The Obama Administration now argues that the power of the Federal government is limited to… pretty much whatever it can get away with. An exaggeration? You make the call:
In a brief defending the [Obamacare] law, the Justice Department says the requirement for people to carry insurance or pay the penalty is “a valid exercise” of Congress’s power to impose taxes.
Congress can use its taxing power “even for purposes that would exceed its powers under other provisions” of the Constitution, the department said. For more than a century, it added, the Supreme Court has held that Congress can tax activities that it could not reach by using its power to regulate commerce.
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“The Commerce Clause supplies sufficient authority for the shared-responsibility requirements in the new health reform law,” Mr. Pfeiffer said. “To the extent that there is any question of additional authority — and we don’t believe there is — it would be available through the General Welfare Clause.”
So there you have it. There is no essential limit to what Congress may take from you or mandate of you, and very few limits on how the Executive Branch can go about exercising those powers.
UPDATE: A little further down in the story, the CBO says, “Because the penalty is a tax, no one can challenge it in court before paying it and seeking a refund.”
I wondered about that. The IRS has its own courts and its own judges paid for out of its own budget. And they’re the only courts in the land (?) where you’re presumed guilty until proven innocent.
Welcome to Brazil.
No new taxes for folks on incomes less than $250,000? Obama lied, your wealth died.
Welcome to the under-verse, Furian.
The Liberal/Leftist members of our much beloved government has taken to heart Reagan’s warning, “If we lose freedom here, there is no place to escape to. This is the last stand on Earth.” The omniscient elites endowed by their reasoned compassion understand they have us cornered and they will squeeze the blood from our hearts with one hand while taking our income with the other. If we don’t FEEL the pain and suffering of others who do not wish to pick themselves up we should have the government show us how.
. . . Individualism, responsibility, accountability: you antiquated “thinker,” you! 14th Amendment? It’s a living document and the keepers of etymology can change the meaning of words like “no state shall make or enforce any law which shall . . . deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law”. Words are plastic, malleable. Honestly, Small Brain, why do you hoard your misbegotten “earnings”? Self-sufficiency is evil. . . .
Whoa…! What just happened there? This liberal arts education or mine is making me feel funny. Is the Left a precursor to the Borg? I can feel them in my mind!
They are the collective only without any of the efficiency or technological prowess. Oh and also without social skills or art or literature or music or sense of History. In short the left is the Borg only with out any of the endearing qualities.
I’m confused. Didn’t the House just end up passing the Senate bill because of Scott Brown’s election? And wouldn’t the claim that it’s “really just a tax” contradict the Constitutional requirement that tax bills originate in the House?
Just as the Senate did for TARP, it gutted an existing House Resolution to create its own version of PlaceboCare.
It was no accident that there was a handy House resolution to make that happen, or that the IRS was designated as the collector.
Ah, so that’s how they do that. Thanks for explaining it. I declare shenanigans.
Yeah, I know, that’s crazy talk.
The IRS, like the Gestapo before it, depends on fear. Fear of audits where you have no rights. Fear of un-appealable “decisions”. Fear of summary impound or garnishment.
Well founded fears.
Such a wonderful thing, this living document the Constitution. It means what the judges say it ought to mean. What’s written on it is so 18th century and unimportant.
As somebody once said “”I have Altered the Deal, Pray I do not Alter it Further.”
Could you go to court and argue that it’s not a tax without first paying it and challenging it through the IRS?