The Roberts Rules

WSJ ^ | 6-29-2012 | opinion

[quimby]

Thursday was destined to be an historic day for American liberty, and it was, though the new precedent is grim. The remarkable decision upholding the Affordable Care Act is shot through with confusion—the mandate that's really a tax, except when it isn't, and the government whose powers are limited and enumerated, except when they aren't. One thing is clear: This was a one-man show, and that man is John Roberts.

Snip

According to Chief Justice Roberts, the penalty is merely a tax on not owning health insurance, no different from "buying gasoline or earning income," and it thus complies with the Constitution. This a large loophole. The result is that Washington has unlimited power to impose new purchase mandates and the courts will find them constitutional if Congress calls them taxes, or even if it calls them something else and judges call them taxes.

snip

But this and even the five votes limiting Congress under the Commerce Clause pale against the Chief Justice's infinitely elastic and dangerous interpretation of the taxing power. Nancy Pelosi famously said we need to pass ObamaCare to find out what's in it. It turns out we also needed John Roberts to write his appendix.

[quimby]

To those who think the commerce clause limitation is important, the taxing power now law (as per SCOTUS) superces.

And if you think "now they have to call it a tax'" they will do the same as this bill and let the court do it for them.

BTW, the court may have called it a tax, but the MSM will not.

[american_ranger]

Can anyone tell me where Roberts is going to be buried?

I want to start pissing on his grave right away. No reason to wait.

Maybe I should start a business. Send me your urine and I will pour it on Roberts’ grave.

[jesseam]

Impeach Roberts!!!!

[Repeal 16-17]

Some interesting stuff went on in SCOTUS just before this decision. Roberts’s reference to the taxing power reads like it was put in his opinion at the last moment. Was he threatened, bribed or both? Did he chicken out?

[Scott from the Left Coast]

John Roberts is simply the worst, most destructive Chief Justice is the entire history of the nation. As bad as Obama is a President.

Worse, we can’t be rid of him. A terrible, terrible person to place in a position of responsibility.

[free me]

Excellent editorial from the WSJ.

Everyone should read it.

[ex-snook]

Paying for health insurance instead of offloading medical costs to hospitals is an idea whose time has come. How to implement it is the problem. If mandating coverage through private insurance was unconstitutional, then financing through the public option was the alternative. I think conservatives protesteth too much.

[Uri’el-2012]

Does the word TAX appear in the Affordable Care Act ?

If it was not a TAX bill, Roberts is LAWLESS.

Re: Anti-Injunction Act !

[quimby]

Try reading the article. This decision is worse than osamacaretax.

[The Free Engineer]

Under Robert’s theory, is there any limit on what government cannot coerce you into doing by making use of a tax?

Can they assign you a job and fine you $10K in taxes a month until you comply?

Can they limit you to one child per family?

WHERE IS THE LIMIT OF THIS POWER?

[hosepipe]

Roberts is a stealth gift from GW Bush......
Keep your eyes on Alito.....

[VRWC For Truth]

Roberts should be shunned at any public event. Persona non grata.

[ex-snook]

I read it including the snips. What did you find so illuminating?

[quimby]

Eat your broccoli!

[trekdown]

Please read also the comments to this thoughtful article. It looks like a great discussion ...

[saleman]

The limit on the power is the people we elect to office.

“Can they assign you a job and fine you $10K in taxes a month until you comply?”

Sure, why not? What Congress is gonna pass such a thing?

[quimby]

you wrote:

What did you find so illuminating?

From the "full article"

Note that this rejection of federal compulsion, which the four conservatives supported albeit in dissent, is the same one that the liberal legal establishment spent years deriding as frivolous and beyond debate: Of course Washington has carte blanche to do whatever it wants to do. "That is not the country the Framers of our Constitution envisioned," the Chief Justice writes, before going on to envision it himself by grounding the mandate in Congress's power to "lay and collect Taxes."

In other words, congress can compel anything action they want without having to call it a tax (the SCOTUS will do it for them) or the citing the commerce clause regulation of interstate commerce.

[libstripper]

The truly horrible thing about what Roberts did is that he, in effect, said the constitution is infinitely elastic and words and legislative history have no meaning in interpreting it or a statute, since the Court can make a statute or the constitution whatever it wants to make them to achieve a desired result. Here he turned what was a penalty, by all legislative history, commonly accepted meaning of penalty vs. tax, and the clear language and function of the statute itself into a “tax” simply to achieve his predetermined goal of finding ObamaCare constitutional. That's an abominable legal usurpation going far beyond even “living constitution” theory, which at least allows words and phrases to retain their normal meaning . Indeed, now, there's no reasonable assurance, let alone a guarantee, that either the constitution or any statute will be held to mean what its clear language, phraseology, and legislative history unequivocally say it means.

[quimby]

You wrote:

Sure, why not? What Congress is gonna pass such a thing?

Sorry, but founders wrote the Constitution as a limitation on congressional power because they thought otherwise.

[Political Junkie Too]

A tax is usually an assessment on an activity. If I earn an income, it is taxed. If I purchase a product, it is taxed.

People are calling this ruling a tax on behavior, but even a behavior has to be performed.

How can I be taxed for something that I do NOT do?

-PJ