Hmmm...What else can we tax?

The Supreme Court ruling of ObamaCare as Constitutional under the taxing power of Congress continues to draw strong opinions from conservatives on both sides. Godfather Politics sees the ruling as a brilliant masterstroke by the Roberts court, in that he got the leftist justices to agree that the Commerce Clause and the Necessary and Proper Clause do not apply. They will, says Mr. Bolen, have a harder time of it in some future ruling.

Only, they won't. Leftists believe in postmodernism, the philosophy that says words have no meaning, and therefore can mean whatever someone wants them to mean when they read them. I have discussed this before here. It is what makes debating Leftists so unsatisfying. For Leftist, placing little markers in various precedents like time bombs, then coming out with an "Aha!" later is of no value. They will claim that the circumstances here are different, requiring a different outcome, and they will find whatever words they need to find, even if it is foreign law, to justify there rulings. Leftists will never concede anything.

Then there are rumors floating about that Roberts sided with the conservative justices at first, then under pressure from the press and White House, switched his vote to side with the Leftists. CBS reported that piece of news on Sunday. That seems more plausible. There are still other theories, but they have proved so far unsubstantiated.

Left unmentioned again in all this speculation is that the unlimited power to tax that Roberts has handed the Congress is indistinguishable from the former Commerce Clause powers in practice. Jefferson said that the power to tax is the power to destroy. Certainly, the ObamaCare taxes will further destroy what is left of our economy, and will hurt middle class Americans. Because Roberts also ruled that States may opt out of the additional Medicaid provisions, the poor, the rallying cry of the Left, will not be helped either.  So, to help an estimated 30 million "poor," Congress has placed a $1.7 trillion yoke around each of our necks.  If my math is correct, that's $57,000 per poor person.  It would have been cheaper to hand out a $5,000 voucher to each one of them and let them buy their own insurance.

Leftists would scream bloody murder, but it would be a delicious turn about: Under Roberts rules, the Congress could tax every American who is eligible to, but doesn't buy a gun. They could even mandated that everyone must own a handgun of at least .380 or larger caliber. Then they could impose a tax on anyone who doesn't go to the range, say once every 6 months.

Hmmm...What else can we tax?

Update: Alan West proposes, tongue in cheek, of course, that every American must buy a Glock 9mm pistol or pay a tax. At least West could have made us buy an American product. Sheesh.