All here, including this one.
Bryan Preston has been a leading conservative blogger and opinionator since founding his first blog in 2001. Bryan is a military veteran, worked for NASA, was a founding blogger and producer at Hot Air, was producer of the Laura Ingraham Show and, most recently before joining PJM, was Communications Director of the Republican Party of Texas.
ObamaTax can’t be a tax under the Constitution.
The tax would seem to be a direct tax, but it is not a tax on income per se, and neither is it proportional to the census of enumeration between the states. The tax itself appears unconstitutional by Art I, Sec 9; and not rendered valid by the 16th amendment, since that only authorizes a capitation tax on incomes. All other direct taxes on individuals–and this would be one–must still be apportioned among the states on basis of population.
A tax on health care insurance status is not a tax on income, and no other direct tax is permissable. Have a nice day.
To square ObamaTax, it myst be incorporated into the income tax laws, but it would violate the spirit of collection of income tax thus far if it was a set-alone item–i.e., not a percentage of income, but a set amount. A flat-tax, so to speak, but for health care only. But at any rate, it would have to be part of the income tax law.
So it seems to me, at any rate.
I do think it pretty clear that a health care rider “fee” would violate the spirit and intent of the 16th amendment as passed, which was for the raising of general revenues (into which I include Social Security and Medicare) based upon the income a person makes.
And as a matter of political prudence and philosophy, I think it would be clear that the intent of the Art I Sec 9 clause was to prevent an electoral majority from forcing only a tiny part of the nation pay the major part of the freight.