I'm Not Down On John Roberts

[Warph]

         

I received this article in my e-mail - it makes some sense...



I'm not down on John Roberts. Having gone through the opinion, I am not going to beat up on John Roberts. I am disappointed, but I want to make a few points.

First, I get the strong sense from a few anecdotal stories about Roberts over the past few months and the way he has written this opinion that he very, very much was concerned about keeping the Supreme Court above the partisan fray and damaging the reputation of the Court long term. It seems to me the left was smart to make a full frontal assault on the Court as it persuaded Roberts.

Second, in writing his case, Roberts forces everyone to deal with the issue as a political, not a legal issue. In the past twenty years, Republicans have punted a number of issues to the Supreme Court asking the Court to save us from ourselves. They can't do that with Roberts. They tried with McCain-Feingold, which was originally upheld. This case is a timely reminder to the GOP that five votes are not a sure thing.

Third, while Roberts has expanded the taxation power, which I don't really think is a massive expansion from what it was, Roberts has curtailed the commerce clause as an avenue for Congressional overreach. In so doing, he has affirmed the Democrats are massive taxers. In fact, I would argue that this may prevent future mandates in that no one is going to go around campaigning on new massive tax increases. On the upside, I guess we can tax the hell out of abortion now. Likewise, in a 7 to 2 decision, the Court shows a strong majority still recognize the concept of federalism and the restrains of Congress in forcing states to adhere to the whims of the federal government.

Fourth, in forcing us to deal with this politically, the Democrats are going to have a hard time running to November claiming the American people need to vote for them to preserve Obamacare. It remains deeply, deeply unpopular with the American people. If they want to make a vote for them a vote for keeping a massive tax increase, let them try.

Fifth, the decision totally removes a growing left-wing talking point that suddenly they must vote for Obama because of judges. The Supreme Court as a November issue is gone.

Finally, while I am not down on John Roberts like many of you are today, i will be very down on Congressional Republicans if they do not now try to shut down the individual mandate. Force the Democrats on the record about the mandate. Defund Obamacare. This now, by necessity, is a political fight and the GOP sure as hell should fight.

60% of Americans agree with them on the issue. And guess what? The Democrats have been saying for a while that individual pieces of Obamacare are quite popular. With John Roberts' opinion, the repeal fight takes place on GOP turf, not Democrat turf. The all or nothing repeal has always been better ground for the GOP and now John Roberts has forced everyone onto that ground. Oh, and as I mentioned earlier, because John Roberts concluded it was a tax, the Democrats cannot filibuster its repeal because of the same reconciliation procedure the Democrats used to pass it.

It seems very, very clear to me in reviewing John Roberts' decision that he is playing a much longer game than us and can afford to with a life tenure. And he probably just handed Mitt Romney the White House.

*A friend points out one other thing — go back to 2009. Olympia Snowe was the deciding vote to get Obamacare out of the Senate Committee. Had she voted no, we'd not be here now.[/font]

[Warph]

After months and months of focusing on Anthony Kennedy as the weak link in the conservative chain at the Supreme Court, it turns out that Chief Justice John Roberts was the one the Right needed to fear.

Basically, this is a tax that you have to pay to private companies.  For all of the screaming the Right did over single-payer... and for good, outcome-based reasons.... at least the money paid by taxpayers would go directly to government

Nevertheless, this is the law of the land now.  We can now look forward to taxes levied by the auto industry for not having bought a new car in the last seven years, the liquor industry for buying too few bottles of wine to maintain your health, and by the agricultural industry for not buying that damned broccoli after all.  We might even have Obama attempt to impose a tax for not buying enough contraception; we can call that the Trojan tax.


By the way, don't forget when Obama insisted that this wasn't a tax, via Patterico:

Sooooo.... what now, Mitt?[/font][/size]

[mtcookson]

       

I received this article in my e-mail - it makes some sense...

Sorry Warph... but I have to do this, I think this guy is completely wrong.

I'm not down on John Roberts. Having gone through the opinion, I am not going to beat up on John Roberts. I am disappointed, but I want to make a few points.

You're in denial then, simple as that.

First, I get the strong sense from a few anecdotal stories about Roberts over the past few months and the way he has written this opinion that he very, very much was concerned about keeping the Supreme Court above the partisan fray and damaging the reputation of the Court long term. It seems to me the left was smart to make a full frontal assault on the Court as it persuaded Roberts.

That makes him more of an idiot if that's the case. That means he would rather do what "looks" good than do what is constitutional and what is right.

Second, in writing his case, Roberts forces everyone to deal with the issue as a political, not a legal issue. In the past twenty years, Republicans have punted a number of issues to the Supreme Court asking the Court to save us from ourselves. They can't do that with Roberts. They tried with McCain-Feingold, which was originally upheld. This case is a timely reminder to the GOP that five votes are not a sure thing.

In writing his case he just created probably one the of largest growths of government power since... I don't know... FDR perhaps?

Third, while Roberts has expanded the taxation power, which I don't really think is a massive expansion from what it was, Roberts has curtailed the commerce clause as an avenue for Congressional overreach. In so doing, he has affirmed the Democrats are massive taxers. In fact, I would argue that this may prevent future mandates in that no one is going to go around campaigning on new massive tax increases. On the upside, I guess we can tax the hell out of abortion now. Likewise, in a 7 to 2 decision, the Court shows a strong majority still recognize the concept of federalism and the restrains of Congress in forcing states to adhere to the whims of the federal government.

NOT A MASSIVE EXPANSION OF TAXATION POWER?!?!?!?! ARE YOU KIDDING?!?!?!?!?!? The government has just been given the go ahead to use TAX as a PUNISHMENT for INACTIVITY.

We can tax the hell out of abortion now? The government already could if they wanted to. It was a service that could easily be taxed. They could have taxed it so much that the only way anyone could afford it would be to go to a black market of some sort or somewhere out of the country. No... what this decision allows is the government to tax you for NOT having an abortion.

This decision now ALLOWS taxing inactivity. The question is now... what can't they do? They can now FORCE you to purchase something "for the greater good" by simply making an inactivity tax so high that you simply have to. If the left (from BOTH parties) had complete control now just imagine what could happen... here are just a few hypotheticals I came up with that would punish people and attempt to force them to purchase something:

- Everyone needs to brush their teeth otherwise should something happen and you have to go to the hospital because of a lack of brushing that could potentially hurt other people since they have to fund it if you don't have insurance or a way of paying. If you don't buy a toothbrush you'll be taxed $50.00 (on top of the tax for not having insurance).

- To insure no one else is financially harmed you need to always have life insurance. If you don't you'll have to pay a tax of $6,000.

- Your car emits too much carbon dioxide, which is bad for everyone in the U.S. If you don't buy a Chevy Volt you'll have to pay a tax of $60,000. Its cheaper to purchase the Volt so why not?

- For the safety of everyone you need to have a tracking implant put into your body that the government can keep track of your location, medical info, financial info so you can even pay with it, etc. If you don't get one you'll have to pay a tax of $100,000.

This make lobbying even more powerful. Take a company like Chevy, if they can compel Congress that their product is a public necessity like in my example above with the Volt... Congress now has the power to tax people if they don't buy one. Lets say, just for the heck of it, Congress isn't allowed to force you to buy a product from a single company that makes it so that you would then have to buy either a Volt, Prius, Leaf, or i-MiEV or whatever electric or low emissions vehicle they feel people need to drive.

Well wouldn't this force everyone to then have to drive? They could easily make it so that if you have a vehicle or a drivers license or whatever dumb reason they come up with to force you to buy one.

Fourth, in forcing us to deal with this politically, the Democrats are going to have a hard time running to November claiming the American people need to vote for them to preserve Obamacare. It remains deeply, deeply unpopular with the American people. If they want to make a vote for them a vote for keeping a massive tax increase, let them try.

Or... they could do what they do absolutely best and LIE about it claiming that the Roberts, a republican, ruined ObamaCare by turning it into a tax. "See... republicans only want to tax the poor and middle class. The righteous leader of the world, our supreme magical leader Obama specifically setup ObamaCare so that is wasn't a tax and would help everyone! The republicans are trying to tax you to death even more now!"

How many people that vote on "that" side do you really think pay attention to stuff like this and actually know what is going on? It would be so incredibly simple for them to say that the SCOTUS said ObamaCare is legal but the republicans are trying to hurt it and everyone else by turning it into a tax... and there are likely a ton of "them" that would believe it.

Fifth, the decision totally removes a growing left-wing talking point that suddenly they must vote for Obama because of judges. The Supreme Court as a November issue is gone.

Read the above reply, this could easily be turned around as well.

Finally, while I am not down on John Roberts like many of you are today, i will be very down on Congressional Republicans if they do not now try to shut down the individual mandate. Force the Democrats on the record about the mandate. Defund Obamacare. This now, by necessity, is a political fight and the GOP sure as hell should fight.

60% of Americans agree with them on the issue. And guess what? The Democrats have been saying for a while that individual pieces of Obamacare are quite popular. With John Roberts' opinion, the repeal fight takes place on GOP turf, not Democrat turf. The all or nothing repeal has always been better ground for the GOP and now John Roberts has forced everyone onto that ground. Oh, and as I mentioned earlier, because John Roberts concluded it was a tax, the Democrats cannot filibuster its repeal because of the same reconciliation procedure the Democrats used to pass it.

You are not down on him because either you are in such denial that you can't even think straight or you have no understanding of what he just did to HELP expand government power.

We now have an even longer fight to get this repealed while at the very same time having a MASSIVE increase in government power. This is a massive loss for We the People and a HUGE win for big government lunatics.

It seems very, very clear to me in reviewing John Roberts' decision that he is playing a much longer game than us and can afford to with a life tenure. And he probably just handed Mitt Romney the White House.

Again, there is CLEARLY NOTHING good about this. He is not playing some longer chess game that will end up helping the country, ABSOLUTELY NOT. He upheld an unconstitutional law while at the same time expanding government power. There is nothing republican, conservative, constitutional, nor even RATIONAL about his decision. Either he is not the conservative republican we were led to believe or he was so severely threatened by the left that he had to come up with some incredible BS reason to uphold the law... I don't know... either way it is a very sad time for our country.

The democrats could easily compose themselves and turn this whole deal around on republicans in a split second. Just remember what types of people vote for them. I don't think this necessarily handed Romney the WH. If the dems are able to turn this around I bet it could still be a scarily close election.

Maybe I'm wrong, and I pray that I am but I see absolutely NO silver lining and see only the further killing of the U.S.

[Warph]

Remember... this was an email I received.  Not solely my opinion. 

It will be days... weeks perhapes before the ramification of ObumaCare hit home.  Now... we do know ONE thing tho': SCOTUS knows and that was Roberts made it clear.. Taxes, Taxes and More Taxes, something that Obuma was on record for No Taxes!  Paul Ryan made it clear on Fox&F yesterday: "There are 21 taxes in this bill, 12 of which hit people making less than $250,000 per year. That in and of itself is a violation of the President's promise not to tax people making less than $250,000."  Ryan said that the way the President and Congressional Democrats sold this bill has been proven false by the Supreme Court ruling. "I agree with the dissenting opinion that they rewrote this law calling it a tax," said Ryan.  "We have a law that we have one more chance to repeal, and that's this November election," Ryan continued. "That's basically what the Supreme Court did; they raised the stakes of this election. We have one more chance – and that's basically what they said. The people of this country are going to be the final arbiters of this."

For one or many reasons or another, I'm sure many of us will be bristling with Chief Justice Robert's mandate-permitting opinion on ObamaCare for some time to come, but everybody's been discussing at least one key takeaway from his decision that I thought very profound:

"Members of this Court are vested with the authority to interpret the law; we possess neither the expertise nor the prerogative to make policy judgments.  Those decisions are entrusted to our Nation's elected leaders, who can be thrown out of office if the people disagree with them.  It is not our job to protect the people from the consequences of their political choices."

He's right, you know. 

The only way to get rid of ObumaCare is: Reelect a new president, clean out congress, control the house and senate and get America back on the common sense road to sanity.  The American people can only do this.. no one else!

[srkruzich]

"Members of this Court are vested with the authority to interpret the law; we possess neither the expertise nor the prerogative to make policy judgments.  Those decisions are entrusted to our Nation's elected leaders, who can be thrown out of office if the people disagree with them.  It is not our job to protect the people from the consequences of their political choices."

He's right, you know. 

The only way to get rid of ObumaCare is: Reelect a new president, clean out congress, control the house and senate and get America back on the common sense road to sanity.  The American people can only do this.. no one else![/font][/size]

I have to agree. It is our responsibility to remove them from office and our responsibility to repeal the bad laws.  I do see the wisdom in his ruling mainly because he shut down that crap dems always use that they can do anything under the commerce clause.  Clearly they cannot according to  this ruling!  That door has been slammed shut which it should have been done many years ago.

And congress does have the  power to impose tax.  That is constitutional.  I think roberts is a sly ole dog. IF you remember Obama slammed Roberts in his address to the nation one year,  and i said back then that was going to come back tobite obama in the ass. Well Roberts just took a massive chunk out of obamas ass!   Now its our turn to kick it.

[Warph]

I have to agree. It is our responsibility to remove them from office and our responsibility to repeal the bad laws.  I do see the wisdom in his ruling mainly because he shut down that crap dems always use that they can do anything under the commerce clause.  Clearly they cannot according to  this ruling!  That door has been slammed shut which it should have been done many years ago.

And congress does have the  power to impose tax.  That is constitutional.  I think roberts is a sly ole dog. IF you remember Obama slammed Roberts in his address to the nation one year,  and i said back then that was going to come back tobite obama in the ass. Well Roberts just took a massive chunk out of obamas ass!   Now its our turn to kick it.

I couldn't have said it better, Steve

[mtcookson]

I do see the wisdom in his ruling mainly because he shut down that crap dems always use that they can do anything under the commerce clause.  Clearly they cannot according to  this ruling!  That door has been slammed shut which it should have been done many years ago.

There's one major problem though, he closed a door while opening a potentially larger one. If he was really wanting to close the door on the abuse of the commerce clause he could have done it using the original, exact reason for its existence which was to prevent the States to put tolls and tariffs on goods being transported through their own state. That was the sole purpose of the commerce clause when it was written. That would have shut down the abuse of the commerce clause while at the same time proving ObamaCare was unconstitutional.

There's also another very interesting argument on the constitutionality of it in a tax form:

All bills for raising Revenue shall originate in the House of Representatives; but the Senate may propose or concur with Amendments as on other Bills.

ObamaCare originated in the Senate which clearly, yet again, makes it unconstitutional.

We still have a major issue with Roberts opening up the tax floodgate, saying Congress can tax you for doing nothing.

[srkruzich]

There's one major problem though, he closed a door while opening a potentially larger one. If he was really wanting to close the door on the abuse of the commerce clause he could have done it using the original, exact reason for its existence which was to prevent the States to put tolls and tariffs on goods being transported through their own state. That was the sole purpose of the commerce clause when it was written. That would have shut down the abuse of the commerce clause while at the same time proving ObamaCare was unconstitutional.

There's also another very interesting argument on the constitutionality of it in a tax form:ObamaCare originated in the Senate which clearly, yet again, makes it unconstitutional.

We still have a major issue with Roberts opening up the tax floodgate, saying Congress can tax you for doing nothing.

well that was known before, as it is stated in the constitution.  But the fact that we are taxed for being alive is going to fire up people against him and will cause folks to replace those that voted for it.   while dems love new taxes, they generally are better at comign up with a reason for new taxes other than just being alive.  They know taht won't fly. 

[mtcookson]

I'm not so worried about them doing anything with it right now but its just the possibilities it opens up for the future... if the left were to ever get a super majority and the presidency they could tax the people into oblivion if they wanted to.

Any expansion of government power is bad.

[Teresa]

I'm not so worried about them doing anything with it right now but its just the possibilities it opens up for the future... if the left were to ever get a super majority and the presidency they could tax the people into oblivion if they wanted to.

Any expansion of government power is bad.

Exactly!!