Construing the Commerce Clause to permit Congress to regulate individuals precisely because they are doing nothing would open anew and potentially vast domain to congressional authority. Congress already possesses expansive power to regulate what people do.Upholding the Affordable Care Act under the Commerce Clause would give Congress the same license to regulate what people do not do. The Framers knew the difference between doing something and doing nothing. They gave Congress the power to regulate commerce,not to compel it. Ignoring that distinction would undermine the principle that the Federal Government is a government of limited andenumerated powers. The individual mandate thus cannot be sustained under Congress’s power to “regulate Commerce."
...Nor can the individual mandate be sustained under the Necessary and Proper Clause as an integral part of the Affordable Care Act’s other reforms. Each of this Court’s prior cases upholding lawsunder that Clause involved exercises of authority derivative of, and in service to, a granted power. The individual mandate, by contrast, vests Congress withthe extraordinary ability to create the necessary predicate to the exercise of an enumerated power and draw within its regulatory scopethose who would otherwise be outside of it. Even if the individualmandate is “necessary” to the Affordable Care Act’s other reforms,such an expansion of federal power is not a “proper” means for making those reforms effective.
Sorry.. Not buying it..
Roberts sure stuck it to Obama by upholding his bill.. What next? He’s going to side with in on AZ? Opps.
Can’t he (Roberts) just come up with a straight, non-nuanced decision based upon the principles of the US Constitution? All this triangulation is a headache. Wouldn’t we rather just have Scalia, Thomas or Alito write up the correct decision?
The only thing that matters is what they DO.
Just say NO to drugs!
EPIC FAIL!
THEN WHY THE HELL DID HE VOTE WITH THE LIBS?
Rationale of this article has a little merit but is of little comfort. Yes, the ruling did in fact make it clear that the Commerce Clause cannot be used to justify anything and everything that the government does - there is in fact a limit on it - that was a very good thing we have been waiting for...but that doesn’t do much good if you turn around and declare that Congress’ taxing powers can now be used as a replacement excuse to do anything and everything it wants.
The court majority also gave conservatives a major victory by giving states more rights to not participate in parts of the law as well.
That restricts federal power, as does the overwhelming victory on the Commerce Clause that will resonate for decades to come.
The overall outcome IS BAD....IT’S AWFUL THE BILL REMAINS.
But, in the long run, this very well could end up being good for us and the country so long as we can get the law repealed.
I can’t seem to find inthe Constitution where the chief unJustice of the subPreme court is licit in defining what is a tax when the Congress has passed a bill and it is signed into law wihtout being defined as a tax. Can you help me out here? If it is a tax, then little barry bastard commie (Roberts’ boss, obviously) cannot unilaterally exclude whole groups and industries from the lawfully passed tax, so little barry should ne impeached and removed for violating his oath to the Constitution. If it is not a tax then the fool pirate Roberts should have rejected the entire freakin’ monstrosity based upon what he opened with. The man is about as sound as gummy bears.
Who cares? By opening the TAX clause he made it worse.
Even Pandora’s box isn’t this bad.
I feel like throwing up........again.
This guy’s spin is as contorted as Roberts’ thinking.
Obama sure looked demolished today!
Just like the Oklahoma City Thunder demolished the Miami Heat.
Can we all play this game?
Actually, the Cubs won the '69 World Series.
Actually, investors with Madoff did quite well.
Actually, Joe Biden is a decisive thinker.
Actually, the Titanic was an engineerg masterpiece.....
Justice Roberts is a traitor to the Constitution he swore to defend.
He gave leftists enormous new powers today by legislating from the bench.
Hope he enjoys being cheered on the DC cocktail circuit. That is apparently his 30 pieces of silver.
What Roberts did here was to find 'emanations of a penumbra' to allow a mandate, just not using that term.
What we have now is an absolute path to whatever mandates the government wants. They just aren't allowed to involve the state governments. This is a path to more centralized tyranny, not less.
Best analysis so far is by Peter Schiff:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NNCyEC9r_mk&feature=relmfu
BS, there is no defending it. It could have been and should have been killed in its entirety. Period. Anything else is a lie. America has been betrayed again.
Sorry, no sale here either.
The thing that is most infuriating about this decisions is this: The Obama administration explicitly argued that this was NOT A TAX.
The other eight justices were ready to decide this case up or down based on the arguments made by both parties to the case - the states and the US Government/Obama administration. This was an up/down case on whether the Congress, invoking the Commerce Clause, could *force* you into doing commerce where you had been doing none before and had no intention otherwise of conducting commerce.
It was that simple: Could Congress force you to buy a product you didn’t want to buy for the simple reason that you were in the US and under the jurisdiction of the US?
And Roberts blew this simple question. He made an argument that the Obama administration explicitly denied they were making. Where did he get the right or power to do that? I have no idea.
Moreover, he’s a moron for decided that this was a tax. The legislation doesn’t impose a tax - it does impose a penalty for not carrying or obtaining insurance from some provider. The mandate is to buy the private insurance, not to pay the penalty. The penalty is conditional upon ignoring the mandate. The problem was always the mandated commerce.
Only a bunch of Ivy League graduates could take such a simple question and make it so complicated. Roberts, as we’ve now seen, is about as bad as Souter was.
Thanks to Bush, we have this idiot as the CJ of the SCOTUS for a long time to come...