"The rejection of the Commerce Clause and Nec. and Proper Clause [as the Constitutional basis for Obamacare] should be understood as a major blow to Congress's authority to pass social welfare laws. Using the tax code -- especially in the current political environment -- to promote social welfare is going to be a very chancy proposition."

SCOTUS voted 5-4 to uphold Obamacare and have concluded that the Constitution actually empowers the government to force people to buy things. In this case, it's health insurance, but now that the precedent is set, the feds can now require you to buy anything it wants, apparently justified by the Constitution's granted power to tax.

This nicely illustrates the theory that SCOTUS judges will almost always come down on the side of more government power unless doing so will dangerously undermine their own power. They're politicians in robes. The number one concern of the court is its own independence... It will only vote for more freedom when backed into a corner by the text of the constitution itself, as in the case of Chicago v. McDonald. But now, calculating that there's enough political support behind Obamacare to get away with it, SCOTUS has handed the executive branch a new massive amount of power....

 

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