Republican calls for Constitutional Amendment on healthcare law as a 'tax'

[BucEyedPea]

I was tossing around the very same idea last night myself but didn't know how to put it.
If this bill is as unpopular as polls show perhaps it has a chance. I don't like any justice re-writing a law to make it Constitutional. It's activism.
This puts a lid on that sort of behavior.

Obama still insists it's not a tax...and Romney agrees with him.

http://thehill.com/blogs/floor-actio...lthcare-ruling

Quayle's amendment, H.J.Res. 114, would hold simply that, "No provision of law shall be construed as having been made in execution of the power of Congress to lay and collect taxes unless such law has been designated by Congress as a tax."

[BucEyedPea]

The same link shows that Roberts didn't consider the penalty a tax in another area.

Gohmert noted, for example, that the court had to first decide whether it could take up the case at all under the Anti-Injunction Act. That act says the Supreme Court has no jurisdiction over tax cases until the tax in question has been assessed, and in this case, the penalty for not buying health insurance will not kick in until 2014.

But here, the court found that the penalty is not a tax. Roberts wrote: "The Affordable Care Act does not require that the penalty for failing to comply with the individual mandate be treated as a tax for purposes of the Anti-Injunction Act. The Anti-Injunction Act therefore does not apply to this suit, and we may proceed to the merits."

Gohmert said that this shows Roberts was not inclined to treat the penalty as a tax for this part of the decision. But later, after deciding that the individual mandate cannot be seen as constitutional under Commerce Clause powers, Roberts decided the penalty can be viewed as a tax, the key decision that allowed the individual mandate to stand.

[suzzer99]

This is going to be a little awkward for Romney if it goes forward. Is a tax at the state level not a tax?

[BucEyedPea]

Originally Posted by suzzer99

This is going to be a little awkward for Romney if it goes forward. Is a tax at the state level not a tax?

Per my way of reading the Constitutional, the Constitution primarily restrains the Federal govt and supports Federalism. Romney's was not a law written by the Federal congress. I understand, with all the usurpations over the past 70 or so years going by a "living Constitution" and relying on vague penumbras that this is not applied this way any longer. It is, however, how I see it.

Despite how I see it, it is still activism to re-write a law. So if Roberts claims to be deferring to the legislature, he wasn't. If it's a tax then the case should not have been decided by the SC. I would like to curb this sort of thing by the courts though.

[FD]

Romney's campaign people are already out in the media arguing that the mandate isn't a tax.

[BucEyedPea]

Originally Posted by FD

Romney's campaign people are already out in the media arguing that the mandate isn't a tax.

This has been covered in post #1.