White House: Sorry, Roberts, Obamacare mandate is a penalty, not a tax By Olivier Knox June 29, 2012 The White House argued on Friday that the individual mandate at the heart of Obamacare is a penalty, not a tax, contradicting the Supreme Court's 5-4 ruling a day earlier upholding the historic health care law. But if it is a tax, blame Mitt Romney, spokesman Jay Carney suggested. http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/OTUS...te-penalty-tax/story?id=16679772#.T-4libVSQUw What a joke!
"A memo published by White House Senior Adviser David Plouffe advises allies to mislead when they discuss the recent Supreme Court decision on the individual mandate, saying they should call it a penalty when it is in fact a tax." http://cnsnews.com/news/article/white-house-memo-urges-allies-mislead-obamacare-tax
I like Volokh Conspiracy contributor and George Mason law professor David Bersteinâs suggestion to Republicans: Iâd schedule a new vote in the House on the individual mandate, but replace the âpenalty languageâ with language specifically acknowledging that the âpenaltyâ is actually a tax. If the Democrats vote âaye,â theyâve acknowledged breaking the Obama pledge not to raise taxes on the middle class. If the Democratsâspecifically those who already voted for the mandateâvote ânayâ, what becomes of the tax argument in future litigation? Seems to me that Roberts was only able to argue that the mandate is a tax because no one [officially, by Congressional vote] specifically said it wasnât. At least it would look very peculiar that the Court upheld the law on a theory that Congressional supporters of the law refuse to adopt. (And if they vote ânayâ on the theory that the Senate wonât vote for repeal anyway, it looks bad for the president that he canât get members of his own party to publicly support his âsignatureâ piece of legislation).