On June 28, Chief Justice John Roberts appropriated to himself...in the name of the Supreme Court, of course...the power of taxation granted to Congress under Article I, section 8 of the Constitution. He did so by saving the entire, massive regulatory edifice of Obamacare from constitutional challenge on the pretext that the constitutional power to tax was in fact exercised by Congress in creating that edifice, even though Congress consistently denied that was the case. The result is that the Court's Commerce Power jurisprudence, previously the critical source of most federal regulation of nationwide import, appears now to be subsumed under the taxing power; and worse, that the taxing power is viewed by the supreme law of the land as having no clear limits, or even a defined class of limitations. A tax is what the Court says is a tax, and a tax may be used for any conceivable regulatory end: not buying health insurance, not buying broccoli, not installing energy-efficient windows (Mr. Roberts' own example), failing to patronize public television (not that far-fetched an example, really)
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