Yes, everything you get from the feds in return for your federal income taxes.
This is new and unprecedented. That’s why it’s going down like Madonna on her honeymoon, once the Supremes get ahold of it.
Interesting. So that means that some folks are forced to buy things at more than face value, right? And forced to buy things they do not want or need.
Wait… what? You got that backwards I think.
In the universe of things that government might do to affect your life, constitutionally speaking, the states’ powers outnumber the fed’s powers by, roughly speaking, a billion to one.
I had to pay for a war I didn’t want or need. I have to pay for the federal death penalty. People pay for schools they don’t use, and roads they don’t drive on. Your civic responsibility is not limited to things you personally want or need.
Name one thing states can do that the feds can’t do.
Funny how this “government” stuff has to work, innit?
Me too. I am unsure how that justifies the practice.
Issue a NC driver’s license.
Cite that it has to work that way?
It should probably be pointed out that very few people are actually going to end up being subject to this tax. If you make enough money to be subject to it, you probably already have insurance anyway.
It’s up to you to show how it’s NOT Constitutionally justified.
Can you provide an working model for a government which can function without collecting taxes to pay for anything that isn’t unanimously agreed upon by the populace?
Oh, I agree. I was trying to point out the silliness of **Elvis **referring to such as the feds forcing people to buy stuff. It’s a pretty strained analogy.
Another way to look at this “mandate,” by the way, is that’s it’s nothing more than a tax credit for those who buy health insurance.
If it were by chance struck down (unlikely), that just strikes down that section of the bill and not the bill in its entirety, correct?
In which case, I wish the legal radicals all the luck in the world. If you get rid of that provision, the private insurance market is dead by the end of the decade.
In economics the taxation of people to provide all sorts of services, such as police, fire protection, roads etc. is predicated on the concept that most folks would not pay for it themselves.
I suspect strongly that the present bill is generally constitutional, but that that particular clause is not. (Which is not to say that the Federal government cannot require that citizens either purchase health insurance or pay taxes to subsidize their costs, just that the particular mechanism in this particular bill fails Constitutional muster.)
First, the “general welfare” clause does in fact enable Congress to levy “taxes, imposts, and excises”, independently of the succeeding clauses. That’s based on the text; the theory that it merely enables Congress to raise money with which to carry out the enumerated powers, while it has some precedent, is pure penumbral interpretation. Second, much of what is used in health care is shipped via interstate commerce. So IMO the general principle that the Federal government may engage in regulating and subsidizing health care is in fact a constitutional power.
By the way, the analogy with mandatory automobile insurance or school taxes fails. They are state laws, using the reserved powers guaranteed by the Tenth Amendment. What a state may do and what the Federal government may do are two different animals. The Feds. may not mandate automobile liability insurance (arguably; one might make a case under the Commerce Clause) and may not levy direct property taxes.
However, there are restrictions on how Congress may raise money. First, it must be a “tax, impost, or excise”, or else a fine imposed as a penalty for a specific criminal offense defined in statute. (The latter is not specified in the Constitution, but is a commonplace of criminal law construction.) Direct taxes must either be either apportioned according to state populations or be founded on income. As a tax penalty with an income-based threshold, it qualifies as Constitutional.
However, and here’s the kicker: As a law imposing a tax, ir must originate in the House. The law imposing this tax penalty for failure to contract for health care insurance was passed, thanks to the filibuster threat, by the House acceding to the bill that was introduced in and passed the Senate.
Yes, this is purely nitpickery, but it’s the sort of nitpickery that makes Constitutional law. Congress in fact has the power to mandate health care insurance – but it must do it in accord with its Constitutional power grant. The tax penalty clause fails, because it is a tax imposed by a law that originated in the Senate rather than the House.
That’s not actually true.
You’re asking him to prove a negative. The constitution isn’t a list of things that the government can’t do, it’s a list of things that the government can do, and a list of things (although incomplete) that they can’t do.
It is not that simple. Look, I support the bill. Honestly, I would rather a single payer system. But that does not mean I automatically stop thinking because my side won.
The bill explicitly states it is promulgating the mandate under the commerce clause.
This is not simply a tax issue. It is not settled law that the commerce clause allows this. While we think it should, that does not mean it is so.
- Impose property taxes. 2. Allow a line-item veto. 3. Convict persons for “common law” (non-statutory) crimes. 4. Regulate land use by zoning laws.
I’m fairly sure all of these are delimited to the states as opposed to the Feds.
You can’t act collectively at all if anyone can simply opt out of anything.
“I’m opting out of your opposition to the topic!”