This is a very important point. What Roberts has done, in effect, is invalidate the 5th Amendment “takings” clause. There is no way you can square the logic of this opinion with the 5th Amendment.
And the practical effect is that for years the socialists have been drooling over that pot of money out there in all our private retirement savings plans. All our 401(k), SEP, IRA’s, all of it. They have been wanting it so badly they can taste it. The only thing, from a Constitutional standpoint, that kept their grubby hands off it was the Takings Clause of the 5th Amendment.
Now, that is gone. It’s not a “taking” if they just call it a “tax.”
That's right.
They are now free to swipe it all (just like the government did in Argentina).
“Now, that is gone. It’s not a ‘taking’ if they just call it a ‘tax.’”
We were already basically left unprotected from takings by Penn Central Transportation Co. v New York. This—calling takings a “tax”—is just another angle from which to hit it. The federal government’s nearly unlimited powers are implied by a great many SCOTUS decisions, most of those coming after the infamous “switch in time that saved nine.” It just takes a while for it to be made explicit.
Sometimes there’s a surprise, as when Roberts, Scalia, Alito, Thomas, and Kennedy declined to stretch Wickard a bnit further by denying the commerce clause’s application to “regulating” non-activity. But it more than made up for that by stretching out Helvering to cover mandates backed by penalties which are to be considered “taxes.”
At least the court still arbitrarily protects those portions of the Bill of Rights it favors and certain other unspecified “rights” which may or may not actually exist. So Leviathan is not omnipotent. Only almost.