Hobby Lobby is small potatoes compared to Halbig:
…the Obama administration fears that if consumers in 34 states experience the full cost of Obamacare, Congress will have no choice but to reopen the law. It has therefore offered numerous arguments in defense of its unauthorized spending and taxes – not because any of these arguments have merit, but because none of them do.
Nevertheless, a district court ruled against the Halbig plaintiffs based on a severely distorted view of Congress’ intent. The court wrote, “there is no evidence that either the House or the Senate considered making tax credits dependent upon whether a state participated in the Exchanges.”
On the contrary, the evidence is clear. The words of the statute themselves show that both chambers not only considered but approved that idea. The senators who enacted Obamacare routinely supported and enacted legislation conditioning health-insurance tax credits and other assistance on states establishing exchanges or taking other actions. The seven members of Congress most responsible for Obamacare – former Senate Finance Committee chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.), Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee chairman Tom Harkin (D-Ia.), then-House Ways & Means Committee chairman Sander Levin (D-Mich.), then-House Education & Workforce Committee chairman George Miller (D-Calif.), then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), and then-House Energy and Commerce Committee chairman Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) – even admit in an amicus brief that conditioning subsidies on states establishing exchanges was part of the congressional debate. Finally, when House Democrats first read the Senate-passed bill – what we now call Obamacare – in 2010, they recognized that it conditions subsidies on states establishing exchanges, and complained that this feature would allow recalcitrant states to block those subsidies. In this instance at least, Congress knew what it was enacting.
This may be the part of the train wreck where it goes off the bridge into the gorge. And it will happen this summer, leading up to the election.
[Update early afternoon]
“What we have here is language that doesn’t seem malleable in any way, shape or form.”
I should note that when I wrote the first part of this post, I thought that the case was already before SCOTUS, but the arguments made this morning are apparently just before an appellate court. But it will probably go to SCOTUS as some point, regardless of that decision.
It’s a hard lift, the IRS has a broad latitude to write regulations.
They shouldn’t be able to write regulations contrary to the law as written. I realize that Obama changing and creating laws by dictate seems pretty cool to you now but you might want to think about what this means after Obama is gone.
The law as written is ambiguous. The plaintiffs are asking SCOTUS to resolve that ambiguity by overriding the intentions of the people who wrote the law, and instead substituting an interpretation favored by the people who voted against the law and now seek to undermine it. And who knows, it might work.
“The plaintiffs are asking SCOTUS to resolve that ambiguity by overriding the intentions of the people who wrote the law…”
And SCOTUS should respect the claimed (after the fact) “intentions” of the people who wrote the PPACA as much as they’d respect the statement of a thief that he didn’t intend to break the law because…why? If the D-Party Congressional staffers who wrote the PPACA could not clearly express in English what the heck they “intended,” have those bozos been disciplined by their employers, the Representatives of the People of the United States? What a clown show, Jim. Are the writers of the law, and the Representatives and Senators who voted for the law, and the President who signed it, either A) sloppy, or, B) incapable of writing and comprehending English? Or is it C) it was written exactly as intended and should therefore be implemented as written?
it’s settled doctrine, for a good 30 years, the courts have granted deference to the
executive in regulatory issuance. To override the executive regulations, the regs must
either be “Arbitrary and Capricious” or ” Outside the agencies statutory authority”.
The IRS has clear guidance to issue taxes, credits and write regulations therein.
I suppose President Romney or President Palin could issue regulations stripping
subsidies from people getting Obamacare on the exchanges.
Why yes, I can totally see President Palin stripping tens of millions of people
from these support payments….
Yep…
Fortunately I work a few blocks away from an IRS field office and now I just go straight there whenever I have any health issues. Though originally set up to collect revenue, now the good folks at the IRS provide basic and advanced medical services using their vast expertise in anatomy, microbiology, and pharmacology. Why deal with a hospital when you can cut out the middle man and go straight to the rule makers?
Regulations are flesh. Law is bone. If there is no bone to support the flesh, then it’s moot.
The Law simply is not there in this case.
It’s a hard lift, the IRS has a broad latitude to write regulations.
To continue with Wodun’s comment, it is likely that a Republican will get in again at some point, perhaps in 2016. Do you really want them to have the “broad latitude” to choose not to enforce laws passed by their predecessors? Is it fine to just not recognize or enforce any laws passed during the Obama administration?
Good bad or indifferent, our system has a challenged set of checks and balances.
Congress writes laws, the executive carries them out, the courts, slap both around.
The supreme court in 1984, wrote the “Chevron Deference” doctrine, which grants the
executive deference in regulation.
But, I’m okay, if the courts toss this out.
You realize what happens, millions of red staters lose their tax subsidies, and that’s just a whole
lot more to us blue staters. I’m currently residing in a state with a state exchange. So, if this happens, either the budget deficit goes down, or there are more subsidy dollars for us.
That’s cool.
FDR court-packing proposal mark 2 incoming…
That’s what the “nuclear option” on limiting debate in the Senate is all about – they’re working to pack the lower courts as quickly as possible before they likely lose control of the Senate following this year’s elections.
And Obama is nominating people that are so extreme that Democrats wont even vote for them. That is rather frightening.
So anyone to the left of the most conservative Democratic Senator is now to be considered “extreme”?
So anyone to the left of the most conservative Democratic Senator is now to be considered “extreme”?
Do you really believe that someone a teensy bit more liberal than the more conservative Democrats is going to be rejected on that basis? No. You have to be pretty far out there (or have other notable disqualifications) to be rejected by your own party.
Where by “pack” you mean “appoint judges to vacant positions, with the consent of a majority of the Senate, as stipulated by the Constitution”.
Yes, Jim, you tell them! That’s all there is to it. Of course, the number of Supreme Court Justices can always be changed. It was set at 9 by the Judiciary Act of 1869, and but for the resistance of counterrevolutionaries and spies in Congress, would have been set to that number plus (up to) 6 more under the Judicial Procedures Reform Bill of 1937. That would have allowed the visionary FDR to have approved as constitutional anything he wanted, which, of course, is our Leftist goal. Look at how effective it has been for us. When Justice Roberts finds a tiny piece of Obamacare constitutional assuming it is a tax, which it wasn’t and which was originated in the Senate in any event making it not a valid tax, everyone on our side could claim that the Constitutionality of Obamacare had been tested by the Supreme Court and found perfectly sound. That shuts up the people who think that the Constitution has any meaning in the first place, and allows us to march on to a Progressive future in which we tell people how they really must live!
Isn’t it wonderful to be on the side of such power, Jim? The power of life or death over those who we despise so much? As a newly minted Leftist, I certainly think so. And I never worry about anyone with whom we disagree using that power against us. It just isn’t something to worry about, is it? Is it?
I suppose that we can now interpret the letter of the law anyway we want. This means that the minutiae that Jim feeds us is completely irrelevant. The letter of the law simply means what the Obama administration and the agencies under its direction wants it to mean.
“When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.”
“The question is,” said Alice, “whether you can make words mean so many different things.”
“The question is,” said Humpty Dumpty, “which is to be master – – that’s all.”
(Through the Looking Glass, Chapter 6)
I’m sorry you have problems with our American way of life.
The American legal system has evolved from Common Law principles, and the
judges have always made case law.
If you want something different, perhaps you should move to France. They
use a napoleonic code system.
Reading the following article, I was, for some unknown reason, reminded of Baghdad Jim.
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/374207/unruly-progressives-jim-geraghty
Too bad there’s not a coloring-book version with lots of pictures, so the Douchenozzle Guy would be able to read it.