Bush v Gore decision was more wildly covered

and Dred Scott, Brown v. Board, probably even Roe v. Wade. Korematsu. Marbury v. Madison almost precipitated a constitutional crisis. I'd be mildly surprised if this one even rates in the top 10 decisions in either importance or contemporaneous coverage.

The government already mandates that you buy groceries that are good for you. IIRC, the FDA gets all their authority from the commerce clause?

The bolded would likely be the constitutional issue if you are predisposed to strike down the legislation.

The limiting principle from which an upholding majority opinion would however be concerned with what type of metric/principle should bound the expansion of power.
From what I could tell - Justice Kennedy could very well have been seeking a thematic from which he could justify upholding the individual mandate.
This becomes more imperative if the court believes it cannot sever/separate the individual mandate from other programs within the legislation because if it cannot then a whole raft of other federal government programs might be contestable as a result.
Which is why I think alot of the focus was on the Solicitor-general to come up with a limiting principle.

Re: Unusualness of the case.

An unusual feature of the case is the extension of the time limitations for oral argument.
Usually it is only 30 mins for each.

United States vs Nixon (1974)- it was extended.
Bowsher vs Synar (1986) - likewise.

They aren't. If you don't pay taxes you go to jail. If you don't buy UHC under Obamacare, you have to pay a tax penalty. But if you don't pay that nothing happens to you. There is nothing remotely 'forced' about it.

I think this is another one of those key points people like you are literally incapable of remembering.

And of course Justice Breyer shot that notion right down saying the gubmint had the right to force you to buy just about anything, coffins included. According to his way of thinking, there are virtually no limits on what the gubmint can force you to buy against your will.

So much for a metric to limit the gubmint's expansion of power.

And just out of curiosity why should there be , as you so subtly put it, an "expansion of power"?

What? Are you saying that paying the penalty is optional? That makes no sense.

Are you asking for my interpretation of the commerce clause?

Again, I'm not sure why I'm trying because as a conservative I don't think this will stick in your head for more than 5 seconds. But from not long ago itt:

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/sh...&postcount=328

FORCED at the barrel of a gun by jack-booted thugz imo, think of the children!

I believe it is a penalty against refund, but I still don't get what happens if you never paid it for 10 years while paying your taxes each year. As long as you do your taxes right, you are fine?

Like I said earlier, as long as you're not due a refund that the gubmint could seize there is a very real chance of you not being penalized at all for not complying with the law. Which is one of its many failures imo

I would make a couple of points.

I think a couple of the Key Justices were asking the SG for a limiting principle that goes beyond an argument about the 'unique nature' of this particular type of commerce.
And there are a number of reasons why they would want that.
(a) Stretching back to 19th c - Commerce clause cases: the court has looked to prescribe the rules for a particular type of Commerce. This is done, to provide clarity to the participants and to provide markers for further refinement of the bounds of the ruling.
(b) A key element of the concerns surrounding the Commerce clause - is to what extent a ruling would have upon disempowering the States. Which is to say, that even if Congress has the Authority to regulate individual mandated HealthCare it might need to be bounded by the principle that the States still have the Authority to regulate Healthcare themselves.
Now it is my opinion - that the Court may be looking for compromises and one compromise might be that the Individual Mandate stands but that there are gaps for opt outs by States or States on behalf of Individuals in State statutes.

The government regulates the producers of food products in a variety of ways (as does the USDA) that includes some sort of regulation of the content of food products, as well as some nutrition labeling requirements. But it does not regulate the purchasing decisions of individual consumers.

If I decided to spend the next year eating nothing but Crisco (fat in a can), there is no law that prohibits me from doing so, even though if a bunch of people made similar decisions about what to eat, it would definitely affect the health care market in the long run.

If Obamacare is upheld as a commerce clause power, then it will stand for the proposition that health care related purchasing decisions of the individual consumer are potentially the subject of valid congressional legislation. This would pave the way for the government to mandate, for example, that I spend my food dollars on food items in proportion to their appearance on the USRDA food pyramid, or something equally invasive.

It certainly opens the door to a federal law banning cigarette use, alcohol consumption, fat consumption, etc. Off hand, I can't think of a single health related decision you make that would be beyond the power of the government to mandate. (Not ruling out that there might be one, but I am drawing a blank when I try to think of one).

This is just common sense: If the government can force you to buy this one thing because it affects the health care market in the aggregate, then it stands to reason that it can force you to buy anything that can be said to have a similar effect on the health care market.

We could obviously reduce health care costs by passing a law that requires you to go to the gym.

We could obviously reduce health care costs by requiring you to buy food vouchers from the federal government that could only be redeemed for healthy foods at a grocery store.

We could obviously reduce health care costs by implementing a ration card system for unhealthy foods.

We could obviously reduce health care costs by requiring you to get authorization to commute to work, and denying that authorization to people who live within walking distance of their job.

The list of areas of your life the government could intrude on in the name of their aggregate effect on the health care system is giant.

I agree that all of these examples seem ridiculous and far fetched right now. But 200 years ago, western farmers literally took up arms and were prepared to fight federal troops over a modest tax imposed on whiskey, and now half the country thinks it is perfectly reasonable that the federal government can not only force you to do business with a private business, they think the federal government can and should dictate the terms of that private contract. Times change, and the federal government inexorably moves toward more regulation and less freedom for people.

Moreover, if I am being forced to subsidize the health care of some fat slob, who gets diabetes because he never gets up off his fat ass to stop choking down twinkies, then I WANT and DESERVE to have a say in how that fat slob manages his personal health care decisions, because now his decisions affect me in a real and tangible way. So additional federal regulation of our health care decisions is not only legally indistinguishable, it becomes logically reasonable.

except that they arent and you are making that up.

Im naked right now and not breaking any laws.

iow the government does not force me to wear clothes, nor does it force me to pay for clothes, try again.

Spoken like someone who has never been chased around by the IRS before

Cliffs:

You might get by for 2 or 3 years, but old uncle schmule is gonna get you and attach your bank accounts/wages to get his end!

And he just loves interest and penalties....... trust me

This post is mind-boggling.

You want a law that forces people to buy stuff to pass because the opponents of the law think its unconstitutional? ........

I love the slippery slope argument. Because totally, if we let the federal government people prevent people from freeriding the health care system then basically the next thing is they're going to tell you what kind of shoes you're allowed to buy, what kind of haircut you're allowed to get, who is allowed to get healthcare, and eventually Federal agents will just gun down people in the street and there'll be nothing anyone can do.

WSJ disagrees:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...255187694.html

Is it possible that Kennedy's limiting principle could simply be the political process itself? For instance, Congress couldn't pass a law mandating every American eat broccoli because it's completely absurd and they would all be voted out.

The original argument over the commerce clause was conducted among groups that argued about whether anything other than the act of carrying physical goods across state lines qualified as interstate commerce.

Nowadays, suggesting that commerce means something less than all economic activity is pretty lol.

We got there incrementally, over time, sliding quietly down the slippery slope that you laugh at.

You may think we are better off here toward the bottom of the slippery slope, and that's fine; but we didn't start at the bottom. We started somewhere on the slope and slid down almost imperceptibly over time.

You can mock the argument all you like, but the fact that we tend to slide down a slippery slope at the bottom of which is more government regulation of more areas of your life is an historically verifiable fact.

No, because that is not a legal principle.

Also, nobody would be voted out on their broccoli vote. people would be all "I don't give a **** about broccoli, did he vote to increase my unemployment check/welfare benefits/lower my taxes/whatever."

I think you are leaving out the part about the IRS further stealing $$ from you. You lose even more money to IRS theft that you had worked for. That happens to you, and it is through force like all other IRS confiscations.

It isn't clear to the solicitor general what the limiting principle will be if you had had a chance to listen to his answer. If the mandate is upheld it seems that the Court will create one. It is certainly a serious concern to the SCOTUS.