# Liberals: defend the mandate! **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [June 29, 2012, 4:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/liberals-defend-the-mandate/626661 "2012-06-29T04:45:55Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 8
**Author:** ![magellan01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@magellan01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/magellan01)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2012, 8:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/liberals-defend-the-mandate/626661/141 "2012-07-09T20:24:30Z")
> [@Leaper](#): > > You’ve been asked this several times, and if you’ve addressed this specifically, please point me to where you did so: what legal significance is there in what the President claim the mandate is (as opposed to purely political significance)? (I assume you’re claiming it has legal significance because of your “rule of law” statement - if I’m incorrect, please clarify what sort of significance you’re actually saying it has.) > > I’d think you’d have more success with this argument concentrating on “the very language of the bill” (the very thing that our Congresscritters should be solely basing their decision on), rather than insisting that what Obama said in public has any weight that could be taken to a Senate chamber or courtroom. See my previous response to RNATB. We basically agree here, but I don’t think the President’s selling of the bill has zero weight. Not with the degree of salesmanship he brought and made the legislation his. Bu to be clear, my main point has nothing to do with him other than to demonstrate that everyone thought they were voting on a non-tax. Unless they all think the President is a liar and that his Constitutional Law credentials aren’t worth the paper they’re printed on. ---
**Author:** ![magellan01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@magellan01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/magellan01)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2012, 8:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/liberals-defend-the-mandate/626661/142 "2012-07-09T20:29:26Z")
> [@YogSosoth](#): > > Do you agree that the President can guarantee anything he wants in the media, but it doesn’t necessarily have to be so in the bills submitted by Congress (and not him)? If Obama tricked everyone and sold it through the media as a tax cut for everyone and free kittens for all, does that have any legal bearing on what the SCOTUS decides later? I still would like to know if, by the SCOTUS’s rule, any actual words in the ACA was changed, and if the SCOTUS itself was changing them. By your new avenue of debate, you seem to have given up on that, implying that you agreed the SCOTUS didn’t change anything. > > However, your new words are puzzling. You essentially said that Obama tricked Congress into voting for it. Do you know if there is some provision in the Constitution which says that votes and laws can be invalidated if people claimed they were tricked? Would you support the creation of such a provision for all laws? > > Obviously, my point is clear. If Congress was tricked, the vote still stands. If the SCOTUS declares that a bill sold as a non-tax was a tax, the vote in Congress still stands. Forget “tricked”. There is no need to hypothesize about motivation. The fact is that the bill was written as a penalty, NOT a tax. It is not called a tax in the bill at all. And on it’s non-tax status it was deemed Unconstitutional. It was deemed constitutional oily when viewed under Congress’s power to TAX. So, it is a tax. But congress did not write a tax bill or vote on imposing a tax on the American people. Therefore: new vote on Obamacare with the tax language inserted. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2012, 9:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/liberals-defend-the-mandate/626661/143 "2012-07-09T21:03:17Z")
> [@magellan01](#): > > And on it’s non-tax status it was deemed Unconstitutional. It was deemed constitutional oily when viewed under Congress’s power to TAX. So, it is a tax. There’s your misunderstanding. It was not deemed a tax. It was determined Constitutional under Congress’ power to tax. If you’re saying Roberts made some kind of big error and didn’t know what is required for creating a tax- I have to say that’s kind of silly on the face of it. There’s no loophole here and there is not going to be a revote. ---
**Author:** ![YogSothoth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/8edcca/32.png) [@YogSothoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/YogSothoth)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2012, 9:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/liberals-defend-the-mandate/626661/144 "2012-07-09T21:20:29Z")
> [@magellan01](#): > > Forget “tricked”. There is no need to hypothesize about motivation. The fact is that the bill was written as a penalty, NOT a tax. It is not called a tax in the bill at all. And on it’s non-tax status it was deemed Unconstitutional. It was deemed constitutional oily when viewed under Congress’s power to TAX. So, it is a tax. But congress did not write a tax bill or vote on imposing a tax on the American people. Therefore: new vote on Obamacare with the tax language inserted. So were any actual words or pages inserted into the bill now that it was deemed constitutional under Congress’s power to tax? Or can the ACA move forward as written? ---
**Author:** ![Fiddle\_Peghead](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fiddle_peghead/32/3506_2.png) [@Fiddle\_Peghead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fiddle_Peghead)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2012, 12:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/liberals-defend-the-mandate/626661/145 "2012-07-10T00:01:40Z")
> [@magellan01](#): > > It’s not. But it is their job (I thought) to simply follow the rule of law. By the very language in the bill and the President’s guarantee and insistence that the mandate was not a tax, congress did not draft and vote on a new tax for the American people. Therefore, a new tax cannot be assessed. It’s everyone’s “job” to follow the rule of law, but that isn’t relevant here. Now, one job of the Supreme Court is to decide whether a law is constitutional. They have no right to get rid of a legitimately passed law just because the Congress might have voted differently given a different interpretation of it. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2012, 12:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/liberals-defend-the-mandate/626661/146 "2012-07-10T00:04:35Z")
The tax power does not grant the power to make anything legal or illegal, so that means not having insurance is not against the law. If you pay the fee or whatever people call it, you are in full compliance. A penalty implies that you did something wrong. If you pay a parking ticket, you still have to move your car. Most other offenses involving fines escalate, you can’t just keep on doing it and pay the fine. The fact that the mandate is justified only under the tax power means that Congress will never be permitted to attach criminal sanctions to it. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/liberals-defend-the-mandate/626661.md?page=7)