print“Anticipating A Turn of The Health-Care Screw,” last night’s Barely-a-Blog post title, was apt.
The SCROTUM would fail to dissolve “the hulking bill,” Orwellianly titled “The Affordable Care Act.” The Supermen Court, after all, doesn’t follow natural law; individual rights, or even the founders’ federalism.
Why, the Constitution itself, in all its amendments, has long since veered from the just law. All the more so the jurisprudence that “interprets” this already flawed, dead-letter scroll. (“Sometimes the law of the state coincides with the natural law.“ More often than not, natural justice has been buried under the rubble of legislation and statute.”)
“As affable as he is,” said a September 15, 2005 blog post titled “Judge Roberts: Smooth Operator?”, during Roberts’ confirmation hearings, “Roberts, regrettably, is no Janice Rogers Brown.”
Their devotion (and dotage) prevents President Bush’s lickspittles from realizing that he too considers Rogers Brown ‘outside the mainstream,’ to use the Democrats’ demotic line. Let’s hope, at the very least, that Roberts is a Rehnquist.” AND, “here’s the thing that unsettles: Roberts seems to be all about the moves.”
Lyle Denniston, of the SCOTUS Blog, speaks to the technicalities of today’s decision, in “Don’t call it a mandate — it’s a tax”:
Salvaging the idea that Congress did have the power to try to expand health care to virtually all Americans, the Supreme Court on Thursday upheld the constitutionality of the crucial – and most controversial — feature of the Affordable Care Act. By a vote of 5-4, however, the Court did not sustain it as a command for Americans to buy insurance, but as a tax if they don’t. That is the way Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr., was willing to vote for it, and his view prevailed. The other Justices split 4-4, with four wanting to uphold it as a mandate, and four opposed to it in any form.
Today’s Supreme Court is often referred to as Anthony Kennedy’s Court. Although Kennedy is the swing justice who usually casts the deciding vote in close cases, the landmark ruling this week in the healthcare cases clearly mark the maturation of the “Roberts Court.”
Chief Justice John Roberts was the surprising swing vote in today’s Obamacare decision. Although he agreed with the four conservative justices, including Kennedy, that the individual mandate was not a regulation of interstate commerce, he voted with the Court’s moderates to hold that it was justified as a tax. Because people who don’t obtain insurance pay a tax to the IRS, the mandate was within Congress’s power to raise taxes for the general welfare. As a result, the Affordable Care Act was upheld.
With this deft ruling, Roberts avoided what was certain to be a cascade of criticism of the high court. No Supreme Court has struck down a president’s signature piece of legislation in over 75 years. Had Obamacare been voided, it would have inevitably led to charges of aggressive judicial activism. Roberts peered over the abyss and decided he didn’t want to go there.
UPDATE: Absolutely right is the New York Time: “The decision was a victory for President Obama and Congressional Democrats, affirming the central legislative pillar of Mr. Obama’s presidency.”
AND, so was “SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES: ARIZONA ET AL. v. UNITED STATES.”
So, for heaven’s sake. Quit the denial. Liberty was not sundered with Obama. It’s long gone.
Everything the welfare/warfare state does involves taxation. Roberts effectively voided the entire Constitution. Question is, how did the Reds get to him? At a guess, I’d say some of Soros’ pocket change wound up in Roberts’ Swiss bank account. That’s how things get done in NY/DC these days: money talked, bullshit walked. On the positive side, though, this latest socialist obscenity will further encourage the Left, inflame the Right, sharpen polarization, and bring Civil War II that much closer. On a personal level, when/if the Treasury Police come to my house to sign me up for ZeroCare or collect the payment, I will shoot them.
As Mr. Rothbard once said; it’s a den of thieves writ large! Now, any doubts, any questions? I thought not.
If Romney has the cajones to attack this travesty as he should he’s just been handed a jim dandy campaigning issue. If the Republicans vocally and aggressively fight to repeal the WHOLE bill and not cherry pick it for this part or that part because they think the “moderates” want this or that part the issue will work to their advantage. The majority of Americans do not want Obamacare. If the Repuplicans don’t wishy wash around with this they will gain a lot of support they wouldn’t normally get. They need to do something. The country is going to hell at an increasing rate as we speak. It may be too late now to stop the descent but if we can repealing Obamacare is the place to start.
There were 3 possible outcomes: (1) approve Obamacare on the same grounds that Social Security “contributions”, Medicare “premiums” etc. were approved on; (2) find some obscure procedural nits to throw out a piece or two; or (3) overthrow precedent and realize that NONE of the last 77 years of Welfare Statism is part of the Constitution.
Even if a Supreme Court of Ilana Mercer, Andrew Napolitano, John Stossel, Myron Pauli, and Walter Block would have thrown out the whole welfare state, 434 out of 435 (Ron Paul excepted) Congressmen would have voted for a new Constitutional Amendment to restore the welfare state. For all of Romneycare’s two-faced blather to the Bush “Prescription Care” Republicans, these “save my Medicare” crowd are as much into it as Obama.
In fairness to the Supreme Court, it is silly to expect 5 or more judges to rescue the country (the public, Congress, and the President) from THEIR OWN FOLLY. Like the Greeks and the French, Americans vote for the idiots who hand out “benefits” like candy and pass the bill on to the children!! I still recall Republicans practically sobbing when Clinton made 85% of Social Security taxable (which is a defacto benefit cut)!!
The Supreme Court appears to be unfamiliar with or perhaps more ominously is willfully ignoring the Constitution. Even if we assume that the court ruled correctly in defining the penalty as a tax and not regulation of commerce then it is certainly an illegal tax.
The penalty is a direct tax. A direct tax is one that can’t reasonably be avoided by not engaging in a taxed activity. A direct tax is levied on a person, as opposed to an indirect tax which is levied on activity. Not purchasing a product is not an activity. It is a lack of activity. The Obamacare tax is levied for merely being alive.
The founders of this country believed that direct taxes such as the Stamp Act (one of the causes of the war) lead to tyranny. That is why they put restrictions on direct taxes in the Constitution. In Article I, Section. 2. it says, “Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers . . .” This means that direct taxes on state citizens like their number of representatives must be in proportion to the population. It is the only restriction on Federal power I’m aware of that is stated almost the same way twice in the Constitution.
In case anyone missed it (Supreme Court justice), it is stated again in Article I, Section. 9, “No Capitation or other direct, Tax shall be laid, unless in Proportion to the Census or Enumeration herein before directed to be taken.” A capitation tax is one that is levied on people individually and is therefore a type of direct tax.
There obviously is no provision in Obamacare to make this direct tax proportional to the population of the respective states. If a very different number of people passively avoid the penalized lack of activity in two similarly sized states then the tax revenue from those states will not be roughly the same. Therefore the tax will not be in equal proportion to the respective populations.
The Obamacare tax is unconstitutional and an example of tyranny which the founders wished to avoid.
Ah, no JH…Romney, who invented ObamaCare before there was an Obama, will not be repealing anything. U stopped voting for Demicans long ago. Now, stop voting for Republicrats. Bullets not ballots.
To Mr wise: I fear you are right but hate to admit it. I got to vote for someone that’s why the Republican gets the nod. Bullets not ballots is certainly a thought but I’m too fat , old and timid to take to the streets. Why, I nearly swooned with excitement at my last meeting of the Mr Rogers fan club.
I think they got to Roberts. It’s like an election where the Democrat is a close loser. They always find 2000 lost votes in a broom closet waste basket somewhere and “surprise” they all happen to be for the Democrat who lost by 1900 votes and the Democrat wins by a last minute miracle. Funny how that always seems to happen. In my opinion they got to Roberts. They can’t offer him a better job but there’s something fishey about this 11th hour epiphany of his. How do you know there’s a politician at a cock fight? One of the cocks is a duck. How do you know the politician is a democrat? The duck wins.
There is an old adage about lawyers, and lying, and lips moving, that this most recent example of judicial excess brings to mind.