Byron York: 0bama administration denies it argued the ACA mandiate was tax

Twitter ^

[Perdogg]

Question for legal tweeps: Obama campaign is now denying that administration SG ever argued that Obamacare mandate is a tax.

Looking at oral arguments, SG Verrilli said mandate is 'justifiable under its tax power.' Can't find him saying 'It is a tax'…

So therefore: Is Obama hiding behind legal hairsplitting, arguing mandate is constitutional under tax power but is not actually a tax?

[Aria]

Depends on what the meaning of “is” is.

[cuban leaf]

I distinctly remember one of the judges finally saying to Obama’s attorney, “why do you keep calling it a tax?”

;-)

[CaptainK]

There is always a parsing of words and legal Mumbo Jumbo when you put a lawyer in the White House.

Just think back to the last lawyer who sat (or stood as the case may be) in the Oval Office.

[Misterioso]

TWITTER?

[Spirit of Liberty]

Dang! Beat me to it.

[KarlInOhio]

1984 was supposed to be a warning, not a @(#$(#* instruction manual.

[JCS658]

It’s very important that we hit Obama hard on this. We have to show that he has lied about whether on not the mandate is a tax. This should be our number 1 talking point going into the general election for 2 reasons.

First, it will cause voters to question Obama’s honesty and his attitude toward tax increases.

Second, it will deflect attention away from Romney’s so-called “inconsistency” on the issue. Already, the leftists are seizing upon Romney’s statement this morning that the mandate is a tax. The leftists are using two arguments against Mitt. They are already calling him a “flip-flopper” for contradicting his campaign’s statement last week that the mandate is not a tax. (Mitt never said this, but one of his spokesmen did). The libs are also saying that if the mandate is a tax, then that means that Mitt raised taxes in Mass by instituting a similar mandate when he was governor.

So we need to hit Obama hard on two themes: that he is a liar, and a tax raising liberal. We need to keep his campaign on the defensive about this. This is the best way to turn undecided voters against him, and get Romney in the White House.

[ArmstedFragg]

Leftist cognitive dissonance at its finest. I'm reminded of their argument that Clinton didn't have sex with Lewinski then lie about it, while simultaneously arguing that everybody lies about sex. If their first argument was true, the second one was unnecessary, if the second one was necessary the first one was a lie. They never seemed to grasp the logic of that.

Same story here: if it's not a tax then it's not constitutional. They get to choose one or the other, not both. Their feet need to be held to the fire here.

It's a fine measure of how far we've come from reality that these clowns can argue logically contradictory propositions and the MSM just smile and nod sagely.

[for-q-clinton]

I love that line! I’m going to put it on FB.

[VeniVidiVici]

Read my lips: I'm going to screw you over big time with a boat load of new taxes.

[AlexisHeavyMetal1981]

It’s very important that we hit Obama hard on this. We have to show that he has lied about whether on not the mandate is a tax.....
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
NO. NO, NO.

we need to hit him with how many times in Obamacare it is written “As the Secretary may determine”. Don’t you get it? We are arguing an irrelevent point here. Obama and the MSM have taken us down a rabbit hole with the “Tax” argument.

“As the Secretary may determine” means that Obama can just make up the rules as he goes along. One of the things that the “secretary may determine” is whether any health plan is “ACCEPTABLE”. Of course, very quickly, all current health plans (the ones that are supposed to keep if you like them) will be deemed “unacceptable” for any specious reason and run out-of-business by Mr. Obomba.

Pure dictatorship in my book. Even my brother-in-law was stuck like a skipping 33 1/3 LP record on the “tax” argument last night. I had to blow up a paper bag and explode it in his face to snap him out of it.

[tumblindice]

http://www.supremecourt.gov/oral_arguments/argument_transcripts/11-393.pdf

page 33:

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Official - Subject to Final Review
I’m making now about justiciability, or whether the
Court can properly consider it at all. And the second
is, we think only a few provisions are inseverable from
the minimum coverage provision.
I just would like to -­
CHIEF JUSTICE ROBERTS: Before you go,
Mr. Kneedler, I’d like your answer to Justice Breyer’s
question.
I think you were interrupted before you had
a chance -­
MR. KNEEDLER: Yes. No, we believe that in
that case, the tax — the tax provision should not be
struck down. In the first place, the Anti-Injunction
Act would bar a direct suit to challenge it. It would
be very strange to allow a tax to be struck down on the
basis of a severability analysis.”

And Kagan is right there in the thick of the fight.

[CMailBag]

WHO GIVES A DAMN WHAT IT IS CALLED?????????????I JUST CALL IT WRONG!!!

[colorado tanker]

It is entirely predictable that this bunch of jerks would bait Roberts into upholding this crap as a "tax" and then pull the rug out from under him by claiming, hey, this ain't a tax.

BTW, Judge Roberts, did you know the Maltese Falcon was a fake, just like your so-called "tax"?

[Bratch]

BTW, Judge Roberts, did you know the Maltese Falcon was a fake, just like your so-called "tax"?

Obamacare, "The stuff that dreams* are made of."

*dreams = nightmares

[philman_36]

Transcript...@Supreme Court: The Health Care Law And The Individual Mandate

“why do you keep calling it a tax?”

Here is, to me, the most important quote in the whole thing...

JUSTICE SCALIA: Is it a tax or not a tax? The President didn't think it was.
GENERAL VERRILLI: The President said it wasn't a tax increase because it ought to be understood as an incentive to get people to have insurance.
I don't think it's fair to infer from that anything about whether that is an exercise of the tax power or not.

It doesn't matter what the President "said", what matters is how the bill is written! He lied and everybody knew it!
And speaking of Congress and what they knew...
So much more...

GENERAL VERRILLI: I don't think that that's a fair characterization of the actions of Congress here, Justice Kagan. On the — December 23rd, a point of constitutional order was called to, in fact, with respect to this law. The floor sponsor, Senator Baucus, defended it as an exercise of the taxing power. In his response to the point of order, the Senate voted 60 to 39 on that proposition.

The legislative history is replete with members of Congress explaining that this law is constitutional as an exercise of the taxing power. It was attacked as a tax by its opponents. So I don't think this is a situation where you can say that Congress was avoiding any mention of the tax power.

It would be one thing if Congress explicitly disavowed an exercise of the tax power. But given that it hasn't done so, it seems to me that it's — not only is it fair to read this as an exercise of the tax power, but this Court has got an obligation to construe it as an exercise of the tax power, if it can be upheld on that basis.

And this... CHIEF JUSTICE ROBERTS: Why didn't Congress call it a tax, then?
GENERAL VERRILLI: Well -
CHIEF JUSTICE ROBERTS: You're telling me they thought of it as a tax, they defended it on the tax power. Why didn't they say it was a tax?
GENERAL VERRILLI: They might have thought, Your Honor, that calling it a penalty as they did would make it more effective in accomplishing its objective. But it is — in the Internal Revenue Code it is collected by the IRS on April 15th. I don't think this is a situation in which you can say -
CHIEF JUSTICE ROBERTS: Well, that's the reason. They thought it might be more effective if they called it a penalty.
GENERAL VERRILLI: Well, I — you know, I don't — there is nothing that I know of that — that illuminates that, but certainly -
One more... JUSTICE ALITO: Can the — can the mandate be viewed as tax if it does impose a requirement on people who are not subject to the penalty or the tax?
GENERAL VERRILLI: I think it could, for the reasons I — I discussed yesterday. I don't think it can or should be read that way. But if there is any doubt about that, Your Honor, if there is — if — if it is the view of the Court that it can't be, then I think the — the right way to handle this case is by analogy to New York v. United States, in which the — the Court read the shall provision, shall handle the level of radioactive waste as setting the predicate, and then the other provisions were merely incentives to get the predicate met, and
JUSTICE SCALIA: You're saying that all the discussion we had earlier about how this is one big uniform scheme and the Commerce Clause blah, blah, blah, it really doesn't matter. This is a tax and the Federal Government could simply have said, without all of the rest of this legislation, could simply have said everybody who doesn't buy health insurance at a certain age will be taxed so much money, right?
GENERAL VERRILLI: It — it used its powers together to solve the problem of the market not -
JUSTICE SCALIA: Yes, but you didn't need that.
GENERAL VERRILLI — providing for the -
JUSTICE SCALIA: You didn't need that. If it's a tax, it's only — raising money is enough.
GENERAL VERRILLI: It's justifiable under its tax power.
JUSTICE SCALIA: Extraordinary.

Remember who the majority part was and how the votes went down! A Democrat majority shoved a tax down the throat of America and tried to hide what they were doing with stupid ass word games!

Read people and think about the decision handed down.

[philman_36]

A much better transcript at #17. The link you’ve given is not complete. (I know, I’ve looked)

[Hotlanta Mike]

[Cyber Liberty]

If their first argument was true, the second one was unnecessary, if the second one was necessary the first one was a lie.

Reminds me of the "Black Kettle" defense.

A man borrowed a friend's black kettle. When he brought it back, it was broken. When the owner asked the borrower to pay to fix it, the borrower says, "The kettle was broken when I borrowed it, and it's not broken anyway."