Administration Changes Tune on Individual Mandate

Back when they were peddling this bill, Congress and the Obama Administration insisted that the individual mandate was not a tax.  However, they are now calling it a tax in their legal defense against the onslaught of lawsuits against it due to violations of the Commerce Clause.

Congress and Obama called the Commerce Clause claim "frivolous", yet now the government is claiming that the individual mandate is no longer an exercise of power under the Commerce Clause, but rather as a power of Congress to tax.  This goes directly against what they kept telling us.  Tell me, who is really surprised?

There is a major hole in the government's case in the law itself: the law goes into great detail on how Congress is exercising their power to regulate interstate commerce and in no place cites their power to tax.

Additionally, all previous cases from the Supreme Court dealing with taxes dealt with Congress' power to tax conduct or activity, and not inactivity as the individual mandate tries to do.  This effectively renders most of what the government is considering as precedent moot.

Unfortunately, though, the odds are always in favor of Congress when it comes to the Supreme Court deciding whether or not to uphold a law.  I hope that a majority of the sitting Justices exercise judgement and realize how sweeping a ruling in favor of the individual mandate will be.

Here's a lawsuit that is brought by the People (not the State) of Oklahoma.  From my vantage point, it looks pretty good.