Well, look at your examples. They are instances where an object is taxed but those are not the same as imposing a tax on the basis someone did not purchase something. To be sure, Congress can tax objects in an effort to deter conduct, i.e. keep the people or deter them from purchasing something (recall the Whiskey tax which caused a stir in the early Republic.) However, I am not sure of the answer here because there isn’t any case law in existence directly settling this question that I am aware of anyway. From my understanding of the taxing power, and I rely upon original meaning, this is not a power within Congress’ power to tax in Article I.
To address the 16th Amendment, which was referenced in a prior post. The 16th Amendment does not settle the question for us. The 16th Amendment is not a grant of power Congress did not generally already possess. As the Court said in BRUSHABER v. UNION PACIFIC R. CO., 240 U.S. 1 (1916), the power to impose an income tax is a power Congress possessed before the passage of the 16th Amendment. Therefore, the 16th Amendment does not confer a power Congress did not already possess generally. "the whole purpose of the Amendment was to relieve all income taxes when imposed from apportionment from a consideration of the source whence the income was derived.
Massachusetts enacted a very similar health insurance reform in 2006 (without a lot of the cost control measures). The penalties went into effect in 2007 or 2008. It happened. It’s in effect. This is the plan that was in many ways the model for the current bill. They’re not lying about the penalties, they’re an integral part of the plan.
I continue to think very carefully about this issue, but one similar question arose in my mind this morning: if the commerce clause is sufficient constitutional authority to require all Americans to buy health insurance, is the commerce clause also sufficient to require all Americans to buy guns?
OK, I’m going to go ahead and ignore you from now on, no offense. All you do is scream and rant with circular arguments and childlike accusations.
To the rest on this board: Lobo has problems with this poll because it was:
a) done by mail :rolleyes:
b) done by a business magazine
c) didn’t come out how the hardcore lefties wanted it to :smack:
Anyway, the poll is instructive, take a look at the link, it’s here. There are about 800k doctors in America, they did a random sample of 1300 by mail. It showed that a whopping 45% would consider retirement if the healthcare bill passed. All of the so-called ‘flaws’ that graspers like Lobo have clung to are listed in the brief article, you can read them for yourself and judge it’s worthiness appropriately.
But not to threadjack too much… the point is, there will be many unintended consequences from this bill. This represents one.
The point is you are citing as evidence an unscientific poll. You might as well cite an online internet poll, or the opinions of your circle of friends. The poll is an anecdote. That you don’t understand this is clear.
It almost seems like you’d rather *seem *right than *be *right.
The poll is flawed and no one who wants to be taken seriously would draw real world conclusions from something that is essentially background noise.
I just think that it bears repeating that you have no problem posting something again and again that has no actual merit, just as long as it supports your pre-conceived notions. You are pretending that the poll is something that proves a point.
This is a great question. The way the statute is worded, it seems the government is trying to say controlling health care costs is a legitimate government interest. I wonder if on challenge, the Court would carve out some compelling governmental interest narrowly tailored type language seen in other jurisprudence. If that’s the rationale, mandating guns would likely not be permissible. Otherwise, I think you have a point and the government could.
I raised similar queries in the first or second pages of this thread regarding the purchase of books, cars, food, and so forth. Congress was not originally vested with any authority under the commerce clause to make us purchase anything.
Congress could make us purchase homes, a particular kind and type of car, certain foods, clothing, and so forth.
OK - so there is general acceptance that the government can require a purchase, just the question is which level of government. Sorry to be repetitive, but I have gotten a little confused.
This was almost exactly the thoughts I had in the posting about N Dakota. Here’s the text of that post, in response to Bricker’s thoughts that the CC is stretched beyond recognition.:
Do you not see any line crossed between the regulation of commerce and the requirement for mandatory engagement of commerce, constitutionally? I agree that Congress has stretched the Commerce Clause well beyond what it was supposed to do, trying to use it to regulate violence against women and other claptrap (not that I condone violence against women, you get my gist here).
In 1995, US v Lopez, the Supremes overturned a Gun Free School Zone law, which relied on Commerce Clause, as a bridge too far:
From my perspective, the power to regulate does NOT equal the power to mandate. Or to put another way: would it be constitutional to pass a law requiring all American citizens to buy a car from GM? If not, why not? What’s the difference, constitutionally speaking?
I haven’t looked at the bill or the individual mandate much, but in the short bit of research I did, it appears that the law is structured as a tax. That is, if you don’t have adequate health care coverage, you will be taxed at a certain rate or assessed a certain penalty tax. Kinda like the the penalty taxes imposed for late payments to the government, polluters who don’t meet environmental requirements, or the “substantial penalty for early withdrawl”. I don’t quite see it as a problem under the Constitution.
Well, the tax, if we want to call it a tax, is a mechanism used to enforce the mandate language in the statute. There is the mandate, which requires all people to have health insurance, and then there is the penalty for failing to comply with this mandate, and the penalty is the tax.
I do not think the mandate is constitutional.
Now, is the tax used as a penalty constitutional? First, this is a tax which is different from other taxes mentioned in this thread. The examples of taxation in this thread have been in regards to a tax imposed upon some good or service. This is not a tax imposed upon any good or service. Rather, this is a tax imposed upon the individual on the basis the individual failed to purchase a particular kind of good. Can Congress impose a tax to induce people to purchase a particular product?