Has the Supreme Court Opened Pandora’s Box With Individual Mandate Ruling?


As you all know by now, yesterday the United States Supreme Court voted 5-4 to uphold the individual mandate along with most of the rest of President Barack Obama’s Affordable Care Act. But I can’t help but wonder if their ruling hasn’t opened up Pandora’s Box for future government mandates.

The Obama administration had argued before the high court that the individual mandate was constitutional because they had the authority to control interstate commerce. The court disagreed with that argument, but did state that the individual mandate was constitutional because the fine for not having health insurance was being handled as a tax by the IRS and Congress does have the power to levy taxes on the people.
In other words, Congress can now force Americans to purchase or do practically anything they want by placing the penalty for failure to comply to be in the form of a tax collected by the IRS.
For example, Congress could mandate that everyone purchase American made vehicles and failure to comply will result in a vehicle penalty tax for every year you own the foreign made vehicle. Or they could mandate that anyone owning a firearm of any type will pay an annual firearms tax as long they own the weapon.  Cont. Reading

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