Emily raised an excellent point on Roberts' rulings and the PPACA/Obamacare

[Procrustes Stretched]

Emily raised an excellent point on Roberts' rulings and the PPACA/Obamacare

Emily raised an excellent point, even as she had it all wrong.

People like Dante we can kiss our asses goodbye

we are now under dictatorship

according to your nonsense, we've been under one for years now.


make up your demented mind, willya wilma?

Dear Dante: I do agree with part of your point here. That regardless of this procedure or change in it, I find that giving the Supreme Court or any judge "power" to rule or impose an interpretation without consent or check by the people is TOO EASILY ABUSED.

It becomes kritocracy or rule by judges.

I believe it is a disguised form of theocracy where people can act as God and decide law for people. Where we "agree" with judicial rulings as Constitutional, then we don't notice or complain.

But with cases like Kelo or Terri Schaivo; or even people who protested the court ruling in Bush's contested election as a conflict of interest, or Judge Roberts suddenly switching sides and turning a dissenting opinion he had already written up to a ruling in favor of ACA,

it is clear to me that we need more check and balance on judges especially on the Supreme Court.

Ideally issues should be resolved by consensus to PROTECT all interests EQUALLY and not favor one party over another which ISN'T EQUAL. DUH.

Especially with issues of religious beliefs, these should be mediated and decided by the people who are represented/affected by the outcomes. NOT "decided/dictated" by the state and especially not by a judge without accountability or check on the ruling or outcome.

This has ALWAYS been a problem with government. This is not new, but we don't notice or complain until something goes wrong. But the problem of people making/imposing decisions onto other people without their consent/representation has always been the conflict with collective authority, whether through the church or state. And with judges it is almost the same problem with clergy making decisions and handing them down to people.

We complain when churches or religious leaders do this, impose their biases on others. But when it comes to politics or govt, why don't we see it's the same problem in a different context?

"I find that giving the Supreme Court or any judge "power" to rule or impose an interpretation without consent or check by the people is *too easily abused." -- Exactly what Chief Justice Roberts said was the Court's reasoning and justification based on principle and precedent, in his ruling that the Court use the Obama administrations' second argument in upholding the mandated 'shared penalty responsibility'

You obviously have NOT read Roberts' ruling

[MENTION=22295]emilynghiem[/MENTION] [MENTION=1668]Stephanie[/MENTION] ​

​

Original Document in PDF from: http://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/392159/supreme-court-health-care-decision-text.pdf

We think the Government has the better reading. As
it observes, “Assessment” and “Collection” are chapters of
the Internal Revenue Code providing the Secretary authority to assess and collect taxes, and generally specifying the means by which he shall do so. See §6201 (assessment authority); §6301 (collection authority). Section 5000A(g)(1)’s command that the penalty be “assessed and collected in the same manner” as taxes is best read as referring to those chapters and giving the Secretary the same authority and guidance with respect to the penalty. That interpretation is consistent with the remainder of §5000A(g), which instructs the Secretary on the tools he may use to collect the penalty. See §5000A(g)(2)(A) (barring criminal prosecutions); §5000A(g (2)(B) (prohibiting the Secretary from using notices of lien and levies). The Anti-Injunction Act, by contrast, says nothing about the procedures to be used in assessing and collecting taxes.

Amicus argues in the alternative that a different section of the Internal Revenue Code requires courts to treat the penalty as a tax under the Anti-Injunction Act. Section 6201(a) authorizes the Secretary to make “assessments of all taxes (including interest, additional amounts, additions to the tax, and assessable penalties).” (Emphasis added.)

Amicus contends that the penalty must be a tax, because it is an assessable penalty and §6201(a) says that taxes include assessable penalties. That argument has force only if §6201(a) is read in isolation. The Code contains many provisions treating taxes and assessable penalties as distinct terms. See, e.g., 15 §§860(h)(1), 6324A(a), 6601(e)(1)–(2), 6602, 7122(b). There would, for example, be no need for §6671(a) to deem “tax” to refer to certain assessable penalties if the Code already included all such penalties in the term “tax.”

Indeed, amicus’s earlier observation that the Code requires assessable penalties to be assessed and collected “in the same manner as taxes” makes little sense if assessable penalties are themselves taxes.

In light of the Code’s consistent distinction between the terms “tax” and “assessable penalty,” we must accept the Government’s interpretation: §6201(a) instructs the Secretary that his authority to assess taxes includes the authority to assess penalties, but it does not equate assessable penalties to taxes for other purposes.

The Affordable Care Act does not require that the penalty for failing to comply with the individual mandate be treated as a tax for purposes of the Anti-Injunction Act. The Anti-Injunction Act therefore does not apply to this suit, and we may proceed to the merits.

 

[Procrustes Stretched]

We need to actually know what we are talking about -- without reverting to talking points and web site bs, cable tv/radio arguments,...

No matter how “inherently integrated” health insurance and health care consumption may be, they are not the same thing: They involve different transactions, entered into at different times, with different providers. And for most of those targeted by the mandate, significant health care needs will be years, or even decades, away.

The proximity and degree of connection between the mandate and the subsequent commercial activity is too lacking to justify an exception of the sort urged by the Government.

The individual mandate forces individuals into commerce precisely because they elected to refrain from commercial activity. Such a law cannot be sustained under a clause authorizing Congress to “regulate Commerce.”

The Government next contends that Congress has the power under the Necessary and Proper Clause to enact the individual mandate because the mandate is an “integral part of a comprehensive scheme of economic regulation”— the guaranteed-issue and community-rating insurance reforms. Brief for United States 24.

Under this argument, it is not necessary to consider the effect that an individual’s inactivity may have on interstate commerce; it is enough that Congress regulate commercial activity in a way that requires regulation of inactivity to be effective.

The power to “make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution” the powers enumerated in the Constitution, Art. I, §8, cl. 18, vests Congress with authority to enact provisions “incidental to the [enumerated] power, and conducive to its beneficial exercise,” McCulloch, 4 Wheat., at 418.

...

Just as the individual mandate cannot be sustained as a law regulating the substantial effects of the failure to purchase health insurance, neither can it be upheld as a “necessary and proper” component of the insurance reforms. The commerce power thus does not authorize the mandate. Accord, post, at 4–16 (joint opinion of SCALIA, KENNEDY, THOMAS, and ALITO, JJ., dissenting).

That is not the end of the matter. Because the Commerce Clause does not support the individual mandate, it is necessary to turn to the Government’s second argument: that the mandate may be upheld as within Congress’s enumerated power to “lay and collect Taxes.” Art. I, §8, cl.

The Government’s tax power argument asks us to view the statute differently than we did in considering its commerce power theory. In making its Commerce Clause argument, the Government defended the mandate as a regulation requiring individuals to purchase health insurance.

The Government does not claim that the taxing power allows Congress to issue such a command. Instead, the Government asks us to read the mandate not as ordering individuals to buy insurance, but rather as imposing a tax on those who do not buy that product.

The text of a statute can sometimes have more than one possible meaning. To take a familiar example, a law that reads “no vehicles in the park” might, or might not, ban bicycles in the park.

And it is well established that if a statute has two possible meanings, one of which violates the Constitution, courts should adopt the meaning that does not do so. Justice Story said that 180 years ago: “No court ought, unless the terms of an act rendered it unavoidable, to give a construction to it which should involve a violation, however unintentional, of the constitution.” Parsons v. Bedford, 3 Pet. 433, 448449 (1830).

Justice Holmes made the same point a century later: “[T]he rule is settled that as between two possible interpretations of a statute, by one of which it would be unconstitutional and by the other valid, our plain duty is to adopt that which will save the Act.” Blodgett v. Holden, 275 U. S. 142, 148 (1927) (concurring opinion).

The most straightforward reading of the mandate is that it commands individuals to purchase insurance.

...

The question is not whether that is the most natural interpretation of the mandate, but only whether it is a “fairly possible” one. Crowell v. Benson, 285 U. S. 22, 62 (1932). As we have explained, “every reasonable construction must be resorted to, in order to save a statute from unconstitutionality.” Hooper v. California, 155 U. S. 648, 657 (1895). The Government asks us to interpret the mandate as imposing a tax, if it would otherwise violate the Constitution. Granting the Act the full measure of deference owed to federal statutes, it can be so read, for the reasons set forth below.

...

It is of course true that the Act describes the payment as a “penalty,” not a “tax.” But while that label is fatal to the application of the Anti-Injunction Act, supra, at 12–13, it does not determine whether the payment may be viewed as an exercise of Congress’s taxing power. It is up to Congress whether to apply the Anti-Injunction Act to any particular statute, so it makes sense to be guided by Congress’s choice of label on that question. That choice does not, however, control whether an exaction is within Congress’s constitutional power to tax. Our precedent reflects this:

...

We have similarly held that exactions not labeled taxes nonetheless were authorized by Congress’s power to tax.

...

The reasons the Court in Drexel Furniture held that what was called a “tax” there was a penalty support the conclusion that what is called a “penalty” here may be viewed as a tax.

None of this is to say that the payment is not intended to affect individual conduct.

Although the payment will raise considerable revenue, it is plainly designed to expand health insurance coverage. But taxes that seek to influence conduct are nothing new.

Some of our earliest federal taxes sought to deter the purchase of imported manufactured goods in order to foster the growth of domestic industry. See W. Brownlee, Federal Taxation in America 22 (2d ed. 2004); cf. 2 J. Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States §962, p. 434 (1833) (“the taxing power is often, very often, applied for other purposes, than revenue&#8221. Today, federal and state taxes can compose more than half the retail price of cigarettes, not just to raise more money, but to encourage people to quit smoking. And we have upheld such obviously regulatory measures as taxes on selling marijuana and sawed off shotguns. See United States v. Sanchez, 340 U. S. 42, 44–45 (1950); Sonzinsky v. United States, 300 U. S. 506, 513 (1937). Indeed, “[e]very tax is in some measure regulatory. To some extent it interposes an economic impediment to the activity taxed as compared with others not taxed.” Sonzinsky, supra, at 513. That §5000A seeks to shape decisions about whether to buy health insurance does not mean that it cannot be a valid exercise of the taxing power.

In distinguishing penalties from taxes, this Court has explained that “if the concept of penalty means anything, it means punishment for an unlawful act or omission.” United States v. Reorganized CF&I Fabricators of Utah, Inc., 518 U. S. 213, 224 (1996); see also United States v. La Franca, 282 U. S. 568, 572 (1931) (“[A] penalty, as the word is here used, is an exaction imposed by statute as punishment for an unlawful act&#8221. While the individual mandate clearly aims to induce the purchase of health insurance, it need not be read to declare that failing to do so is unlawful. Neither the Act nor any other law attaches negative legal consequences to not buying health insurance, beyond requiring a payment to the IRS. The Government agrees with that reading, confirming that if someone chooses to pay rather than obtain health insurance, they have fully complied with the law. Brief for United States 60–61; Tr. of Oral Arg. 49–50 (Mar. 26, 2012)

...

Our precedent demonstrates that Congress had the power to impose the exaction in §5000A under the taxing power, and that §5000A need not be read to do more than impose a tax. That is sufficient to sustain it. The “question of the constitutionality of action taken by Congress does not depend on recitals of the power which it under takes to exercise.” Woods v. Cloyd W. Miller Co.,

...

First, and most importantly, it is abundantly clear the Constitution does not guarantee that individuals may avoid taxation through inactivity. A capitation, after all, is a tax that everyone must pay simply for existing, and capitations are expressly contemplated by the Constitution. The Court today holds that our Constitution protects us from federal regulation under the Commerce Clause so long as we abstain from the regulated activity. But from its creation, the Constitution has made no such promise with respect to taxes. See Letter from Benjamin Franklin to M. Le Roy (Nov. 13, 1789) (“Our new Constitution is now established. . . but in this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes&#8221.

...

Congress’s authority under the taxing power is limited to requiring an individual to pay money into the Federal Treasury, no more. If a tax is properly paid, the Government has no power to compel or punish individuals subject to it. We do not make light of the severe burden that taxation—especially taxation motivated by a regulatory purpose—can impose. But imposition of a tax nonetheless leaves an individual with a lawful choice to do or not do a certain act, so long as he is willing to pay a tax levied on that choice.

The Affordable Care Act’s requirement that certain individuals pay a financial penalty for not obtaining health insurance may reasonably be characterized as a tax. Because the Constitution permits such a tax, it is not our role to forbid it, or to pass upon its wisdom or fairness.

JUSTICE GINSBURG questions the necessity of rejecting the Government’s commerce power argument, given that §5000A can be upheld under the taxing power. Post, at 37. But the statute reads more naturally as a command to buy insurance than as a tax, and I would uphold it as a command if the Constitution allowed it. It is only because the Commerce Clause does not authorize such a command that it is necessary to reach the taxing power question. And it is only because we have a duty to construe a statute to save it, if fairly possible, that §5000A can be interpreted as a tax. Without deciding the Commerce Clause question, I would find no basis to adopt such a saving construction.

The Federal Government does not have the power to order people to buy health insurance. Section 5000A would therefore be unconstitutional if read as a command.

The Federal Government does have the power to impose a tax on those without health insurance. Section 5000A is therefore constitutional, because it can reasonably be read as a tax.

 

[HenryBHough]

Remember the good old days when the messianic pronouncement from on high was that the fees built into Obamacare were NOT a tax? And then how quickly The New Messiah backpedaled when it was ruled to be just that?

Oh, liberal? Yeah, I can see how you'd have forgotten.

 

[Procrustes Stretched]

Remember the good old days when the messianic pronouncement from on high was that the fees built into Obamacare were NOT a tax? And then how quickly The New Messiah backpedaled when it was ruled to be just that?

Oh, liberal? Yeah, I can see how you'd have forgotten.

If you had bothered to read what you are responding to you'd see that the Obama administration actually asked the Court to view the penalty as a tax

@HenryBHough the usmb moron​

"The Government does not claim that the taxing power allows Congress to issue such a command. Instead, the Government asks us to read the mandate not as ordering individuals to buy insurance, but rather as imposing a tax on those who do not buy that product."

 

[Quantum Windbag]

We need to actually know what we are talking about -- without reverting to talking points and web site bs, cable tv/radio arguments,...

No matter how “inherently integrated” health insurance and health care consumption may be, they are not the same thing: They involve different transactions, entered into at different times, with different providers. And for most of those targeted by the mandate, significant health care needs will be years, or even decades, away.

The proximity and degree of connection between the mandate and the subsequent commercial activity is too lacking to justify an exception of the sort urged by the Government.

The individual mandate forces individuals into commerce precisely because they elected to refrain from commercial activity. Such a law cannot be sustained under a clause authorizing Congress to “regulate Commerce.”

The Government next contends that Congress has the power under the Necessary and Proper Clause to enact the individual mandate because the mandate is an “integral part of a comprehensive scheme of economic regulation”— the guaranteed-issue and community-rating insurance reforms. Brief for United States 24.

Under this argument, it is not necessary to consider the effect that an individual’s inactivity may have on interstate commerce; it is enough that Congress regulate commercial activity in a way that requires regulation of inactivity to be effective.

The power to “make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution” the powers enumerated in the Constitution, Art. I, §8, cl. 18, vests Congress with authority to enact provisions “incidental to the [enumerated] power, and conducive to its beneficial exercise,” McCulloch, 4 Wheat., at 418.

...

Just as the individual mandate cannot be sustained as a law regulating the substantial effects of the failure to purchase health insurance, neither can it be upheld as a “necessary and proper” component of the insurance reforms. The commerce power thus does not authorize the mandate. Accord, post, at 4–16 (joint opinion of SCALIA, KENNEDY, THOMAS, and ALITO, JJ., dissenting).

That is not the end of the matter. Because the Commerce Clause does not support the individual mandate, it is necessary to turn to the Government’s second argument: that the mandate may be upheld as within Congress’s enumerated power to “lay and collect Taxes.” Art. I, §8, cl.

The Government’s tax power argument asks us to view the statute differently than we did in considering its commerce power theory. In making its Commerce Clause argument, the Government defended the mandate as a regulation requiring individuals to purchase health insurance.

The Government does not claim that the taxing power allows Congress to issue such a command. Instead, the Government asks us to read the mandate not as ordering individuals to buy insurance, but rather as imposing a tax on those who do not buy that product.

The text of a statute can sometimes have more than one possible meaning. To take a familiar example, a law that reads “no vehicles in the park” might, or might not, ban bicycles in the park.

And it is well established that if a statute has two possible meanings, one of which violates the Constitution, courts should adopt the meaning that does not do so. Justice Story said that 180 years ago: “No court ought, unless the terms of an act rendered it unavoidable, to give a construction to it which should involve a violation, however unintentional, of the constitution.” Parsons v. Bedford, 3 Pet. 433, 448449 (1830).

Justice Holmes made the same point a century later: “[T]he rule is settled that as between two possible interpretations of a statute, by one of which it would be unconstitutional and by the other valid, our plain duty is to adopt that which will save the Act.” Blodgett v. Holden, 275 U. S. 142, 148 (1927) (concurring opinion).

The most straightforward reading of the mandate is that it commands individuals to purchase insurance.

...

The question is not whether that is the most natural interpretation of the mandate, but only whether it is a “fairly possible” one. Crowell v. Benson, 285 U. S. 22, 62 (1932). As we have explained, “every reasonable construction must be resorted to, in order to save a statute from unconstitutionality.” Hooper v. California, 155 U. S. 648, 657 (1895). The Government asks us to interpret the mandate as imposing a tax, if it would otherwise violate the Constitution. Granting the Act the full measure of deference owed to federal statutes, it can be so read, for the reasons set forth below.

...

It is of course true that the Act describes the payment as a “penalty,” not a “tax.” But while that label is fatal to the application of the Anti-Injunction Act, supra, at 12–13, it does not determine whether the payment may be viewed as an exercise of Congress’s taxing power. It is up to Congress whether to apply the Anti-Injunction Act to any particular statute, so it makes sense to be guided by Congress’s choice of label on that question. That choice does not, however, control whether an exaction is within Congress’s constitutional power to tax. Our precedent reflects this:

...

We have similarly held that exactions not labeled taxes nonetheless were authorized by Congress’s power to tax.

...

The reasons the Court in Drexel Furniture held that what was called a “tax” there was a penalty support the conclusion that what is called a “penalty” here may be viewed as a tax.

None of this is to say that the payment is not intended to affect individual conduct.

Although the payment will raise considerable revenue, it is plainly designed to expand health insurance coverage. But taxes that seek to influence conduct are nothing new.

Some of our earliest federal taxes sought to deter the purchase of imported manufactured goods in order to foster the growth of domestic industry. See W. Brownlee, Federal Taxation in America 22 (2d ed. 2004); cf. 2 J. Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States §962, p. 434 (1833) (“the taxing power is often, very often, applied for other purposes, than revenue”). Today, federal and state taxes can compose more than half the retail price of cigarettes, not just to raise more money, but to encourage people to quit smoking. And we have upheld such obviously regulatory measures as taxes on selling marijuana and sawed off shotguns. See United States v. Sanchez, 340 U. S. 42, 44–45 (1950); Sonzinsky v. United States, 300 U. S. 506, 513 (1937). Indeed, “[e]very tax is in some measure regulatory. To some extent it interposes an economic impediment to the activity taxed as compared with others not taxed.” Sonzinsky, supra, at 513. That §5000A seeks to shape decisions about whether to buy health insurance does not mean that it cannot be a valid exercise of the taxing power.

In distinguishing penalties from taxes, this Court has explained that “if the concept of penalty means anything, it means punishment for an unlawful act or omission.” United States v. Reorganized CF&I Fabricators of Utah, Inc., 518 U. S. 213, 224 (1996); see also United States v. La Franca, 282 U. S. 568, 572 (1931) (“[A] penalty, as the word is here used, is an exaction imposed by statute as punishment for an unlawful act”). While the individual mandate clearly aims to induce the purchase of health insurance, it need not be read to declare that failing to do so is unlawful. Neither the Act nor any other law attaches negative legal consequences to not buying health insurance, beyond requiring a payment to the IRS. The Government agrees with that reading, confirming that if someone chooses to pay rather than obtain health insurance, they have fully complied with the law. Brief for United States 60–61; Tr. of Oral Arg. 49–50 (Mar. 26, 2012)

...

Our precedent demonstrates that Congress had the power to impose the exaction in §5000A under the taxing power, and that §5000A need not be read to do more than impose a tax. That is sufficient to sustain it. The “question of the constitutionality of action taken by Congress does not depend on recitals of the power which it under takes to exercise.” Woods v. Cloyd W. Miller Co.,

...

First, and most importantly, it is abundantly clear the Constitution does not guarantee that individuals may avoid taxation through inactivity. A capitation, after all, is a tax that everyone must pay simply for existing, and capitations are expressly contemplated by the Constitution. The Court today holds that our Constitution protects us from federal regulation under the Commerce Clause so long as we abstain from the regulated activity. But from its creation, the Constitution has made no such promise with respect to taxes. See Letter from Benjamin Franklin to M. Le Roy (Nov. 13, 1789) (“Our new Constitution is now established. . . but in this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes”).

...

Congress’s authority under the taxing power is limited to requiring an individual to pay money into the Federal Treasury, no more. If a tax is properly paid, the Government has no power to compel or punish individuals subject to it. We do not make light of the severe burden that taxation—especially taxation motivated by a regulatory purpose—can impose. But imposition of a tax nonetheless leaves an individual with a lawful choice to do or not do a certain act, so long as he is willing to pay a tax levied on that choice.

The Affordable Care Act’s requirement that certain individuals pay a financial penalty for not obtaining health insurance may reasonably be characterized as a tax. Because the Constitution permits such a tax, it is not our role to forbid it, or to pass upon its wisdom or fairness.

JUSTICE GINSBURG questions the necessity of rejecting the Government’s commerce power argument, given that §5000A can be upheld under the taxing power. Post, at 37. But the statute reads more naturally as a command to buy insurance than as a tax, and I would uphold it as a command if the Constitution allowed it. It is only because the Commerce Clause does not authorize such a command that it is necessary to reach the taxing power question. And it is only because we have a duty to construe a statute to save it, if fairly possible, that §5000A can be interpreted as a tax. Without deciding the Commerce Clause question, I would find no basis to adopt such a saving construction.

The Federal Government does not have the power to order people to buy health insurance. Section 5000A would therefore be unconstitutional if read as a command.

The Federal Government does have the power to impose a tax on those without health insurance. Section 5000A is therefore constitutional, because it can reasonably be read as a tax.

The problem is that the government never asked the court to do that.

 

[emilynghiem]

If you had bothered to read what you are responding to you'd see that the Obama administration actually asked the Court to view the penalty as a tax

@HenryBHough the usmb moron​

"The Government does not claim that the taxing power allows Congress to issue such a command. Instead, the Government asks us to read the mandate not as ordering individuals to buy insurance, but rather as imposing a tax on those who do not buy that product."

Yes Dante and this IS where people have ALSO pointed out a Constitutional conflict with the bill.

if it was reviewed by the Supreme Court as a tax
but when it was passed through Congress it was not set up as a tax bill for revenue

And the whole bill whether a public health reform or a tax or whatever you call it
(a) still does not reflect the consent of the people affected by it and is against the principle of "no taxation without representation"
since the main people advocating this represented by the PARTY voting YES
are DISCRIMINATING AND EXCLUDING/FAILING TO PROTECT THE INTERESTS/BELIEFS of taxpayers/members represented by the other PARTY voting NO
This is clearly A PARTISAN issue in violation of the Code of Ethics for Govt Service
where federal employees are not supposed to put party over the Constitutional duties to represent ALL CITIZENS EQUALLY

(b) still imposes a penalty based on restricting health care choices that are a matter of the people and states' rights to decide, not federal govt
Even if the tax part is imposed, the RESTRICTIONS And REGULATIONS on what is or isn't exempt
VIOLATE RELIGIOUS FREEDOM AND STATES' RIGHTS

Dante if you want to go public with this debate,
on points (a) and (b) above, I think this is good for the country.

You can have all the people you want rally behind you and make your arguments that this is constitutional to do this.

And I will call all the people who believe that (a) and (b) were violated by abuse of federal govt and let's form teams.

I am happy to argue that all the people who rally around you can pay for your own bill and leave the other team out of it.
We should not be penalized under restrictions on our personal, state and religious freedom that this bill unconstitutionally tried to regulate through federal govt.

Are you ready to go public with this? And divide the people into teams so we can all solve our own problems our ways and leave other people alone? Wouldn't that be a good outcome to such a debate?

 

[Procrustes Stretched]

[MENTION=23420]Quantum Windbag[/MENTION]

We need to actually know what we are talking about -- without reverting to talking points and web site bs, cable tv/radio arguments,...

No matter how “inherently integrated” health insurance and health care consumption may be, they are not the same thing: They involve different transactions, entered into at different times, with different providers. And for most of those targeted by the mandate, significant health care needs will be years, or even decades, away.

The proximity and degree of connection between the mandate and the subsequent commercial activity is too lacking to justify an exception of the sort urged by the Government.

The individual mandate forces individuals into commerce precisely because they elected to refrain from commercial activity. Such a law cannot be sustained under a clause authorizing Congress to “regulate Commerce.”

The Government next contends that Congress has the power under the Necessary and Proper Clause to enact the individual mandate because the mandate is an “integral part of a comprehensive scheme of economic regulation”— the guaranteed-issue and community-rating insurance reforms. Brief for United States 24.

Under this argument, it is not necessary to consider the effect that an individual’s inactivity may have on interstate commerce; it is enough that Congress regulate commercial activity in a way that requires regulation of inactivity to be effective.

The power to “make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution” the powers enumerated in the Constitution, Art. I, §8, cl. 18, vests Congress with authority to enact provisions “incidental to the [enumerated] power, and conducive to its beneficial exercise,” McCulloch, 4 Wheat., at 418.

...

Just as the individual mandate cannot be sustained as a law regulating the substantial effects of the failure to purchase health insurance, neither can it be upheld as a “necessary and proper” component of the insurance reforms. The commerce power thus does not authorize the mandate. Accord, post, at 4–16 (joint opinion of SCALIA, KENNEDY, THOMAS, and ALITO, JJ., dissenting).

That is not the end of the matter. Because the Commerce Clause does not support the individual mandate, it is necessary to turn to the Government’s second argument: that the mandate may be upheld as within Congress’s enumerated power to “lay and collect Taxes.” Art. I, §8, cl.

The Government’s tax power argument asks us to view the statute differently than we did in considering its commerce power theory. In making its Commerce Clause argument, the Government defended the mandate as a regulation requiring individuals to purchase health insurance.

The Government does not claim that the taxing power allows Congress to issue such a command. Instead, the Government asks us to read the mandate not as ordering individuals to buy insurance, but rather as imposing a tax on those who do not buy that product.

The text of a statute can sometimes have more than one possible meaning. To take a familiar example, a law that reads “no vehicles in the park” might, or might not, ban bicycles in the park.

And it is well established that if a statute has two possible meanings, one of which violates the Constitution, courts should adopt the meaning that does not do so. Justice Story said that 180 years ago: “No court ought, unless the terms of an act rendered it unavoidable, to give a construction to it which should involve a violation, however unintentional, of the constitution.” Parsons v. Bedford, 3 Pet. 433, 448449 (1830).

Justice Holmes made the same point a century later: “[T]he rule is settled that as between two possible interpretations of a statute, by one of which it would be unconstitutional and by the other valid, our plain duty is to adopt that which will save the Act.” Blodgett v. Holden, 275 U. S. 142, 148 (1927) (concurring opinion).

The most straightforward reading of the mandate is that it commands individuals to purchase insurance.

...

The question is not whether that is the most natural interpretation of the mandate, but only whether it is a “fairly possible” one. Crowell v. Benson, 285 U. S. 22, 62 (1932). As we have explained, “every reasonable construction must be resorted to, in order to save a statute from unconstitutionality.” Hooper v. California, 155 U. S. 648, 657 (1895). The Government asks us to interpret the mandate as imposing a tax, if it would otherwise violate the Constitution. Granting the Act the full measure of deference owed to federal statutes, it can be so read, for the reasons set forth below.

...

It is of course true that the Act describes the payment as a “penalty,” not a “tax.” But while that label is fatal to the application of the Anti-Injunction Act, supra, at 12–13, it does not determine whether the payment may be viewed as an exercise of Congress’s taxing power. It is up to Congress whether to apply the Anti-Injunction Act to any particular statute, so it makes sense to be guided by Congress’s choice of label on that question. That choice does not, however, control whether an exaction is within Congress’s constitutional power to tax. Our precedent reflects this:

...

We have similarly held that exactions not labeled taxes nonetheless were authorized by Congress’s power to tax.

...

The reasons the Court in Drexel Furniture held that what was called a “tax” there was a penalty support the conclusion that what is called a “penalty” here may be viewed as a tax.

None of this is to say that the payment is not intended to affect individual conduct.

Although the payment will raise considerable revenue, it is plainly designed to expand health insurance coverage. But taxes that seek to influence conduct are nothing new.

Some of our earliest federal taxes sought to deter the purchase of imported manufactured goods in order to foster the growth of domestic industry. See W. Brownlee, Federal Taxation in America 22 (2d ed. 2004); cf. 2 J. Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States §962, p. 434 (1833) (“the taxing power is often, very often, applied for other purposes, than revenue”). Today, federal and state taxes can compose more than half the retail price of cigarettes, not just to raise more money, but to encourage people to quit smoking. And we have upheld such obviously regulatory measures as taxes on selling marijuana and sawed off shotguns. See United States v. Sanchez, 340 U. S. 42, 44–45 (1950); Sonzinsky v. United States, 300 U. S. 506, 513 (1937). Indeed, “[e]very tax is in some measure regulatory. To some extent it interposes an economic impediment to the activity taxed as compared with others not taxed.” Sonzinsky, supra, at 513. That §5000A seeks to shape decisions about whether to buy health insurance does not mean that it cannot be a valid exercise of the taxing power.

In distinguishing penalties from taxes, this Court has explained that “if the concept of penalty means anything, it means punishment for an unlawful act or omission.” United States v. Reorganized CF&I Fabricators of Utah, Inc., 518 U. S. 213, 224 (1996); see also United States v. La Franca, 282 U. S. 568, 572 (1931) (“[A] penalty, as the word is here used, is an exaction imposed by statute as punishment for an unlawful act”). While the individual mandate clearly aims to induce the purchase of health insurance, it need not be read to declare that failing to do so is unlawful. Neither the Act nor any other law attaches negative legal consequences to not buying health insurance, beyond requiring a payment to the IRS. The Government agrees with that reading, confirming that if someone chooses to pay rather than obtain health insurance, they have fully complied with the law. Brief for United States 60–61; Tr. of Oral Arg. 49–50 (Mar. 26, 2012)

...

Our precedent demonstrates that Congress had the power to impose the exaction in §5000A under the taxing power, and that §5000A need not be read to do more than impose a tax. That is sufficient to sustain it. The “question of the constitutionality of action taken by Congress does not depend on recitals of the power which it under takes to exercise.” Woods v. Cloyd W. Miller Co.,

...

First, and most importantly, it is abundantly clear the Constitution does not guarantee that individuals may avoid taxation through inactivity. A capitation, after all, is a tax that everyone must pay simply for existing, and capitations are expressly contemplated by the Constitution. The Court today holds that our Constitution protects us from federal regulation under the Commerce Clause so long as we abstain from the regulated activity. But from its creation, the Constitution has made no such promise with respect to taxes. See Letter from Benjamin Franklin to M. Le Roy (Nov. 13, 1789) (“Our new Constitution is now established. . . but in this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes”).

...

Congress’s authority under the taxing power is limited to requiring an individual to pay money into the Federal Treasury, no more. If a tax is properly paid, the Government has no power to compel or punish individuals subject to it. We do not make light of the severe burden that taxation—especially taxation motivated by a regulatory purpose—can impose. But imposition of a tax nonetheless leaves an individual with a lawful choice to do or not do a certain act, so long as he is willing to pay a tax levied on that choice.

The Affordable Care Act’s requirement that certain individuals pay a financial penalty for not obtaining health insurance may reasonably be characterized as a tax. Because the Constitution permits such a tax, it is not our role to forbid it, or to pass upon its wisdom or fairness.

JUSTICE GINSBURG questions the necessity of rejecting the Government’s commerce power argument, given that §5000A can be upheld under the taxing power. Post, at 37. But the statute reads more naturally as a command to buy insurance than as a tax, and I would uphold it as a command if the Constitution allowed it. It is only because the Commerce Clause does not authorize such a command that it is necessary to reach the taxing power question. And it is only because we have a duty to construe a statute to save it, if fairly possible, that §5000A can be interpreted as a tax. Without deciding the Commerce Clause question, I would find no basis to adopt such a saving construction.

The Federal Government does not have the power to order people to buy health insurance. Section 5000A would therefore be unconstitutional if read as a command.

The Federal Government does have the power to impose a tax on those without health insurance. Section 5000A is therefore constitutional, because it can reasonably be read as a tax.

The problem is that the government never asked the court to do that.

YOu couldn't be more in error if your name were....oh wait! You are Quantum Windbag. never mind

 

[Procrustes Stretched]

If you had bothered to read what you are responding to you'd see that the Obama administration actually asked the Court to view the penalty as a tax

@HenryBHough the usmb moron​

"The Government does not claim that the taxing power allows Congress to issue such a command. Instead, the Government asks us to read the mandate not as ordering individuals to buy insurance, but rather as imposing a tax on those who do not buy that product."

Yes Dante and this IS where people have ALSO pointed out a Constitutional conflict with the bill.

if it was reviewed by the Supreme Court as a tax
but when it was passed through Congress it was not set up as a tax bill for revenue

And the whole bill whether a public health reform or a tax or whatever you call it
(a) still does not reflect the consent of the people affected by it and is against the principle of "no taxation without representation"
since the main people advocating this represented by the PARTY voting YES
are DISCRIMINATING AND EXCLUDING/FAILING TO PROTECT THE INTERESTS/BELIEFS of taxpayers/members represented by the other PARTY voting NO
This is clearly A PARTISAN issue in violation of the Code of Ethics for Govt Service
where federal employees are not supposed to put party over the Constitutional duties to represent ALL CITIZENS EQUALLY

(b) still imposes a penalty based on restricting health care choices that are a matter of the people and states' rights to decide, not federal govt
Even if the tax part is imposed, the RESTRICTIONS And REGULATIONS on what is or isn't exempt
VIOLATE RELIGIOUS FREEDOM AND STATES' RIGHTS

Dante if you want to go public with this debate,
on points (a) and (b) above, I think this is good for the country.

You can have all the people you want rally behind you and make your arguments that this is constitutional to do this.

And I will call all the people who believe that (a) and (b) were violated by abuse of federal govt and let's form teams.

I am happy to argue that all the people who rally around you can pay for your own bill and leave the other team out of it.
We should not be penalized under restrictions on our personal, state and religious freedom that this bill unconstitutionally tried to regulate through federal govt.

Are you ready to go public with this? And divide the people into teams so we can all solve our own problems our ways and leave other people alone? Wouldn't that be a good outcome to such a debate?

as with "consent of the governed" you have problems understanding what "taxation without representation" actually means.

Having a partisan Congress is not tantamount to one side or more having no representation. seriously....

even George Washington had to tell those fools of the Whiskey Rebellion that unlike the Colonies, they had representation...they just disagreed with their government.

Disagreeing with a duly elected government and it's choices is not equal to having far off government in another land where your interests to decide and debate taxation and more is illusory at best

 

[HenryBHough]

T'was Obama wot first proclaimed Obamascare was not a tax. The backpedaling started when he realized that was the only way the court would sit still for it.

Lie first.

Then when caught lying create a new lie that denies the first lie.

Just to think, now only one president (Nixon) had lower confidence ratings than OKP and that record is in serious jeopardy!

 

[DGS49]

Roberts turned out to be the Greatest traitor since Benedict Arnold.

A pox on him.

 

[HenryBHough]

Roberts turned out to be the Greatest traitor since Benedict Arnold.

A pox on him.

I challenge that.

Are you forgetting Comrade Obama entirely or is the mind just rejecting....y'know....in self-protection?

 

[Procrustes Stretched]

[MENTION=31153]HenryBHough[/MENTION]

T'was Obama wot first proclaimed Obamascare was not a tax. The backpedaling started when he realized that was the only way the court would sit still for it.

Lie first.

Then when caught lying create a new lie that denies the first lie.

Just to think, now only one president (Nixon) had lower confidence ratings than OKP and that record is in serious jeopardy!

Please, in court. In the bs political sphere where Republicans often claim to be true blue conservatives?

The law as written does NOT call it a tax. So no one lied. The SCOTUS called the 'penalty' a tax for the purposes of constitutionality -- it's function, but...


but, the SCOTUS did NOT rewrite the law.

The PPACA has a 'shared responsibility payment', a penalty, that functions as a tax.

See?

 

[Procrustes Stretched]

Roberts turned out to be the Greatest traitor since Benedict Arnold.

A pox on him.

[MENTION=36589]DGS49[/MENTION] and you turned out to be one the biggest imbeciles @usmb. A traitor? Supreme Court Justices are not beholden too, nor do they belong to any party or partisan group.

 

[Procrustes Stretched]

Quantum Windbag

We need to actually know what we are talking about -- without reverting to talking points and web site bs, cable tv/radio arguments,...

No matter how “inherently integrated” health insurance and health care consumption may be, they are not the same thing: They involve different transactions, entered into at different times, with different providers. And for most of those targeted by the mandate, significant health care needs will be years, or even decades, away.

The proximity and degree of connection between the mandate and the subsequent commercial activity is too lacking to justify an exception of the sort urged by the Government.

The individual mandate forces individuals into commerce precisely because they elected to refrain from commercial activity. Such a law cannot be sustained under a clause authorizing Congress to “regulate Commerce.”

The Government next contends that Congress has the power under the Necessary and Proper Clause to enact the individual mandate because the mandate is an “integral part of a comprehensive scheme of economic regulation”— the guaranteed-issue and community-rating insurance reforms. Brief for United States 24.

Under this argument, it is not necessary to consider the effect that an individual’s inactivity may have on interstate commerce; it is enough that Congress regulate commercial activity in a way that requires regulation of inactivity to be effective.

The power to “make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution” the powers enumerated in the Constitution, Art. I, §8, cl. 18, vests Congress with authority to enact provisions “incidental to the [enumerated] power, and conducive to its beneficial exercise,” McCulloch, 4 Wheat., at 418.

...

Just as the individual mandate cannot be sustained as a law regulating the substantial effects of the failure to purchase health insurance, neither can it be upheld as a “necessary and proper” component of the insurance reforms. The commerce power thus does not authorize the mandate. Accord, post, at 4–16 (joint opinion of SCALIA, KENNEDY, THOMAS, and ALITO, JJ., dissenting).

That is not the end of the matter. Because the Commerce Clause does not support the individual mandate, it is necessary to turn to the Government’s second argument: that the mandate may be upheld as within Congress’s enumerated power to “lay and collect Taxes.” Art. I, §8, cl.

The Government’s tax power argument asks us to view the statute differently than we did in considering its commerce power theory. In making its Commerce Clause argument, the Government defended the mandate as a regulation requiring individuals to purchase health insurance.

The Government does not claim that the taxing power allows Congress to issue such a command. Instead, the Government asks us to read the mandate not as ordering individuals to buy insurance, but rather as imposing a tax on those who do not buy that product.

The text of a statute can sometimes have more than one possible meaning. To take a familiar example, a law that reads “no vehicles in the park” might, or might not, ban bicycles in the park.

And it is well established that if a statute has two possible meanings, one of which violates the Constitution, courts should adopt the meaning that does not do so. Justice Story said that 180 years ago: “No court ought, unless the terms of an act rendered it unavoidable, to give a construction to it which should involve a violation, however unintentional, of the constitution.” Parsons v. Bedford, 3 Pet. 433, 448449 (1830).

Justice Holmes made the same point a century later: “[T]he rule is settled that as between two possible interpretations of a statute, by one of which it would be unconstitutional and by the other valid, our plain duty is to adopt that which will save the Act.” Blodgett v. Holden, 275 U. S. 142, 148 (1927) (concurring opinion).

The most straightforward reading of the mandate is that it commands individuals to purchase insurance.

...

The question is not whether that is the most natural interpretation of the mandate, but only whether it is a “fairly possible” one. Crowell v. Benson, 285 U. S. 22, 62 (1932). As we have explained, “every reasonable construction must be resorted to, in order to save a statute from unconstitutionality.” Hooper v. California, 155 U. S. 648, 657 (1895). The Government asks us to interpret the mandate as imposing a tax, if it would otherwise violate the Constitution. Granting the Act the full measure of deference owed to federal statutes, it can be so read, for the reasons set forth below.

...

It is of course true that the Act describes the payment as a “penalty,” not a “tax.” But while that label is fatal to the application of the Anti-Injunction Act, supra, at 12–13, it does not determine whether the payment may be viewed as an exercise of Congress’s taxing power. It is up to Congress whether to apply the Anti-Injunction Act to any particular statute, so it makes sense to be guided by Congress’s choice of label on that question. That choice does not, however, control whether an exaction is within Congress’s constitutional power to tax. Our precedent reflects this:

...

We have similarly held that exactions not labeled taxes nonetheless were authorized by Congress’s power to tax.

...

The reasons the Court in Drexel Furniture held that what was called a “tax” there was a penalty support the conclusion that what is called a “penalty” here may be viewed as a tax.

None of this is to say that the payment is not intended to affect individual conduct.

Although the payment will raise considerable revenue, it is plainly designed to expand health insurance coverage. But taxes that seek to influence conduct are nothing new.

Some of our earliest federal taxes sought to deter the purchase of imported manufactured goods in order to foster the growth of domestic industry. See W. Brownlee, Federal Taxation in America 22 (2d ed. 2004); cf. 2 J. Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States §962, p. 434 (1833) (“the taxing power is often, very often, applied for other purposes, than revenue”). Today, federal and state taxes can compose more than half the retail price of cigarettes, not just to raise more money, but to encourage people to quit smoking. And we have upheld such obviously regulatory measures as taxes on selling marijuana and sawed off shotguns. See United States v. Sanchez, 340 U. S. 42, 44–45 (1950); Sonzinsky v. United States, 300 U. S. 506, 513 (1937). Indeed, “[e]very tax is in some measure regulatory. To some extent it interposes an economic impediment to the activity taxed as compared with others not taxed.” Sonzinsky, supra, at 513. That §5000A seeks to shape decisions about whether to buy health insurance does not mean that it cannot be a valid exercise of the taxing power.

In distinguishing penalties from taxes, this Court has explained that “if the concept of penalty means anything, it means punishment for an unlawful act or omission.” United States v. Reorganized CF&I Fabricators of Utah, Inc., 518 U. S. 213, 224 (1996); see also United States v. La Franca, 282 U. S. 568, 572 (1931) (“[A] penalty, as the word is here used, is an exaction imposed by statute as punishment for an unlawful act”). While the individual mandate clearly aims to induce the purchase of health insurance, it need not be read to declare that failing to do so is unlawful. Neither the Act nor any other law attaches negative legal consequences to not buying health insurance, beyond requiring a payment to the IRS. The Government agrees with that reading, confirming that if someone chooses to pay rather than obtain health insurance, they have fully complied with the law. Brief for United States 60–61; Tr. of Oral Arg. 49–50 (Mar. 26, 2012)

...

Our precedent demonstrates that Congress had the power to impose the exaction in §5000A under the taxing power, and that §5000A need not be read to do more than impose a tax. That is sufficient to sustain it. The “question of the constitutionality of action taken by Congress does not depend on recitals of the power which it under takes to exercise.” Woods v. Cloyd W. Miller Co.,

...

First, and most importantly, it is abundantly clear the Constitution does not guarantee that individuals may avoid taxation through inactivity. A capitation, after all, is a tax that everyone must pay simply for existing, and capitations are expressly contemplated by the Constitution. The Court today holds that our Constitution protects us from federal regulation under the Commerce Clause so long as we abstain from the regulated activity. But from its creation, the Constitution has made no such promise with respect to taxes. See Letter from Benjamin Franklin to M. Le Roy (Nov. 13, 1789) (“Our new Constitution is now established. . . but in this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes”).

...

Congress’s authority under the taxing power is limited to requiring an individual to pay money into the Federal Treasury, no more. If a tax is properly paid, the Government has no power to compel or punish individuals subject to it. We do not make light of the severe burden that taxation—especially taxation motivated by a regulatory purpose—can impose. But imposition of a tax nonetheless leaves an individual with a lawful choice to do or not do a certain act, so long as he is willing to pay a tax levied on that choice.

The Affordable Care Act’s requirement that certain individuals pay a financial penalty for not obtaining health insurance may reasonably be characterized as a tax. Because the Constitution permits such a tax, it is not our role to forbid it, or to pass upon its wisdom or fairness.

JUSTICE GINSBURG questions the necessity of rejecting the Government’s commerce power argument, given that §5000A can be upheld under the taxing power. Post, at 37. But the statute reads more naturally as a command to buy insurance than as a tax, and I would uphold it as a command if the Constitution allowed it. It is only because the Commerce Clause does not authorize such a command that it is necessary to reach the taxing power question. And it is only because we have a duty to construe a statute to save it, if fairly possible, that §5000A can be interpreted as a tax. Without deciding the Commerce Clause question, I would find no basis to adopt such a saving construction.

The Federal Government does not have the power to order people to buy health insurance. Section 5000A would therefore be unconstitutional if read as a command.

The Federal Government does have the power to impose a tax on those without health insurance. Section 5000A is therefore constitutional, because it can reasonably be read as a tax.

The problem is that the government never asked the court to do that.

yes they did. read the Court record

 

[emilynghiem]

Roberts turned out to be the Greatest traitor since Benedict Arnold.

A pox on him.

[MENTION=36589]DGS49[/MENTION] and you turned out to be one the biggest imbeciles USMB. A traitor? Supreme Court Justices are not beholden too, nor do they belong to any party or partisan group.

Dear Dante:
If the Justices don't uphold CONSENSUS as the standard of law
then they are imposing a bias against those of us who do believe in consensus,
and are siding with people who either don't believe consensus is possible or don't believe it is legally
necessary as I do in the cases of political or religious beliefs in conflict.

Dante: this IS a bias.

It may be a political bias, but it is still a bias.

The Constitutional law specifically name RELIGION and CREED in the First and Fourteenth Amendments, but there is no language to Specify what to do about Political Religions, Beliefs or Creeds that cross the line into Govt policy and process.

We have never directly, specifically addressed Political Religions or Beliefs. But with the ongoing conflicts over prochoice and prolife beliefs, gay marriage, death penalty and euthanasia/right to life and death, and now health care and immigration, it may become necessary instead of dancing around the issue, taking it as just business as usual.

At some point, enough people are going to wake up and recognize that political beliefs should be equal and not imposed on each other. And maybe we'll finally quit fighting over those and find ways to work out plans that accommodate these differences in beliefs people won't change.

 

[Procrustes Stretched]

Roberts turned out to be the Greatest traitor since Benedict Arnold.

A pox on him.

[MENTION=36589]DGS49[/MENTION] and you turned out to be one the biggest imbeciles USMB. A traitor? Supreme Court Justices are not beholden too, nor do they belong to any party or partisan group.

Dear Dante:
If the Justices don't uphold CONSENSUS as the standard of law
then they are imposing a bias against those of us who do believe in consensus,
and are siding with people who either don't believe consensus is possible or don't believe it is legally
necessary as I do in the cases of political or religious beliefs in conflict.

Dante: this IS a bias.

It may be a political bias, but it is still a bias.

The Constitutional law specifically name RELIGION and CREED in the First and Fourteenth Amendments, but there is no language to Specify what to do about Political Religions, Beliefs or Creeds that cross the line into Govt policy and process.

We have never directly, specifically addressed Political Religions or Beliefs. But with the ongoing conflicts over prochoice and prolife beliefs, gay marriage, death penalty and euthanasia/right to life and death, and now health care and immigration, it may become necessary instead of dancing around the issue, taking it as just business as usual.

At some point, enough people are going to wake up and recognize that political beliefs should be equal and not imposed on each other. And maybe we'll finally quit fighting over those and find ways to work out plans that accommodate these differences in beliefs people won't change.

Not sure what is meant by "consensus as a standard of law" Law is what it is. The Court is loathe to get into constitutional questions where the people and the legislature can hash things out in consensus. It is only when consensus isn't achieved that people and the legislature seek remedy in the justice system.

By design, much is not specified in the Constitution. Consideration of how tough it would be get it ratified played a huge part in this.

 

[emilynghiem]

Remember the good old days when the messianic pronouncement from on high was that the fees built into Obamacare were NOT a tax? And then how quickly The New Messiah backpedaled when it was ruled to be just that?

Oh, liberal? Yeah, I can see how you'd have forgotten.

If you had bothered to read what you are responding to you'd see that the Obama administration actually asked the Court to view the penalty as a tax

HenryBHough the usmb moron​

"The Government does not claim that the taxing power allows Congress to issue such a command. Instead, the Government asks us to read the mandate not as ordering individuals to buy insurance, but rather as imposing a tax on those who do not buy that product."

Re: Obama lawyers argued ACA as a tax before the SC

Yes, Dante, so this is where the fraudulent abuses come in.

In order to pass it through Congress it was argued as Not a tax so it would pass. Otherwise it would be killed.

And then to pass it through Court it was argued as a tax.

Then some ppl additionally argue whether or not it was properly passed through the House as a tax.

Some argue the final bill shoud be introduced through the House to be Constitutional as a revenue bill.
Others say it is ok to revise the bill as already inroduced previously, but with the weird introduction of exchanges as a mix of private and public institutions within federally required mandates this seems broader than just a revision.

For sonething of this extent in changing the authority of govt. Clearly it should have consent of the ppl instead of revising given structures to squeeze it in.

The consent of the people was bypassed, and it is never ethical to Contort or manipulate a contract to force anyone under conditions not agreed to.

The spirit of the contract is voided by bad faith manipulations and abuse of authority. so that's why this bill will be protested until the problem is corrected - ppl did not consent to it, so it is taxation without representation and deprivation of liberty without due process to show what crime was committed to lose our freedom to pay for health care without being taxed through federal govt that was not given specific authority to mandate health care.

 

[emilynghiem]

Dear

Roberts turned out to be the Greatest traitor since Benedict Arnold.

A pox on him.

[MENTION=36589]DGS49[/MENTION] and you turned out to be one the biggest imbeciles USMB. A traitor? Supreme Court Justices are not beholden too, nor do they belong to any party or partisan group.

Dear Dante:
If the Justices don't uphold CONSENSUS as the standard of law
then they are imposing a bias against those of us who do believe in consensus,
and are siding with people who either don't believe consensus is possible or don't believe it is legally
necessary as I do in the cases of political or religious beliefs in conflict.

Dante: this IS a bias.

It may be a political bias, but it is still a bias.

The Constitutional law specifically name RELIGION and CREED in the First and Fourteenth Amendments, but there is no language to Specify what to do about Political Religions, Beliefs or Creeds that cross the line into Govt policy and process.

We have never directly, specifically addressed Political Religions or Beliefs. But with the ongoing conflicts over prochoice and prolife beliefs, gay marriage, death penalty and euthanasia/right to life and death, and now health care and immigration, it may become necessary instead of dancing around the issue, taking it as just business as usual.

At some point, enough people are going to wake up and recognize that political beliefs should be equal and not imposed on each other. And maybe we'll finally quit fighting over those and find ways to work out plans that accommodate these differences in beliefs people won't change.

Not sure what is meant by "consensus as a standard of law" Law is what it is. The Court is loathe to get into constitutional questions where the people and the legislature can hash things out in consensus. It is only when consensus isn't achieved that people and the legislature seek remedy in the justice system.

By design, much is not specified in the Constitution. Consideration of how tough it would be get it ratified played a huge part in this.

Dear Dante
I am merely pointing out there is a bias in beliefs that the Judges and Courts are establishing by rulings.

I happen to recognize political and secular beliefs equally as religiousbeliefs, and consensus decisions as protecting all views equally as called for by law.

This approach Includes all views, including those which do not seek to protect other beliefs only their own. As long as all views are protected, then these are met also even if they don't respect each other. I do.

With court rulings that don't, this discriminates against the views that were not protected equally as I would argue as the more ethical and equal standard.

And to believe a consensus solution is not possible, or too burdensone, is further imposing a bias based on belief that I don't have, or disbelief as it were that I find denies due process for those with grievances and objections that are never redressed as I believe govt should address until resolved by consensus to ensure equal protection of the laws.

The neutral position would be to reject any law that is not written by consensual agreement and require it to be revised until all parties views and beliefs are represented equally.

And yes that would reduce laws and govt to what is so essential that all people agree to just those basic functions with no political complications , in keeping with the Constitution designed to keep govt in check and accountable to the ppl. The rest should be localized so it has accountability to the ppl it represents in those areas not specifically structured under the Constitution.

 

[Procrustes Stretched]

Remember the good old days when the messianic pronouncement from on high was that the fees built into Obamacare were NOT a tax? And then how quickly The New Messiah backpedaled when it was ruled to be just that?

Oh, liberal? Yeah, I can see how you'd have forgotten.

If you had bothered to read what you are responding to you'd see that the Obama administration actually asked the Court to view the penalty as a tax

HenryBHough the usmb moron​

"The Government does not claim that the taxing power allows Congress to issue such a command. Instead, the Government asks us to read the mandate not as ordering individuals to buy insurance, but rather as imposing a tax on those who do not buy that product."

Re: Obama lawyers argued ACA as a tax before the SC

Yes, Dante, so this is where the fraudulent abuses come in.

In order to pass it through Congress it was argued as Not a tax so it would pass. Otherwise it would be killed.

And then to pass it through Court it was argued as a tax.

Then some ppl additionally argue whether or not it was properly passed through the House as a tax.

Some argue the final bill shoud be introduced through the House to be Constitutional as a revenue bill.
Others say it is ok to revise the bill as already inroduced previously, but with the weird introduction of exchanges as a mix of private and public institutions within federally required mandates this seems broader than just a revision.

For sonething of this extent in changing the authority of govt. Clearly it should have consent of the ppl instead of revising given structures to squeeze it in.

The consent of the people was bypassed, and it is never ethical t

. Contort or manipulate a contract to force anyone under conditions not agreed to.

The spirit of the contract is voided by bad faith manipulations and abuse of authority.

Wrong: The Congress passed, and the President signed the law with the shared responsibility payment being a fine and not a tax. The wording of the law has NOT changed. The PPACA was not ruled as a tax. The mandate was not ruled a tax. The individual mandate requires that most Americans obtain health insurance by 2014 or pay the shared responsibility payment, which itself was ruled to function as a tax payment for constitutional purposes. The Congress passed a bill that contains a fine that functions as a tax. Other fines that are not taxes function as a tax. This is not an unprecedented thing.

People can argue whatever they want. They can and do argue that they were captured by aliens and had sexual experiments performed on them. So what? How credible are the arguments? The Court ruled it constitutional.

Issue of how the bill originated:

The Justice Department filed a motion to dismiss the challenge in November, arguing that the high court has considered only eight Origination Clause cases in its history and “has never invalidated an act of Congress on that basis.”

The federal trial court dismissed the lawsuit in June, 2013, holding that the Origination Clause wasn’t violated for several reasons.

Frequently asked questions about our Obamacare challenge Updated - PLF Liberty Blog
​

This stuff is used to keep people riled up and raise money. This kind of argument will go nowhere.

The consent of the people comes through our elected representatives. THAT is what representative government is. Good gawd, get the concept? Representative government

 

[Procrustes Stretched]

Dear

Roberts turned out to be the Greatest traitor since Benedict Arnold.

A pox on him.

[MENTION=36589]DGS49[/MENTION] and you turned out to be one the biggest imbeciles USMB. A traitor? Supreme Court Justices are not beholden too, nor do they belong to any party or partisan group.

Dear Dante:
If the Justices don't uphold CONSENSUS as the standard of law
then they are imposing a bias against those of us who do believe in consensus,
and are siding with people who either don't believe consensus is possible or don't believe it is legally
necessary as I do in the cases of political or religious beliefs in conflict.

Dante: this IS a bias.

It may be a political bias, but it is still a bias.

The Constitutional law specifically name RELIGION and CREED in the First and Fourteenth Amendments, but there is no language to Specify what to do about Political Religions, Beliefs or Creeds that cross the line into Govt policy and process.

We have never directly, specifically addressed Political Religions or Beliefs. But with the ongoing conflicts over prochoice and prolife beliefs, gay marriage, death penalty and euthanasia/right to life and death, and now health care and immigration, it may become necessary instead of dancing around the issue, taking it as just business as usual.

At some point, enough people are going to wake up and recognize that political beliefs should be equal and not imposed on each other. And maybe we'll finally quit fighting over those and find ways to work out plans that accommodate these differences in beliefs people won't change.

Not sure what is meant by "consensus as a standard of law" Law is what it is. The Court is loathe to get into constitutional questions where the people and the legislature can hash things out in consensus. It is only when consensus isn't achieved that people and the legislature seek remedy in the justice system.

By design, much is not specified in the Constitution. Consideration of how tough it would be get it ratified played a huge part in this.

Dear Dante
I am merely pointing out there is a bias in beliefs that the Judges and Courts are establishing by rulings.

I happen to recognize political and secular beliefs equally as religious beliefs, and consensus decisions as protecting all views equally as called for by law.

This approach Includes all views, including those which do not seek to protect other beliefs only their own. As long as all views are protected, then these are met also even if they don't respect each other. I do.

With court rulings that don't, this discriminates against the views that were not protected equally as I would argue as the more ethical and equal standard.

And to believe a consensus solution is not possible, or too burdensone, is further imposing a bias based on belief that I don't have, or disbelief as it were that I find denies due process for those with grievances and objections that are never redressed as I believe govt should address until resolved by consensus to ensure equal protection of the laws.

The neutral position would be to reject any law that is not written by consensual agreement and require it to be revised until all parties views and beliefs are represented equally.

And yes that would reduce laws and govt to what is so essential that all people agree to just those basic functions with no political complications , in keeping with the Constitution designed to keep govt in check and accountable to the ppl. The rest should be localized so it has accountability to the ppl it represents in those areas not specifically structured under the Constitution.

What law(s). Name it/them. You can't because they don't exist except in your mind.

"the Constitution designed to keep govt in check and accountable to the ppl" - Representative government is designed to keep government in check and accountable to the people. Our Constitution provides check and balances by establishing three separate and distinct branches of government.