Karl Denninger merchandises outrage by the metric ton. Sometimes Ghost Money doesn't grasp what he's on about; sometimes we just can't be worked up about all the world's corruption.
Many good responses to the Supreme Soviet Court's ruling on Obamacare have appeared, to the point where we felt there was nothing to add. Denninger lays it on thick, but we are not ready to say he's exaggerating. Karl, over to you:
So we have three Presidential candidates, none of which will do a damn thing to fix what's wrong with health care. All three are promoting a path that will bankrupt the States, bankrupt the Federal Government, bankrupt you or all three.
All three are promoting mathematical impossibilities. All three are protecting monopolistic behavior and refusing to address specific laws that were passed to protect that behavior and special government-granted privilege; without those protections that monopolistic behavior would immediately collapse.
And worse, none of them has proposed a damn thing to deal with what the Supreme Court just did, which is grant a permanent ability to the Federal Government to compel any behavior by linking it to a tax. Some examples of where this can (and might in the near future!) go include:
You probably think I'm kidding on this. I'm not. This is what the Roberts Court held. There is literally nothing that Congress cannot mandate that you do, or not do, under penalty of paying a tax. All that was unconstitutional before the ruling now is explicitly constitutional if the only "compulsion" to do (or not do) a given thing is that you will be taxed if you refuse. The court promised to review "reasonableness" of any such taxes in the future, but note that at the same time the court ignored two other problems with the Health Care law, making a lie of their claim of "future reasonableness" tests right up front:
- You make cars. You're told to sell a car to anyone who makes under $25,000 a year for $5,000. This is of course under your cost of production. If you refuse, every car you make is subject to a $5,000 tax. This is now Constitutional, as of this last week.
- You would like to have three kids. The government decides that you may have only two. If you have get pregnant with a third and refuse to have an abortion you must pay $10,000 a year in additional tax forever. This is now Constitutional, as of last week.
- You may have all the abortions you want, but each costs $10,000 in tax. This is Constitutional, as of last week.
- You must eat Broccoli and submit receipts with your 1040 proving you bought 1lb of Broccoli per person in your household per week. If you do not, you must pay $5,000 in additional tax. This is Constitutional, as of last week.
- If you are more than 10lbs overweight you must pay $2,000 of additional tax for every 10lbs overweight you are, with no cap. This is Constitutional, as of last week.
In short the USSC has become no more legitimate than the North Korean government and is unworthy of your respect.
- Direct taxes are unconstitutional without being apportioned. This is clearly a direct tax and it is not apportioned. It is therefore unconstitutional, but the USSC simply ignored this. (The 16th Amendment was required to make income taxes constitutional for this reason.)
- The Anti-Injunction Act prohibits suing the government over a tax until you have actually paid it. This means that if the PPACA "penalty" is a tax then the entire lawsuit that went to the USSC is moot as it's not yet "ripe" (since nobody has yet paid the tax.) If they were going to find that this was a tax they were thus bound to dismiss the entire complaint as unripe. They ignored that too.
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