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Old July 5, 2012, 07:41 AM   #9
musher
Senior Member
 
Join Date: April 23, 2005
Posts: 462
I'm still struggling to wrap my head around this decision, but I'm not 100% convinced it isn't a good decision. Positives (from my perspective)

1. Another nail holding back commerce clause expansion
2. A states rights principle limiting the feds ability to coerce states to spend money on federal schemes (medicare expansion).

On the issue of allowing the fed to tax inactivity, I'm not sure it's really a new principle. Perhaps it's just another way to state something that has been done for ages in the tax code.

Is a tax break for a particular activity the functional equivalent of a tax on not engaging in that activity?

Don't want to buy a house with a mortgage? Pay the tax you wouldn't have to pay if you got your mortgage deduction.

Don't want to buy an electric car? Pay the tax you wouldn't have to pay if you bought one.

Would the net effect be different if the fed had framed this tax as

1. An increase in your income tax rate
2. Establishing a tax deduction if you could prove you had health insurance?


Whether the tax code can and should properly be used to influence behavior rather than simply to raise revenue is the heart of the question. The federal government has been using it for that purpose for a very long time.

I think this social/behavioral engineering is an abuse of the taxing power, but I'm not convinced this decision has laid out a power for the federal government that hadn't already been taken for granted for some time.

The NFA tax was a blatant attempt to influence behavior through the taxing power. The federal government established the NFA tax because at the time congress didn't believe they had the power to simply ban firearms.

In recent times, the unrestrained expansion of 'commerce clause' powers (witness things like the assault rifle ban & the school zone ban) has been the greater danger to firearms owners, I think. Perhaps putting up another barrier to that expansion of federal power really represents a net win out of this decision for those who prefer to see a more limited federal government.
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