Devils' advocate here. According to some pundits, Roberts's CONSERVATIVE principles include judicial restraint. What he basically said is "This may be a piece of shit. Our job is not to determine if it is a piece of shit. Our job is to determine if it is constitutional. Congress has the power to tax. If you don't like the tax, replace Congress."
Charles Payne suggested that Roberts was "crazy like a fox". I tend to agree.
I would agree IF the ObamaCare Law had been passed AS a tax.
But it deliberately was not.
Congress itself labeled it a "penalty." They had previously contemplated calling it a tax, but rejected that option. And their rejection was VERY deliberate. It was no oversight and not a "mistake."
It is NOT for the SCOTUS to alter the WORDS chosen by Congress to force fit a required "finding" into one of their opinions in order to "salvage" a law. The CHOICE made BY Congress should have been scrupulously honored. Instead, CJ Roberts is GUILTY himself of blatant activism by re-writing the legislation and by straining to "interpret" clear words which required no interpretation. That aint exactly "conservative."
If he had to strain and bend and twist like a damn pretzel to reach such a conclusion, as Roberts did, then that SHOULD have been a clue that he had strayed FAR off the reservation. And if it WERE a "tax" despite the carefully chosen words of Congress, then
why was it allowed to stand when it was an apportioned tax,
why was it allowed to stand when it originated in the ******* Senate
and why did the Court reach ANY decision on it when the anti-injunction law forbids such a thing until someone has PAID that tax (which, obviously, nobody yet has or could have)?
A fully dishonest "opinion" by the CJ. Absolutely shameful.