Good God: Supreme Court May Not Decide Constitutionality of ObamaCare Mandate Until... 2016

Are you kidding me?

This morning's newspapers report an ominous development in the ObamaCare litigation, now pending in the U.S. Supreme Court:

The Court posted a seemingly minor but potentially portentous administrative change, which suggests it might postpone delivering a final ruling on the constitutionality of ObamaCare until the middle of 2016!

Specifically, the high Court increased the time it will devote to hearing oral arguments on whether the health care mandate is a tax for purposes of something called the Tax Anti-Injunction Act.

...

The Tax Anti-Injunction Act forbids the Supreme Court to hear a case on the constitutionality of a tax until the tax has actually been levied on a citizen.

The Court can't do this -- to decide they can't rule on ObamaCare until the "tax" is levied decides the issue in order to postpone the issue.

Obama is contending, now, that the penalty is effectively a "tax." If he prevails on that, he most likely prevails on the case. If the penalty is a tax, then most likely the Court would find it constitutional.

If the Court decides they can't rule until the "tax" is levied, citing the Anti-Injunction Act for taxes, then they've already decided it's a tax. They will have decided it's a tax, in order to defer a further examination of whether or not it's a tax.

This is bootstrapping or reductio ad absurdum -- assuming the answer to the question in order to decide the question.

Thanks to @drewmtips

posted by Ace at 03:45 PM

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