much of this elitist legal bovine fecal matter. No more. Again, NO MORE.
Roberts may look like a statist and he may act like a statist, but don’t let that fool you, he really is a statist.
Don’t be so sure about that. It looks to me as if Roberts has set the stage for this whole thing to crash & burn. Time will tell of course.
People who rationalize Roberts’ ruling seem to forget his role in the Arizona case. I think we may have a reincarnation of Earl Warren.
In reading the ruling, not the lengthy Roberts’ opinion, I was immediately struck by parts 1 & 3. Part 1 says the suit may proceed because the Anti-Injunction Act which barrs suits against taxation before the tax has had to be paid does not apply.
The in part 3, all of three minutes of reading BTW, it rules the penalty is really a tax. What? If the penalty is a tax then the Anti-injunction Act should have barred the suit! That would have thrown the matter right where it is now with the positive addendum that this case law would not exist. What a moron and chief justice to boot. Or maybe deviously clever. Why?
Now we have established the precedent that you can be taxed for non-compliance with a police order, in effect. For instance, we could now be compelled to install every energy saving device in our adobes or pay a tax instead and until we comply.
Roberts is a name which shall go down in infamy.
As I have written often today, already, the minimalist positive spin being written is as a man thrown into the outhouse pit who comes up smiling with a shinny penny. It ain’t much and it ain’t my cup of tea.
Next up on the Dems’ list of must haves: a Value Added Tax. There is no other way to close all the funding gaps in the non-budget we have had for the past three years.
RIP Chief Justice John Roberts: Traitor, Doufus, Moron, Progressive.
You should be on the Supreme Court…a new insult.
Roberts tried to split the difference. He tried to please everyone, ended up pleasing no one and forfeited any principles he might have had. Was he really that cowed by Obama’s tongue-lashing at the SOTU?
“In fact, the government took the completely contradictory position that the penalty was a penalty for the purposes of getting around the Anti-Injunction Act (which prohibits a lawsuit against a tax until the tax has been paid by the taxpayer) but then claimed it was a tax within Congress’s constitutional power to ‘lay and collect Taxes.’”
So if it is a tax then shouldn’t the whole lawsuit have been trown out?
Roberts was off his meds.
tax cannot be absolute. Suppose Congress taxed everybody some large amount, and then gave a rebate canceling the tax payments of all those who, as of 1/1/2012, did not belong to the Republican party. Does that sound constitutional to you?
Isn’t that what Obama is doing by exempting his union buddies from Obamacare?
Sure – everything is fine. To keep discussion “civil” many are advocating new checks on commenting. Remember that when you make a comment against our federal overlords and – surprize! an agent knocks on your door. I LOVE this….America would be so much more……efficient….if it were more fascist. But with a smile! and none of that racial exclusivity BS.
Healthcare for all. Jobs for all. Homes for all. Pizza for all. Governmentally approved dietary meals for all! Opportunity for public service (READ: conscription) for all. ALL for ALL! None for NONE!
You forgot:
A vegetarian chicken in every pot, and
Two new Chevy Volts in every driveway.
What a gas!
The Dread Coward Roberts
ROFL.
Words often posted apply here:
“The power to tax is the power to destroy.”
After the election, we can count on a flood of taxes, old and new, to assail us. I’m afeard the new Congress will want more of our money, just as the present and past ones have.
Somebody asked why Roberts did what he did. Me I think he wet himself because of obama’s tongue lashing and the fear of being critized by law profs. He is young so he will be wetting himself for a long time. So good conservatives all ought to send him a diaper. Way to show contempt for his decision and help the econ
America et Americani delendi sunt.
Roberts and SCOTUS has upheld a fundamental assault on the People’s Natural Right to liberty, namely, Happiness (ie, the Right t be Left alone). Thus, in defense of these fundamental liberties, it i time to rise up and prepare fore War to kill the tyrants! ie, the Obamunists.
not a lawyer, but i do understand what resource$ it is going to take to fund this 2700 pages of ‘nobody knows’. perfect way to destroy what is left of the economy, right on schedule.
as a young boy during the cold war i once asked what the amerikan communist party talked about during all those meetings i had heard they were always having, since nobody in the party ever really got elected to anything. the answer i remember was that they were making plans on ways to take over our country in the future. it was laughable then.
You can never underestimate the ability of the news people and TV political geniuses to connect the dots.
I didn’t hear a single one raise the possibility that ObamaCare would be construed legal because it’s a tax. Not one. Is no one as smart as John Roberts? Not even our Mr. Adams raised the possibility.
What’s wrong? Can’t anybody think ahead? Can’t anyone simply lay out some possibilities before an actual event happens? Today’s news bomb had the surprise of Pearl Harbor on a Sunday morning.
“Gosh, nobody around here thought ObamaCare could be deemed a legal tax. After all President Obama said it wasn’t a tax.”
Well, if Rachel Peepers wanted to see a dummy, she’d dig out her old Jerry Mahoney doll.
Now nobody can figure out why Robert joined the other team.
Not only did Roberts show his liberal colors a few days ago in the outlandish immigration case against Arizona; (now the feds have taken the position they’re going to let illegals run pretty much wild in Arizona to punish them for all manner of transgressions including not voting for Obama) but today Roberts declared ObamaCare legal on a strange technicality that made the libs wet their drawers. And allows many of them to fill their bank drawers with millions of ObamaHealthCare Dollars.
Well, maybe Rachel should stop screwing around and tell everybody why Roberts zigged when we all thought he’d zag. The answer is jobs.
And more jobs. It’s the Obama way. Corruption Chicago style. Deep dish or thin sliced, just so the right people get a piece of the pie. Seven or eight years ago it was Michelle Obama getting a no show, #317,000 a year job at the University of Chicago. In Chicago, one hand washes the other.
The Roberts ObamaCare deal is a little bit complex. However, the payoff is once again jobs with some other consideration sprinkled on that’s very hard to track when the attorney general is a no show legally speaking and will be pardoned as soon as his days in office are almost over.
John Roberts is dirty.
Give 308 million people a chance to screw up a great nation and thats what you get, a screwed up nation with the inmates running the asylum.From an ancient swamp no less.
Repeal the 16th Amendment!
The US Constitution has been in its sick bed for quite a while but now the US Supreme Court has pushed it and us over the edge into the abyss of a constitutional and rule of law state of anarchy. They effectively ruled that the US Constitution is nothing more than toilet paper to be discarded as necessary after they dirty it.
But the bigger issue is the super debt cycle collapse that we are racing directly into. Obamacare will add to the US debt monster. The stage is now set for the collapse into the Depression later in this decade. We are racing into financial disaster. If Obama is re-elected that will tell us that the American people have a death wish.
Of course the 50% of American who pay no Income Tax will not pay this Tax either leaving even MORE of a tab for the responsible Taxpayers to pick up. To cover THEM.
Of course the 50% who are just TAKERS and not CONTRIBUTORS get the same voting rights as TaxPAYERS do which they then use to elect Democrats who make TAXPAYERS pay more to support the feckless. Its a vicious circle.
What is it with Democrats and LIES. Now we all know that your USURPER Celebrity , unqualified, inefficient President is a CONFIRMED LIAR from his imaginary Autobiography to his ‘I’ve always been a Christian’ lies to his document HIDDEN history. But now you have the WHOLE Regime which LIED to the American people when they said “Watch my lips ITS NOT A TAX” . OH YES IT IS.
Then you come to the RACIST DOJ Eric Holder who, along with his Islamophile racist minions in the DOJ, has LIED consistently to Congress for nearly TWO YEARS.
November can’t come quick enough
Yet more LIES from that serial LIAR Barry HUSSEIN Soetero Kardashian . The Democratic arguments over ObamaTAX can be summed up as follows,
“Its not a Tax its a Penalty”
“Its not a Tax its a Penalty”
to be repeated ad nauseum by EVERY Democratic spokesLIAR from the LYING USURPER Kardashian on down.
Then after the interfering ACTIVIST Judge Roberts re-wrote it for THEM – “Oh OK of course its a TAX – Thank You Judge” the cheques in the post.
All the GOP needs to do between now an November is to play Videos of ALL the Democrats Obambi included assuring everyone ‘Its NOT a TAX” and showing to one and all if the did not know before now that Kardashian and all his Democrats are self serving LIARS.
Where are you getting the notion that people who don’t pay taxes are off the hook for this tax? My sole source of income is an $800 per month pension, and I am NOT exempt at that pathetically low income level. Individuals making as little as $9,400 a year are not exempt. So just not paying federal income taxes does not mean not paying for this abomination.
It may look like Roberts betrayed you, it may sound like Roberts betrayed you, it may even feel like Roberts betrayed you, but don’t let that fool you, he really did betray you!
I never can think of Judas Iscariot without losing my temper. To my mind Judas Iscariot was nothing but a low, mean, premature, John Roberts.
I will write the gist of a couple problems that I wish a constitutionally astute person would answer for me. There seem to be two separate, distinct and, hence, different constitutional entities. 1) There is, formally considered, the power of Congress to order citizens to puchase X, period, i.e., independent from what X might materially be. 2) The purchasing of X leads causally to costs, however such expenses might arise in conjunction with the ordering.
My first problem is: Taxes are aimed at that which one buys and equals a percentage of said purchase. To view the entire costs of purchasing X as itself the tax, seems to make nonsense out of the notion of taxing. The purchase = the tax??? Does that make sense?
The second problem is more serious for me, namely that of coupling entity 1) and entity 2). An act of ORDERING a purchase is not the same as the ensuant costs, even if one considers said costs to be a tax. The ordering and the costs appear to have a sort of causal post hoc, ergo hoc relationship. Nevertheless they are distinct. In this distinction, costs are a function of ordering. The costs will not arise without the ordering. As I understood the challenge was to the health mandate entity 1), i.e., the ordering. In listening to the explanations of the SC ruling I am left with the impression that the two separate and distinct entities were treated in conjunction with one another as a single entity.
If I am correct, the SC should have treated entity 1), ordering, separately and in itself from costs. Does Congress have, formally speaking, the constitutional power to order puchase of X, whatever it might materially be. What the ordering might be, now or in the future, plays no role.
My basic question concerns the (for me) apparent failure of the SC to distinquish and to seperate legal “entities”. This appears to me to be poor logic. Is my primitive analysis above correct in its basics or have I missed something? Could someone knowledgeable clarify matters for me?
A penalty is not a tax; a tax is not a penalty (no matter how many obscuring precedent rulings others may cite). Roberts and the other four justices have criminally subverted the meaning of “tax”, and rewritten that portion of the Obamacare law to suit themselves. That is all there is to it. Impeach and remove, if you can, is the only advice I can give.
Ya’ll aren’t thinking outside the box (albeit a little tin-foil haberdashery)…
0bama made pissy threats to the court…
Roberts might have been the chosen one to have 0bie threaten his own life and families lives with drone attacks against ‘terrorists’… After all, 0bie can now decide to kill anyone who he deems a terrorist.
Roberts got the memo and did the best he could do whilst out completely selling his soul for fear of being droned.
JUST SAYIN’.
/not so sarc off
This goes far beyond the Supreme Court. They and all of us are products of our times. When it’s okay to enslave people the Supremes will say it’s okay. When it’s not, they won’t.
This has more to do with Glee and trophies given to all kids in a sports tournament than law. If the present population of the U.S was in 1776, we’d still be kissing an English king’s ass. In effect, we have fewer rights than the colonialists did who threw a tea party. You can’t smoke a cigarette in your own condo in some counties and if you redo your house the gov’t can step in and say all the doorways have to be wide enough for wheelchair access even if you intend on never selling the house.
Bleat sheep, you get what you put up with. The gov’t can do whatever it wants to to you and you have no real say in it any more. Our congress is hopelessly corrupt, our population hopelessly indoctrinated with political correctness. There is no organization among the few left who feel differently and not enough of them anyway.
We all laugh at the Arab Spring and Syria while we bend over for the gov’t and point fingers at rapes in Tahrir Square while we have casualties in American cities that approach war zones on a daily basis. Soon no one will be able to do certain things even in their own private homes. The gov’t can say if you can smoke cigarettes there and eventually will and who knows what else.
We’re all wearing helmets forced onto us by law and too stupid to even see it. We are the men in Jack Williamson’s “With Folded Hands.” Admit it, stop pretending and just bow your heads, and don’t forget to leave Spanish grammar books for your great grandchildren, the ones who’ll need them because the entire Third World was transplanted here because someone once called someone else a racist.
If there was a new frontier and I was 20 years old, I’d get on a ship and leave so fast people would wonder if they’d dreamt me. Today’s Americans are no more capable of writing something like the Federalist Papers than a monkey is.
I couldn’t agree more
Well said! :: “If there was a new frontier and I was 20 years old, I’d get on a ship and leave so fast people would wonder if they’d dreamt me. ” :: And I’d be right behind you. — The society which once took pride in calling itself a Republic has devolved into a full-fledged Democracy, fully irrational, corrupt, and soon to be fully mob-ruled. I suspect that now we have become something even “Moochelle” could be “proud of”, and probably is. The Rev. Wright’s curses have become reality. One would like to say “sauve qui peut”, but even flight is no longer an option!
Roberts – yet another Bush legacy that has destroyed this country.
Of course the fool “liberals” are celabrating. Supposing someone who makes Jimmy Baker look shy and retiring (and honest) got elected Pres and decided that everyone should buy a specially annotated bible, plus anything he writes, plus an online, “big brother” type camera mounted in each room of his home?
This ruling clears the way for that to happen. Think the “liberals” are going to be happy?
Hmmm, on second thought, maybe they’d love it, if it was presented right.
what would happen if the taxpayers chose not to pay taxes until we get a real budget with real spending cuts. If we all declined, what could government do?
This is a significant expansion of taxing power. Previously taxes have been imposed on (1) purchases (sales taxes, excise taxes) which citizens are free to refrain from buying; or (2) possessions and acquisitions (income and property taxes). This ruling says that the Federal government can now coerce citizens into behaviors it wants: If you won’t install a solar panel on your roof, pay a “solar panel avoidance tax.” The possibilities are endless.
Rarely have I felt more keenly that the Republic is finished.
The court has put its imprimatur on the theory that the federal government can make you do whatever it wants, including summoning you to action from inaction, as long as a tax is attached. Years from now, how will our descendants deal with this death by a thousand taxes? The accumulated burden of these behavior-taxes will force regular people to comply with government dictate. Only the truly rich will be able to afford to act independently of government mandate.
The silly Roberts distinction between punitive and acceptable taxes apparently resolves based on whether the tax is less cost than the thing being regulated. I didn’t realize it before, but apparently the federal government can make me buy a Government Motors Chevy Volt, and as long as the tax they attach is less than the purchase price, that will pass Constitutional muster. Clearly Obama has an easy way to stimulate the economy here. Just mandate massive demand in all facets of the economy, with innocuous taxes to force compliance.
I don’t understand the leftist impulse toward unlimited government power. I don’t know why they are so happy that they have destroyed limited government and vindicated the government’s right to order people around in any fashion it chooses. As long as their “good intentions” are served, they really don’t seem to notice or care about the consequences. Well, we are certainly well down that road.
I am very near the point of civil disobedience to the federal government. The Obama admin actions against Arizona combined with this monstrous arrogation of federal power has me right at the tipping point.
What does the federal government do for me? Nothing except take a huge chunk of my income and give it to preferred groups. Does it protect me from foreign invasion? Does it defend the borders? In fact, the federal government apparently is only interested in asserting and acting on powers *not* enumerated in the Constitution. The actual things it is supposed to do like securing the borders it couldn’t care less about.
Someone should start a movement of people not paying their taxes. Since according to supporters of illegal immigration, there are just too many of them to do anything about, so we just have to accept it and capitulate, nevermind it is against the law and wrong and the federal government is actively working against enforcement.
Until the federal government goes back to its Constitutional role, we should have millions and millions withold taxes. There will be too many of us, and even though it is wrong, there are just too many to do anything about, and the numbers kind of justify its morality in a way, and so everyone else will just have to accept it.
I am tired of paying taxes to a federal government which is actively sabotaging the native population and meanwhile arrogating power to order our lives and behavior according to the whims of a bunch of Washington Democrats.
Would be great to refuse taxation but that is why the government confiscates its money before you see your paycheck. Best not to make a paycheck or else join the 50% who pay nothing although get the goodies.
Has anyone noted how the Democrats walk out of the whitehouse in support of Holder but the Republicans couldnt walk out togather if the place was on fire. What about a hundred million man march on Washington opposing all of the money grubbing bastards. Just think of the many shovel ready jobs that would be created to lock up this many patriots. Best hope the 2nd ammend isnt next.
That swirling sound you hear is the US constitution being flushed down the toilet by John Roberts. The best friend of bigger and bigger government.
Amend the Constitution, revoke the 16th Amendment. Every State can provide its citizens all the programs it can afford. Currently the U.S. Government has chosen not to charge its citizens: a Federal sales tax, real estate property tax, personal property tax, but Congress could redefine the current meaning of limitations found in the U.S. Constitution and decide it needs to charge citizens a tax on everything. Good luck with your arguments in the face of a money hungry U.S. Government.
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.
For the first time in my adult life I am ashamed of the “supreme” court.
I have a question:
When was the last time the liberals were outraged by a Justice that THEIR boys appointed?
Funny. I can’t remember one.
Thanks again, Pubs!
Remind me again why I vote for you schmucks.