Barack Obama's reelection team, officials, administration, and Democrats as well as Democratic surrogates find themselves in a quandary here because they want to celebrate the the survival of Obamacare in the courts, but are twisting themselves into pretzels to deny that the only way the individual mandate was able to be saved was under the Tax Code because the court stated clearly that under the guise that Obama and Democrats passed the bill, using the Commerce or Necessary and Proper Clauses, the individual mandate would have been unconstitutional.
(See Comprehensive List Of Obamacare Tax Hikes With Effective Dates- HERE. The individual mandate excise tax is number 17 on the embedded list.)
The reason for this is because in 2008 and 2009, Obama stated, multiple times, that he would never raise taxes on families that make under $250,000 a year.
3. CHIEF JUSTICE ROBERTS concluded in Part III–B that the individual mandate must be construed as imposing a tax on those who do not have health insurance, if such a construction is reasonable.
The most straightforward reading of the individual mandate is that it commands individuals to purchase insurance. But, for the reasons explained, the Commerce Clause does not give Congress that power.It is therefore necessary to turn to the Government’s alternative argument: that the mandate may be upheld as within Congress’s power to “lay and collect Taxes.” Art. I, §8, cl. 1. In pressing its taxing power argument, the Government asks the Court to view the mandate as imposing a tax on those who do not buy that product. Because “every reasonable construction must be resorted to, in order to save a statute from unconstitutionality,” Hooper v. California, 155 U. S. 648, 657, the question is whether it is “fairly possible” to interpret the mandate as imposing such a tax, Crowell v. Benson, 285 U. S. 22, 62. Pp. 31–32.
4. CHIEF JUSTICE ROBERTS delivered the opinion of the Court with respect to Part III–C, concluding that the individual mandate may be upheld as within Congress’s power under the Taxing Clause. Pp. 33–44
Court opinion found HERE. (The above quote is from the Syllabus, page 3 and 4)
The latest in the group of Obama surrogates to turn themselves inside out trying to deny that the individual mandate is a tax, is Obama White House Chief of Staff, Jack Lew.
[WATCH]
Have to hand it to Chris Wallace above for refusing to let Lew get away with the direct lie, then playing the audio of Obama's own lawyer, arguing to the Supreme Court that "Not only is it fair to read this as an exercise to the tax power, but this court has got an obligation to construe it as an exercise of the tax power if it can be upheld on that basis."
This follows other Obama mouth pieces, such as White House spokesman, Jay Carney, who told reporters the day after the Supreme Court ruled the individual mandate as a tax, "It's a penalty, because you have a choice. You don't have a choice to pay your taxes, right."
Obama surrogate, Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick told reporters on a conference call, "Don't believe the hype that the other side is selling. This is a penalty."
Politico reports that Nancy Pelosi almost used the forbidden word "tax" to describe it before she caught herself:
"It's a penalty that comes under the Tax Code," Pelosi said on NBC's "Meet The Press" as host David Gregory pressed her to say whether she agreed with the Supreme Court, which deemed the law constitutional because the fee used to enforce the individual mandate amounts to a tax, or with President Barack Obama, who has maintained the fee is not a tax.
"It's a ta—; it’s a penalty for free riders," Pelosi said, nearly uttering the dreaded T-word before cutting herself off.
From the disclaimers, denials and outright lies Democrats, liberals, Obama surrogates and Obama administration officials, are spouting, one would think they lost the Obamacare case instead of winning it.