Scalia is a Scoundrel

No.

Well, this is disingenuous. It would be one thing to insist that these four words must take precedence over the legislative intent, but it is quite another thing to insist that they must express the legislative intent. Unless he has completely taken leave of his senses, he must know for a fact that they do not.

But see here: The ACA, in short, is not a "Bill for raising Revenue" and so does not fall under the Origination Clause. This argument is not novel, but is how the Supreme Court has always understood the Origination Clause. And if we wish to consider the intent of the Founders and Framers, it was to put the power of the purse in the hands of the more representative body, not to supply you with a silly technical quibble against a bill you dislike.But if you and other conservatives think that the Origination Clause means what you want it to mean, it would have looked better if you'd said that before the ACA was passed. Twin City Bank v. Nebeker, for example, was decided in 1897. Between then and the passage of the ACA you guys had a hundred and thirteen years to complain that the narrow interpretation is a vile travesty of the Constitution. To say so now seems a bit ad hoc, don't you think?

I don't think that's as clear, but it is what Scalia said in U.S. v Munoz-Flores, and without any cries from the right about how he was murdering the Constitution: So in this particular case the ACA is House Resolution 3590, and if Scalia is right, that settles the matter. Let's hold our breath and wait for conservatives to denounce him as an idiot.

Where has this been stated? By whom? What had they been smoking?The point of the mandate is not that the government needs the revenue (though a few dollars more never comes amiss). The point is that the private health insurance companies need the customers. The ideal outcome in the eyes of the people who framed the bill would be that everyone gets health care and no-one pays the fine. That tells me the purpose of the penalty/tax was not to raise revenue when it was passed into law.

It's hardly likely, is it?But, you know, someone has to decide what's constitutional. The Constitution puts that power, ultimately, in the hands of the Supreme Court. Where else would you like it to reside in this case? In the hands of the President --- who signed the ACA into law? In the hands of Congress --- which voted for it? No, that doesn't work. Hey, how about if we leave the final decision to talking heads on Fox News? Well, that might give you the result you want, but you'll have to amend the Constitution first.

Huh? What's the difference? They were told: to enforce the mandate, people who don't have health insurance will have to pay such-and-such an amount of money. No, they weren't told that Justice Roberts would call it a tax four years later, possibly because the people who drafted the bill weren't clairvoyant. They did, however, know exactly the effect the bill would have. They would have known that if Roberts had subsequently called it a cantaloupe or a walrus. Here's the section of the ACA in question. It seems clear enough. Also, it contains 48 instances of such words as "tax", "taxpayer", "taxable", etc.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

You'll also want to watch out for people selling you automobiles under the guise of cars, or eggplants under the guise of aubergines. Such shenanigans.

Suppose I offer to sell you this. I let you take it for a test drive. I let you look under the hood. I provide you with a cut-away diagram of the chassis, a blueprint of the engine, a wiring diagram, and an accurate figure for the mileage, fuel efficiency, and expected depreciation. And I call it a car. You happily pay me the money and go on your way. Four years later, Mr. Justice Roberts describes the same object as an automobile. Are you now going to complain that I swindled you? Why would you? You knew exactly what you were buying. If you didn't know what Mr. Justice Roberts was going to call it four years later, than in the first place neither did I, so I did not deceive you, and in the second place it makes no difference: you knew what you were buying, so you were not deceived.

Not when the penalty involves the IRS taking money away from you and paying it into the government coffers. Then it's the same thing. The penalty is a tax: the government is taking money from taxpayers. The tax is a penalty: its purpose is to dissuade you from doing something the government had rather you not do.And, again, let me point out that the details were right there in the bill. Any Congressman, journalist, or member of the public who took the trouble to read it would notice that the penalty was in fact financial in nature, rather than execution, imprisonment, forty lashes, or prolonged tickling; and that the money would end up going to the government rather than to the Humane Society or the Campaign For Real Ale. And everyone did in fact know this. Can you point to anyone --- to one single person, f.e.y. --- who was fooled by the use of the word "penalty" into thinking that the nature of this penalty was anything other than paying money to the government? No? Then where are the shenanigans?Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

The sort of fascists who disagree with you about constitutional law are so very different from the fascists who started a world war and committed genocide that I almost think there should be a different name for them.

You're an aardvark. They come in different flavors, y'know. There's the sort that live in Africa and eat ants, and then there's your sort.

I can't find where he said that. I do know that pretty much everyone in the freakin' world who'd so much as heard of the ACA knew that the plan involved a mandate enforced by financial penalties. And certainly everyone who bothered to read the bill knew that, because that's what it says. It's not written in invisible ink, it's right there, in black and white. Any Congressman who only realized the existence of the mandate four years later when one out of the nine Supreme Court Justices decided to refer to it as a "tax" is mentally incompetent to hold office.

Oh, and you so nearly had the moral high ground. But then you fell off.Y'know, I can tell the difference between someone speaking his mind, even heatedly, and someone killing six million Jews. Perhaps you should learn the difference too.

Well, we could still discuss what you think H stands for.