LOL! Thanks, Tom. Worthy of the Onion.

Indeed, the SCOTUS provided us with a most dangerous precedent today - the federal government can demand that its citizens do whatever those in power want them to do or punish the non-compliant with a tax. Funny how they exempted state governments from complying with the law, but not the individual people, unless you're Native American or Amish - truly, the freest people in this country today. The slippery slope of this precedent is infinite in scope and easily abused. What the hell was the Court thinking?!?! It's potentially the end of freedom as we once knew it.

Sad day for America!

King George III all over again.

http://greendale.patch.com/blog_posts/the-revolution-of-2012 (shameless plug)

Since the EPA has been allowed to classify carbon dioxide as a pollutant, Congress can establish a breathing tax on every human being, for expelling carbon dioxide as part of the staying alive process of breathing. Except they won't call it a breathing tax, they will call it a carbon tax. Maybe they can organize a cap and trade of those who expel more carbon dioxide than others, say those who run and have a high aerobic capacity. Can you see where I'm going with this? And while the sarcasm is evident, this could actually come to pass if we continue to stop using common sense in this country.

I have got to LOL. All you strict "conservatives" and "liberals" have been posting about one side or the other having all the cards. Suck it up boys and girls, we are ALL going to get to get it up the poop chute. Hope it doesn't hurt too bad.

There is already a tax on people who don't own houses. It's not being able to claim a tax deduction for mortgage interest.

RichMP .. are you ignorant ... but you don't pay for schooling if you don't own a house ... anyhow income tax is unconstitutional .. Taxation is Slavery, what don't ignorant people not understand

I love it! Now felons will be required to carry loaded firearms.

It is a very slippery slope, first healthcare, next ... Who knows? They might try to tax people based on the value of their real estate and use the proceeds to fund education.

Its a dangerous world we live in....

It is a loss for the Constitution - our Constitution.

The ACA could not have been held constitutional under the Commerce Clause, as there was no possible way to define the non-purchase of services as interstate commerce.

No legal precedent exists for holding it constitutional under the Taxation Clause. The non-purchase of services does not qualify as one of the taxations currently permitted under the Constitution, namely direct, excise or income taxation.

Now, through an incoherent decision by Chief Justice Roberts, we have a dangerous legal precedent for using the Taxation Clause to further erode our civil liberties. Such a precedent, handed down by this nation's highest court, will survive any possible repeal by Congress of the ACA.

A corporation of 2 people (or even 1, which is possible with some corporate entities such as LLCs) is as much a corporation as a corporation with 10,000 owners. The law overturned by CU affected both equally.

To my mind, government deciding which speakers can speak on political topics is tantamount to tyranny. Why do you want government to have that much control over the people? How can you not value freedom of speech as a personal liberty? How can you not value the ability of individuals to band together (using another liberty, the freedom of association) in order to pool their resources to speak collectively?

I, alone, do not have the resources to get my message out in front of millions. A rich person does. I can join with like minded people, pooling small amounts of money together until our message can compete with the message of individuals who have lots of money by themselves.

Yes, money has a corrupting influence on democracy. That's a feature of democracy that cannot be eliminated without severely dampening our freedom of speech. We can severely restrict direct payments from individuals to candidates and even completely prohibit such donations from corporations to candidates. But we should never try to silence people from expressing their political opinions.

A better way of addressing money's influence is to limit the powers government has. Once gov't can't give favors away, the value of spending money on politics decreases drastically.

A corporation's purpose is not political speech. It is to make a profit for shareholders.

These shareholders believe that the corporation can enhance their pocketbook, so they invest in the corporation. But, they may not have common political views. By using corporate cash for political speech, you are diverting money from the stockholders pockets, even if they disagree with the speech being purchased, or feel that they want their money in their own pockets, or in expansion of the business, or are politically apathetic, and don't want to fund speech. These people are being denied access to THEIR money because of a CORPORATE decision.

If the owners of said corporation want to freely associate for the purpose of political speech & influence, they should do so under structures for such associations, such as political action committees. And then the individuals would be subject to the disclosures and limits that apply to all of us with a pulse.

This would help limit the corruptive influence that money has on democracies without limiting the freedom of association of those with common desires who want to pool their money to publicly express their speech. And allow corporate stock holders who don't want to participate to personally control their money.and stay out. You know, individual liberty.

These structures do not limit speech or silence opinions. Instead, it requires people to make the deliberate action of publicly supporting a group that speaks on their behalf.