“Worth noting that Team Obama still won’t say penalty is a tax. They know how politically toxic that designation is.” ~Britt Hume
The tax that isn’t a tax tax.
(YahooNews The Ticket) –”It’s a penalty, because you have a choice. You don’t have a choice to pay your taxes, right?” Carney [Obama's Press Secretary] told reporters aboard Air Force One.
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Republicans pounced Thursday on Chief Justice John Roberts’s ruling that the Affordable Care Act passed constitutional muster as a legitimate exercise of Congress’s power to levy taxes.Roberts wrote that the law “makes going without insurance just another thing the government taxes, like buying gasoline or earning an income.” His words offered Republicans disappointed by the ruling something of a political silver lining: They have been hitting the law as a vast tax hike and clearly plan to do so through to the election.
Update: Flashback March 26, 2012.
Obama’s Lawyer Confuses Himself: Is the Mandate a Penalty or a Tax?
The highlight of the session was when President Obama’s solicitor general, Donald Verrilli, got up to articulate the administration’s position, which was that the mandate wasn’t a tax, for the purposes of the Anti-Injunction Act, and yet also that “the minimum-coverage provision of the Affordable Care Act is an exercise of Congress’ taxing power.”
To which Justice Alito said: Huh?
“General Verrilli, today you are arguing that the penalty is not a tax,” Alito said. “Tomorrow you are going to be back, and you will be arguing that the penalty is a tax. Has the Court ever held that something that is a tax for purposes of the taxing power under the Constitution is not a tax under the Anti-Injunction Act?”
“No, Justice Alito,” replied Verrilli.
Verrilli kept misspeaking, describing the “penalty” as a “tax.” “Why do you keep saying tax?” asked Justice Breyer, after which Verrilli started referring to the mandate as a “tax penalty.”
Other justices came up with their own terminology; Justice Ginsburg repeatedly referred to the mandate as a “must-buy provision.”
Freudian slip?
Update 2:
Axelrod Won’t Say Mandate Is A Tax –either. Nor would Obama deputy campaign manager Stephanie Cutter.
Bottom line:
If the Obama Admin. insists that the individual mandate is not a tax, then it is unconstitutional, per the SCOTUS ruling.
If the Obama Admin. admits that the individual mandate is a tax, then it is constitutional, but the Obama Admin. are proved [once again] to be nest of BIG FAT liars.
Right?
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Remember in November.
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