Well, no one saw this one coming. The Supreme Court issued an incredible decision on Obamacare today. The centerpiece of the Court's decision is that teh individual mandate is not a tax and that it is a tax. That sentence is not a typo; it is the holding of the majority of the court. First, since Congress made clear that the mandate was not a tax but a penalty, the Anti Injunction statute does not apply, since that statute only applies to a tax. Second, since Congress has the power to levy taxes and since the mandate is a tax despite what Congress said in the law, the mandate is constitutional. This gives doubletalk a bad name.
What is even more amazing is that a large majority of the Court agreed that the mandate was beyond the power of Congress under the Commerce Clause which has always been the focus of the argument. Indeed, if the Chief Justice had abjured from his twisted reasoning about what is and what is not a tax, the mandate and the law would have fallen.
Then, to make this even a stranger decision, the Court found that the law improperly required the states to conform to the new Medicaid coverage requirements or risk losing all Medicaid payments from the federal government. The Court provides that the states get to choose whether or not to participate in the new coverages under Medicaid, but they will not lose their old funding if they decline to do so. This is idiotic. Indeed, it sets a whole new standard for federal-state relationships that puts the court right in the middle. Imagine that Congress decides that it is going to require that certain new construction standard must be met in order to get federal highway funds. If Iowa decides that it does not need to meet the new standards, can it still get the funds at the levels that it got in previous years? What if the Congress decides that it will no longer send funds for eduction to the states and will instead give each person in the country a voucher? Can the states decline to recognize the new system and still get the funds from the previous year? It is a mess.
Today's decision is a disgrace. This is not because of the outcome. I could see the court actually deciding on the central issues in an honest and reasonable way. The problem is that we have today seen the triumph of sophistry over reason. The non-tax tax is like the living dead. It may be something that is very hard to kill. Indeed, now that this crazy concept has arisen, it may take a silver bullet to end it some time in the future. It will not be easy and the Court has done great harm to the Constitution.
2 comments:
Mandate that all citizens must have health insurance, now they want to represent a penalty as a TAX!
How will the enforcement of this mandate be accomplished? Since the mandate was written as having a penalty, how do they get around the mandate not being re-written?
Posted on another blog.
To: Lorianne; pookie18
The way I see it, SCOTUS has basically said that the "mandate" (i.e. fines, penalties) are considered a tax. But the obamacare bill was not written as a "tax bill", and obama and his flying monkeys have all previously denied that it was a tax...on National TV.
Therefore, if it IS a tax as SCOTUS proclaims, why doesn't the entire bill have to be rewritten as a tax bill. If people cannot be taxed without the Congress passing a tax, then Congress has not passed a tax, per se, in this bill.
It should be therefore incumbent to run this thing back through Congress to turn it into a "tax bill". To me, SCOTUS implying that it is a "tax" is the only way they gave it a thumbs up, and that says that the commerce clause stands and "mandates, fines, and penalties" for not playing are not Constitutional.
But, insofar as obamacare, as a "tax bill", is just vaporware, there is no law to enforce until duly amended into a tax bill by the Congress.
Post a Comment