antagon
The Man
- Dec 6, 2009
- 3,572
- 295
- 48
What opinion of the SCOTUS has EVER backed up the notion that government can REQUIRE every single person to make private purchases?
U.S. Supreme Court
CHAS. C. STEWARD MACH. CO. v. DAVIS, 301 U.S. 548 (1937)
All 4 Conservative Judges dissented:
MR. JUSTICE VAN DEVANTER joins in this opinion.
[183] MR. JUSTICE BUTLER, dissenting.
[184] I think that the objections to the challenged enactment expressed in the separate opinions of MR. JUSTICE McREYNOLDS and MR. JUSTICE SUTHERLAND are well taken. I am also of opinion that, in principle and as applied to bring about and to gain control over state unemployment compensation, the statutory scheme is repugnant to the Tenth Amendment: "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people." The Constitution grants to the United States no power to pay unemployed persons or to require the States to enact laws or to raise or disburse money for that purpose. The provisions in question, if not amounting to coercion in a legal sense, are manifestly designed and intended directly to affect state action in the respects specified. . And, if valid as so employed, this 'tax and credit' device may be made effective to enable federal authorities to induce, if not indeed to compel, state enactments for any purpose within the realm of [301 U.S. 548, 617] state power and generally to control state administration of state laws. "
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Can you clarify where you're going with this example? From what I can tell the dissenting opinion is in regards to what the tax is being used for. I don't see how it indicates one way or the other whether government can make people purchase things. I think it might lend an argument that such a mandate could be allowed on a state level as long as the state's constitution does not prohibit it.
looking at that decision, the state's opinion on the matter was a part of the decision. they denied the original petition and the some subsequent appeals which the decision noted with regard to the plaintiff's claim that the feds were coercing the state against its will.
you should read through that decision, which upholds a tax-mandate (social security) earmarked with a condition. then through bailey v drexel furniture, which overturns an attempt to tax (child labor tax) as a penalty.
you might be able to make a real argument, instead of an emotional one.