I had a post all ready about how we had beaten back the leviathan and were one step closer to actually limiting the power of government. So much for that. Thanks there CJ Roberts. To think that he sided with the 4 liberal justices and that Kennedy wrote the dissenting opinion and actually made sure to state that this entire bill was a farce is well depressing.
We had a chance, we had a court that I was positive would see that this was a complete over reach of government and slap them back. So much for Obama Slap-Down Day™.
My level of understanding of what went wrong is probably pretty low.I'm not a lawyer and I don't play one on TV, so my level of grasping things comes from reading things like the constitution.
CJ Roberts even disagreed with the WH standpoint that this was not a tax and was legal under the commerce clause. He just turned around and did a complete mockery of everything and basically gave the government the ability to mandate anything and just call the penalty a tax.
Sure John Boehner and Mitt Romney talk about repeal, seriously? We can't even get a ruling that allows you to kill your unborn child over turned. You really believe that this Republican "Leadership" has the backbone to make a full repeal happen? If you do, you're a lot more optimistic than I am.
How did this happen? Erick Erickson at Redstate thinks this happened because CJ Roberts wanted to keep the Court out of the politics and thats why he did this. To force it back to the politicians to solve it through political means.
Granted the court did strike down the ability of the federal government from penalizing states who refuse to expand Medicare, but is that really a win? A small one maybe but since the rest of the bill is going to bankrupt the rest of us does it really matter?
To think that the Supreme Court can stay out of politics is a farce and Roberts knows it. The court is there to settle just this kind of argument. How far can the Federal Government push the boundaries of the constitution. Well thanks to this court we know that basically the government can do whatever it wants and mandate whatever it wants. They just have to sell it as a slightly less popular tax hike. Once they classify something as a tax there is no limit on what the Federal Government can force you to buy.
Wait and see more is coming. I guarantee it.
I'll write more later. Hopefully Boehner doesn't screw up the contempt vote today and we can at least get half of our happy day. Just feels hollow right now though.
I just have one more question though. Barack Obama and the counsel representing him repeatedly said that the mandate was not a tax. So how did Roberts come to the conclusion to let it stand because it is? Don't you have to actually argue the point you are trying to win in a court case?
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