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6. Does this ruling mean Congress can now regulate whatever it wants by way of imposing taxes on it?
No. Congress’ taxing power, while broad, is not unlimited. Congress could not and cannot incentivize unconstitutional actions via taxation. For example, Congress cannot enact a tax break for people who don’t exercise their right to engage in political speech or give a deduction to individuals who don’t vote because that would create what courts have called an “unconstitutional condition” on receiving a government benefit.
However, Congress taxation power has always been read to be very expansive. Can Congress charge you $50,000 more in taxes each year but give you a $50,000 tax break if you purchase more than a pound of broccoli a week? Probably. Why doesn’t it? For the same reason it rarely raises taxes on anything: electoral politics.
The fact of the matter is that Congress could probably enact most of the doomsday scenarios some conservatives are wailing about today or tomorrow and the health care opinion did nothing to change that. Congress has had this power for the better part of a century, if not longer. The reason we haven’t seen it is because the electorate doesn’t like it and Congress knows it.
If you stop to think about all of the tax incentives built into the code, you’ll quickly realize that Congress has been doing this forever, merely in ways the population writ-large doesn't mind as much. It's all in how you describe what Congress is doing.
Did you know, for example, that Congress taxes you for not opening a small business? It does so by way of the deductions built into the code to incentivize people to start businesses. Congress also taxes you for not contributing to your retirement account (tax deductions for IRA contributions) and for not having children (child tax credit). Does this mean there is a big-government mandate to save for retirement or to have children? Of course not. There are just tax incentives for doing so.
The debate raging around taxes-as-mandates is all about perspective. The above mentioned tax breaks are unquestionably constitutional and generally accepted as a normal fact of life, but call them a mandate to act and all of a sudden it paints a very different picture. It's all in the eye of the beholder."
http://www.policymic.com/articles/10439/the-supreme-court-and-obamacare-plain-english-answers-to-6-common-questions
Good article. The world is not ending, calm down.
