The U.S. Supreme Court ruled last week that the mandate is constitutional under Congress' taxing power.
With the taxing power, citizens have a choice between doing what Congress says or paying the tax.
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Indeed, the government argues that the existing mandate should be upheld as a valid exercise of the taxing power.
If the taxing power is absolute, then, as many others have noted, what cannot Uncle Sam compel Americans to do?
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Congress could pass an equally coercive law under its taxing power by imposing a healthcare tax on everyone and freeing them from the tax if they purchased health insurance.
And rather than giving more direct aid or broad taxing power to local governments, state legislators have been giving them the ability to levy the same sort of narrow taxes.
Yet even if the government loses that argument, there is little doubt that Congress has the authority to fix the law to make it a valid exercise of the taxing power.
It was upheld under the taxing power for Congress.
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We have never held that any exaction imposed for violation of the law is an exercise of Congress' taxing power even when the statute calls it a tax, much less when (as here) the statute repeatedly calls it a penalty.
The United States government has ample taxing power to repay its bonds, and its central bank, like that of any country that controls its own currency, can as a last resort simply print the money needed, albeit at the risk of inflation.
If the IRS is not operating in a way that treats taxpayers evenhandedly and in accordance with its guidelines and mission, it is up to him to change the personnel and make any other corrections so that the taxing power of the federal government is legal and fair.
By upholding the mandate under the taxing power, they say, the Court has allowed the health care law to stand, but has also taken an important step toward limiting the power of the federal government by ruling, for only the third time since the FDR administration, that Congress exceeded its power under the commerce clause.
To the extent that electrified transport offers an alternative to oil, such as subways, trolleys, and trains actually do today, and electric cars might hypothetically do tomorrow, taxing their motive power can only make the situation worse.
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Other than the power to prosecute, the taxing authority is the most awesome power the government has.
Neither of those facts make any sense if Clinton is right and spending and borrowing and taxing all amount to one congressional power.
It would also get an economic boost from any legislation taxing or capping carbon emissions coming from competing power plants that don't sequester.
The state of Wyoming, which is actually a very big producer of wind power, is now actually considering taxing -- in other words, taking away what you guys are providing with your tax break.
No one seemed to eliminate the lightly-discussed argument that Congress had the power to pass the law under its broad taxing authority.
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By 2015 or so, the average silicon chip will consume about 150 watts of electrical power, turning this into heat a thought which is already taxing the minds of some engineers.
He sees France as a defender of human rights and, while in power, Chirac has had a penchant for grand, humanitarian ideas like taxing airline tickets to raise money to fight AIDS and poverty in Africa.
The researchers have found that this kind of energy-taxing "idle listening" is occurring during a large portion of the time phones spend in power-saving mode---as much as 80 percent on busy networks.
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As a power hitter, he should be able to shift to the designated-hitter spot, a less physically taxing role.
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