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Opening Arguments

Watch your wallets

Hey, I've had my "Read my lips" moment with a president I thought could be trusted on taxes. Now you Democrats enjoy yours, hear?

While we were all debating the cost to our liberty due to the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (Obamacare), we were ignoring the cost to our pockets.  If there ever was a reason for bipartisan rage about this law, it should be on the twenty - yes, twenty - hidden new taxes of this law.  Making matters even more relevant is that seven of these taxes are levied on all citizens regardless of income.  Hence, Mr. Obama’s promise not to raise taxes on anyone earning less than $250,000 is just another falsehood associated with this legislation.

And speaking of people who can't be trusted, let's nominate Chief Justice John Roberts for the Hoosier Hall of Shame:

Spare me the argument that Roberts, with the ghosts of 1937 tramping through his mind, was trying to “preserve the integrity” of the court. His jaw-dropping, intellectually inconsistent, Kafkaesque ruling in the Obamacare case is likely to live in infamy, much like such earlier Supreme turkeys as the Dred Scott decision and Plessy v. Ferguson. In both of those cases, as in this one, the Court took refuge in legal niceties and sophomoric hairsplitting, refusing to acknowledge the greater moral issue and the looming national catastrophe.
Even if Roberts did make his “switch in time” pusillanimously, to avoid another Obama tongue-lashing and the ill will of the major editorial pages . . . so what? There are times in the affairs of men when business as usual should no longer obtain, and all right-thinking people (including the four justices who voted to strike down the monstrosity) must simply — in one of the Left’s favorite phrases — do the right thing. That Roberts did not will be to his everlasting shame.

Comments

RAG
Mon, 07/02/2012 - 6:47pm

Maybe the jury hasn't reached a verdict on Chief Justice Roberts yet.

Make no mistake, conservatives have to repeal this "tax".

But, by ruling ObamaCare barred by the commerce clause he may have set back the phony commerce clause 76 years.  It also makes it look like the liberals on the court supports this line.

The conservatives on the court may be furious, but I'd like to know how the Supreme Court liberals feel now.  I'm beginning to believe that Chief Justice Roberts pulled a fast one on them, not the conservatives.  His late opinion may have been to prevent the liberals from adding their own opinions to water down his ruling.

Leo Morris
Tue, 07/03/2012 - 7:56am

If Roberts indeed "pulled a fast one," he was acting as a politician, not a justice, no matter who he pulled the fast one on. A core function of the Constitution is to restrain the federal government, but the politicians and judges have ignored that for decades. The simple fact is that the chief justice had a chance to bring back that sense of restraint and chose not to do so. No future court is going to feel constrained by his Commerce Clause observations -- and they were just that, not really part of the formal ruling. And whether Washington has unlimited power because of the Commerce Clause or because of the ability to tax, it's STILL unlimited power. Seems to me Congress now has one more excuse to overreach, not one fewer.

RAG
Wed, 07/04/2012 - 3:35pm

Leo

With the following comments, please don't take it as a negative commentary on your statements.  I will probably reveal how ignorant I still am.

About this ruling, I really do want to know what the liberals on the court are thinking.

I don't think that Chief Justice Roberts was intimidated by the Presidential tongue lashing.  I am leaning toward that he was angry and this is pay back time.  

Yes, voting with the conservatives would have killed ObamaCare.  For the moment.  It would have been viewed as political by the left.  It would have galvanized the liberals to make sure a liberal president puts in more liberal justices.  (When has the court not been political?)  The damn conservative justices killed our bill.  We'll bring it up again with a better court.

Voting with the liberals and waving a magic wand, like the liberals do, he changed it from a commerce clause mandate to a tax.  Five justices said there is no authority from the commerce clause to allow this.  The four liberal justices indirectly agreed to this because they were silent and they let Roberts give the majority opinion without additional comments.  That is 9 - 0.  Will this stop, slow down, or help repeal any phony commerce clause legislation?  I am not a prophet.  But, the ruling is now there.

The Court calling it a tax and others saying this increases federal power befuddles me.  The federal government appears to have had that authority for a long time.  At least with something like ObamaCare, they now will call it a tax and everyone will know it as one.  Would the Democrats in Congress have voted for it if it was known as a tax?

This is still serious.  It has to be repealed.  But, to lighten up the subject I am going to claim that Vince McMahon couldn't have written a better script.

RAG
Wed, 07/04/2012 - 3:43pm

My secretary quit a long time ago.

Let me correct a sentence.  "Five justices said there is no authority from the commerce clause to allow a mandate."

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