Posted on 06/30/2012 4:02:34 PM PDT by Innovative
It seems to be a stretch for Chief Justice John Roberts to re-label an unconstitutional health insurance mandate as a tax, after the legislative and executive branches of government insisted they were not passing a new tax on the American people. Had it been presented as a tax, it probably would not have been enacted. It seems like the judicial branch of government is doing the job of the legislature. Wouldn't it have been better for the Supreme Court to punt the law back to Congress? Yes, that probably would have caused great disarray, but it seems more appropriate.
President Obama is a constitutional attorney and scholar. I'm guessing he probably knew his mandate was safer cast as a tax. I wonder if he knowingly sold it to Congress and the American people with some deception in this context. Many Americans (including myself) don't accept new tax hikes easily, especially when Congress and the president sell them with marketing deception, making back room deals, and not listening to the American people.
(Excerpt) Read more at forbes.com ...
I guess you realize you summarize in the first six paragraphs of your post exactly what the anti-federalists were trying to tell us.
As far as your seventh paragraph goes: “Here is the solution: Make sure fiscal conservatives get into office, not loopy socialists.”
- that is no longer possible in our current system for several reasons.
“Nonsense. The Constitution never gave Congress unlimited power to tax.....”
You are still making the Federalist case for adoption of the Constitution where the federalists urged the state legislatures to ratify, saying in effect:
“In questions of power, then, let no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution.” The states ratified, but the blandishments of the Federalists proved to be a siren’s song.
A Chief Justice of the Supreme Court once said:
“We are under a Constitution, BUT THE CONSTITUTION IS WHAT THE JUDGES SAY IT IS, and the judiciary is the safeguard of our liberty and of our property under the Constitution.”
The same founder who vainly hoped Leviathan could be bound by the chains of the Constitution seems to have been rather prescient when he said over a hundred years earlier:
“The Constitution, on this hypothesis, is a mere thing of wax in the hands of the Judiciary, which they may twist and shape into any form they please.”
Sure, and that's why an "excise tax on wages" was put in place during the Civil War some 50 years before the 16th Amendment.
The 16th simply removed the income tax from apportionment. The Supreme Court ruled shortly after the 16th went into being that the amendment gave them no new taxing power.
You may want to read up on this. Its not as cut and dried as anyone thinks.
Keep in mind, the Congress can levy any "direct tax" they want. They just have to send it out for apportionment as opposed to collecting from the individual directly. The tax still stands.
A lot of what the anti-Federalists were saying is now coming true.
I have read up on it. I have an LLM in tax. You’re right that a “direct tax” can be imposed so long as there is apportionment. But apportionment is lethal for the tax in practice, so Congress’s authority to levy direct taxes was rendered too cumbersome to actually implement, and this by express design of the Founders. Roberts knew he had to deal with the issue, so he simply said that a “tax” that places every American into a direct relationship with the IRS is not a “direct” tax in clear contradiction to the simple and accepted definition of “direct” tax. The man is a liar.
Yes, but nonetheless, the power is still there to do that. But the Supremes have actually done a number on that as well. Basically they have allowed Congress to end-run that and define anything they want as an excise tax. Thus, the first Income Taxes were born decades before the 16th Amendment came into being.
A little known fact is that the Feds got most of their revenue from excise taxes on alcohol and beer prior to the 16th. The IRS was needed for Prohibition. There is an interesting quirk of history there.
Roberts knew he had to deal with the issue, so he simply said that a “tax” that places every American into a direct relationship with the IRS is not a “direct” tax in clear contradiction to the simple and accepted definition of “direct” tax.
Sort of. Look into the Supreme Court decisions on what is a "direct tax" and what is not as they have ruled in the past.
Prior to the 16th, they had an excise tax on wages - that is fine, but the pre-16th Income Tax also taxed rental income and interest income. Those two, the Supremes held were a direct tax because it was a tax on personal property and the personal property aspect made it a direct tax and thus required to be apportioned.
Congress could have placed an excise tax on rents (as opposed to rental income) and that would not have been a "direct tax".
Suffice it to say, there is a long history of Congress levying every kind of tax they can think of. Some survive, some get ruled Unconstitutional on the apportionment technicality. Some come back after being ruled out of bounds by being sneaky about it.
I don't like the ruling, but I can understand Roberts' logic a bit. Technically, the individual mandate is an income tax levied when a trigger condition is met. Technically, that falls under the 16th then, and technically, it is Constitutional.
That's a lot of "technically". Way too much "technically" and more than the average person would be able to understand so IMO "technically" the decision should be Unconstitutional under the doctrine that it is too weird for the average person to comprehend.
But we have to live with it. What matters more now is less about how we complain about it and more about what we DO about it.
It’s NOT easy to take over the GOP, since the establishment contribute millions in the primaries to defeat Constitutionalists. Romney and his Superpacs simply bludgeoned the competition with ads that fooled enough people. Not everyone is savvy.
Right now, the only way to begin to slay the monster is by purging the Communist dictator. Romney and the Punk are NOT the same. We MUST vote for him, b/c if the Punk remains in office, 2016 will matter very little. Romney is a first step, but he is an essential one. All these hosts are concentrating on Step 1, sensibly. Bob
That is NOT what the regime argued. Roberts made up a phony rationale that wasn’t argued, and he should be held in contempt by every good American. Captain Kangaroo joining the Lenin Sisters to eviscerate our freedom is unconscionable. Stop making excuses for this traitor. Bob
“Romney is a first step, but he is an essential one.”
I can see that logic, but all I can say is, you are barking up the wrong tree supporting the author of Obamneycare. That is a step to nowhere.
I am still surprised you and the talk show hosts have nothing to say beyond “We MUST vote for him” and this is the only way. That way will not slay the monster and there are other ways; legal peacful ways. The talk show hosts just don’t have the guts to talk about them.
All I can say, Ngat, is that if we don’t oust this monster, there will be nothing left to save in 2016. Standing on pure principle now will lead to total destruction of America. I wish that I didn’t believe that, but the Soros forces are extemely powerful, and they are on the precipice of total entrenchment. Bob
Yes, yes, yes...it is a ploy. A ploy orchestrated by Roberts and Rush Limbuagh.
Recall Limbuagh knew something last week, before the ruling came down. Said he did and wouldn’t spill the beans...
Could we have just been “used” to sway votes to Romney? Were and are we the ones being deceived by our own elites?
For everyone accusing the left of a plot...perhaps it is the GOP that laid the trap?
The decision is what the decision is. We have to live with it.
Now what are we going to DO about it?
Stop whining. Stop complaining. Stop tearing people who are on YOUR side a new one. In short, stop making enemies, start making friends, and DO something about it.
Who’s whining? I’m furious. Roberts is a pariah, and a disgrace to all Americans who lost their lives for freedom. Obama MUST lose, or America is dead. Bob
Then let us make it happen.
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