"Chief Justice Roberts Is A Genius"-Commentary!

"Chief Justice Roberts Is A Genius"-Commentary!

Summary of the eRumor:
This a forwarded email with an article that says owing to his decision on the Constitutionality of the Affordable Healthcare Act or the law known as "Obamacare", that Chief Justice John Roberts is a genius.

The Truth:
This is a political opinion that was written on June 28, 2012 and posted on the conservative commentary web site, I.M. Citizen.   Click for article.

Nine Supreme Court Justices heard arguments in the form of four questions inquiring if the Affordable Healthcare law is Constitutional. We found an article that explained it "In Plain English," in a June 28, 2012 article found on the Supreme Court of the United States Blog.

The article said that the primary question was if it was legal for Congress to require that Americans purchase health insurance by 2014 or be penalized. It said that "the government’s primary argument was that Congress can require everyone to buy health insurance using its power under the Commerce Clause of the Constitution, because the failure to buy insurance shifts the costs of health care for the uninsured to health care providers, insurance companies, and everyone who does have health insurance." The article went on to say that five Justices, Chief Justice Roberts along with Justices Kennedy, Scalia, Thomas, and Alito, "all rejected that argument. But the government still won, because a different set of five Justices – the Chief Justice, and Justices Ginsburg, Breyer, Sotomayor, and Kagan – agreed that the mandate was constitutional, but for a different reason."   That being the power of Congress "to regulate commerce assumes that there is commercial activity to regulate and in the view of Chief Justice Roberts "the mandate creates activity, rather than regulating it."

The article continued to say that Chief Justice Roberts did reject the government’s Commerce Clause argument but "agreed with one of the government’s alternative arguments: the mandate imposes a tax on people who do not buy health insurance, and that tax is something that Congress can impose using its constitutional taxing power. He acknowledged that the mandate (and its accompanying penalty) is primarily intended to get people to buy insurance, rather than to raise money, but it is, he explained, still a tax. If someone who does not want to buy health insurance is willing to pay the tax, that’s the end of the matter; the government cannot do anything else."

Denying the Court's claim of a tax, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney told reporters in a briefing the following day that the fine is still just a penalty.   In a July 2, 2012 Fox News article GOP Presidential candidate Mitt Romney's campaign was quick to toss a challenge to President Obama to make a decision to either call this "an unconstitutional penalty or a 'constitutional tax,' but not both."

While promoting the Affordable Healthcare Law, President Obama said that the individual mandate is not a tax.

Video of Obama Interview on ABC found on YouTube

The genius status of Justice John Roberts might be settled by the results of the November 2012 Presidential election.

update 7/3/12

A real example of the eRumor as it has appeared on the Internet:

Subject: Chief Justice Roberts Is A Genius
Posted on June 28, 2012 by I.M. Citizen

Before you look to do harm to Chief Justice Roberts or his family, it’s important that you think carefully about the meaning – the true nature — of his ruling on Obama-care. The Left will shout that they won, that Obama-care was upheld and all the rest. Let them.

It will be a short-lived celebration.

Here’s what really occurred — payback. Yes, payback for Obama’s numerous, ill-advised and childish insults directed toward SCOTUS.

Chief Justice Roberts actually ruled the mandate, relative to the commerce clause, was unconstitutional. That’s how the Democrats got Obama-care going in the first place. This is critical. His ruling means Congress can’t compel American citizens to purchase anything. Ever. The notion is now officially and forever, unconstitutional. As it should be.

Next, he stated that, because Congress doesn’t have the ability to mandate, it must, to fund Obama-care, rely on its power to tax. Therefore, the mechanism that funds Obama-care is a tax. This is also critical. Recall back during the initial Obama-care battles, the Democrats called it a penalty, Republicans called it a tax.

Democrats consistently soft sold it as a penalty. It went to vote as a penalty. Obama declared endlessly, that it was not a tax, it was a penalty. But when the Democrats argued in front of the Supreme Court, they said ‘hey, a penalty or a tax, either way’. So, Roberts gave them a tax. It is now the official law of the land — beyond word-play and silly shenanigans. Obama-care is funded by tax dollars. Democrats now must defend a tax increase to justify the Obama-care law.

Finally, he struck down as unconstitutional, the Obama-care idea that the federal government can bully states into complying by yanking their existing medicaid funding. Liberals, through Obama-care, basically said to the states — ‘comply with Obama-care or we will stop existing funding.’ Roberts ruled that is a no-no. If a state takes the money, fine, the Feds can tell the state how to run a program, but if the state refuses money, the federal government can’t penalize the state by yanking other funding. Therefore, a state can decline to participate in Obama-care without penalty. This is obviously a serious problem. Are we going to have 10, 12, 25 states not participating in “national” health-care? Suddenly, it’s not national, is it?

Ultimately, Roberts supported states rights by limiting the federal government’s coercive abilities. He ruled that the government can not force the people to purchase products or services under the commerce clause and he forced liberals to have to come clean and admit that Obama-care is funded by tax increases.

Although he didn’t guarantee Romney a win, he certainly did more than his part and should be applauded.

And he did this without creating a civil war or having bricks thrown through his windshield. Oh, and he’ll be home in time for dinner.

Brilliant.