Obamacare – The Investment Tax

Chief Justice Roberts wrote an opinion that seems to be way over the heads of the partisan talking heads. He upheld OBAMACARE single-handedly. The Supreme Court was evenly divided. If he went with the “conservatives” the “liberals” would have been empowered and chastised the Republicans for creating a political court. If he adopted the “liberal” arguments, government would have been able to latterly pass any law and prosecute you for not complying. There would have been no limit to the scope of legislation and the Constitution would have been destroyed. Justice  Ginsburg,  was joined by Justices  Sotomayor, Justice  Breyer, and Justice Kagan in part dissenting. She wrote:

“I would hold, alternatively, that the Commerce Clause authorizes Congress to enact the minimum coverage provision.  I would also hold that the Spending Clause permits the Medicaid expansion exactly as Congress enacted it.”

https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/693-2/2012-2/obamacare/

Most of the political pundits didn’t even feel the gust of wind when this decision flew over their heads. Chief Justice Roberts upheld OBAMACARE as a TAX. Why? To avoid looking partisan that the court would have voted along party lines, but he also took the wind out of the sails of the Liberals. He upheld the legislation purely as a TAX – and that is precisely what it is, even though Obama swore it was not at the time of passage.

The founding fathers would be rolling over in their graves if they saw what our politicians have done to what would have been the greatest revolution against tyranny in the history of mankind.  At the time of the American Revolution, you were the “subject” of the king. If you killed someone in Paris, the French could not punish you, but sent you back in chains to your owner – the king of England for punishment. You belonged to the king as property. If you did anything he did not like, you were imprisoned, sold as a slave to the colonies as an indentured servant for steeling an apple. If you violated 240 felonies, he killed you, confiscated all your property, and threw your family out on the street. That is why he practiced torture. He would imprison you indefinitely and tortured you when he didn’t have two witnesses to your pretend crime. If you confessed, you were then guilty; he then executed you, and got to take all your property. The Fifth Amendment to the US Constitution once upon a time meant that you had the right to remain silent. But the Supreme Court’s LIBERALS hated the rich and business so they repealed the Fifth Amendment saying corporations do not have such rights so anyone working for a corporation can’t possibly have such rights.  Braswell v. United States – 487 U.S. 99 (1988). The dissent included the conservative Justice Scalia.

JUSTICE KENNEDY, with whom JUSTICE BRENNAN, JUSTICE MARSHALL, and JUSTICE SCALIA join, dissenting.

Our long course of decisions concerning artificial entities and the Fifth Amendment served us well. It illuminated two of the critical foundations for the constitutional guarantee against self-incrimination: first, that it is an explicit right of a natural person, protecting the realm of human thought and expression; second, that it is confined to governmental compulsion.

It is regrettable that the very line of cases which at last matured to teach these principles is now invoked to curtail them, for the Court rules that a natural person forfeits the privilege in a criminal investigation directed against him, and that the Government may use compulsion to elicit testimonial assertions from a person who faces the threat of criminal proceedings. A case that might have served as the paradigmatic expression of the purposes served by the Fifth Amendment instead is used to obscure them.

The United States has come full circle. It can now imprison you until you die under the pretense of civil contempt that they say is not intended to “punish” you, just “coerce” you until you die. It was President George Bush’s cousin, John Walker, Jr., who said not even the Due Process of Law clause has any force whatsoever and the courts and kill anyone they desire as long as they say it was just trying to coerce you. It is judges who strip us of all rights and property. As long as they can pretend to rationalize their rulings, we get screwed.

The right to be free from torture was second only to the right not to be subjected to arbitrary searching of your home. The famous case Boyd v US , 116 US 616 https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/boyd-v-united-states-116-u-s-616-1886/,  makes it clear that the very thing the TSA people are doing right now searching everyone, has placed “the liberty of every man in the hands of every petty officer.” It was in February, 1761, in Boston, that the famous debate took place that “inaugurated the resistance of the colonies to the oppressions of the mother country.” John Adams (1735-1826), said afterwards: “then and there was the first scene of the first act of opposition to the arbitrary claims of Great Britain. Then and there, the child Independence was born.”

It was the famous trial of John Lilburn (1615-1657) before the English court of the Star Chamber in 1637 where he stood tall and objected to the King’s torture. Lilburn’s crime was handing out pamphlets against the king (illustrated next page). John Lilburne (1615-1657) was a leader in the Leveller Movement of the 1640s and was a prolific pamphleteer who defended religious and individual liberty of the people. He was imprisoned many times for his views and was active in the army of the New Parliament rising to the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel. In October 1649 he was arrested and tried for High Treason for printing and circulating books and pamphlets critical of the government but was acquitted of all charges by a jury of his peers. Today, Homeland Security has the same power to shut down websites they do not like. http://www.infowars.com/obama-truth-team-orders-godaddy-to-shut-down-website/

One of the greatest tyrannies of government is they get to  enact laws and it is your obligation to know what they do. They presume you know the law and do not have to prove you intentionally violated anything. In the 1640s and 1650s pamphlets published in London regularly demanded that Parliament compile and distribute an official publication of existing statutory law. The wanted notice of what laws they were obligated to obey. Today, the USA still practices the same tyranny. At the time the official collection of Parliamentary acts was kept in the Tower of London, and it was left to private printers to issue printed editions of English law. Finally, in 1647, a pamphlet entitled The Lawyers Bane urged members of Parliament to summarize and publish the corpus of statutory law enacted over the centuries because men should “understand those laws and ordinances by which their rights, privileges, interests, and estates are secured.” This tyranny is also prohibited in the US Constitution known as the Ex Post Facto Clause whereby no one shall be held criminally for a crime enacted retroactively. But government enacts whatever it wants, and you are presumed to spend the time yourself to read everything they enact going down to the Library of Congress. The laws today are so big, the politicians do not even read what they vote on. Then they appoint pro-government judges who are normally former prosecutors who always rule in government’s favor driving the conviction rate from 72% during the 1970s to virtually 99% currently. Government cannot disguise the rancor in its heart against the people for their expected freedoms.

Edward Gibbon wrote in his 1776 classic, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire about this very same decline in the respect for the Rule of Law:

“That assembly, whom Marcus had ever considered as the great council of the nation, was composed of the most distinguished of the Romans; and distinction of every kind soon became criminal. The possession of wealth stimulated the diligence of the informers; rigid virtue implied a tacit censure of the irregularities of Commodus; important services implied a dangerous superiority of merit; and the friendship of the father always insured the aversion of the son. Suspicion was equivalent to proof; trial to condemnation. The execution of a considerable senator was attended with the death of all who might lament or revenge his fate; and when Commodus had once tasted human blood, he became incapable of pity or remorse. [Footnote *: The conspirators were senators, even the assassin himself. Herod 81-G]

Whenever government in any age acquires the taste for money, no citizen is ever safe. This is the atmosphere surrounding the protests of John Lilburne were no different from today or from those that took place during the Roman Empire. Humand nature never changes. Lilburne defended himself vigorously in court, quoting from the works of the great jurist Sir Edward Coke (1552-1634) whose work the Institutes was the seminal statement of English law. The Miranda decision quoted this right to remain silent enshrined in the Constitution of the United States known as the Fifth Amendment right against compelled Self-Incrimination. Lilburn proudly declared:

“Another fundamental right I then contended for, was, that no man’s conscience ought to be racked by oaths imposed, to answer to questions concerning himself in matters criminal or pretended to be so.”

Until recently, the general public was waiting to see what the Supreme Court would do with Obamacare. The political right merely ranted for it did not matter what Obama did, they would always oppose it. However, the far more critical aspect of this Supreme Court decision is that Roberts, virtually by himself, declared that Obamacare was a tax. Investors have to rethink about the 3.8 percentage-point surtax on investment income that is integral to President Obama’s health-care overhaul. The Internal Revenue Service hasn’t yet released guidance on the new tax. But in essence, this tax will apply to all investment and that will now include the sale of your home.

So when the court affirmed Obamacare, investors had better start rethinking whether or not any short-term investment will make sense in America anymore. The new tax will affect the net investment income of most joint filers with adjusted gross income of more than $250,000 ($200,000 for single filers). Starting on January 1st, 2013, the tax rates on long-term capital gains and dividends for these earners will jump from their current historic low of 15% to 18.8%, assuming Congress even extends the current law. If the Bush tax-cuts die on December 31^st with the lame-duck Congress after the elections, you better figure on 23.8% and the top rate on dividends will nearly triple, to 43.4%. Add Obamacare, and we are looking at an economic DEFLATION insofar as the people are concerned regarding income, while prices will still rise producing STAGFLATION. They may be covering the banks, but not the real people. With this level of uncertainty in the tax code, you WILL NEVER see economic expansion. People simply will not hire or expand business when the future is so uncertain. If you are selling long-term investments, you better go on with NOW. If you do not, your tax bill could go to over 45% come January 1^st compared to 15% now. This will contribute to the seasonal sell-fest after Labor Day.

Employers are going to see a massive increase in taxation under these scenarios. This should help to keep unemployment firm over the long-term. Obamacare will become a major issue as politicians start to figure out just what they hell they have done. Democrats have to stop this Marxist view that just raise taxes and the “rich” will be able to pay whatever they demand. That is a nice view, but what about the small business owners who employ 70% of the civil work force and cannot afford what is going on?

Obamacare’s ramifications extend far beyond the just end of this year. Democrats forget that the top income tax rate was over 90% as their hatred of the rich dominated politics. It was John F. Kennedy who said it was wrong and adopted a major tax reduction that created what economists have acknowledged was the great Tax Boom economy that followed. Raising taxes LOWERS economic growth because government NEVER spends money efficiently. Only the private sector spends money to make money. Taking money away from investors ALWAYS reduces economic growth. The Dark Ages was the similar fragmentation of wealth. To create booming economies, it requires the concentration of capital seeking economic gain that furthers the whole of society. The Democrats have been fixated like Marx on how much an individual has rather than on what he is doing with the money that furthers economic growth. That was precisely communism and it collapsed because bureaucrats cannot manage the economy for it is worse than a monkey driving a car who may have more common sense at least where he is going.

Many will likely now seek more tax shelter in assets and structures where the tax doesn’t apply. Municipal-bond income is doubly blessed because it doesn’t raise adjusted gross income and isn’t subject to the 3.8% tax, notes. However, Municipal-bonds are the riskiest place for your money since you are buying into the bullshit that government will always be there. It is precisely the Municipal government who CANNOT print money that go into default first! The presumption that just raising taxes is the way out is coming to an end. There may have been less so-called state guarantees before the New Deal, but it did not take two incomes for the average person to live. Women’s lib was nice to gain rights, but now they lost the right to stay home and raise the kids. One must question just how much has our standard of living increased with such levels of taxation.

Government is quietly going after everything and government employees are brain-dead. The Roman coins we have offered we have just been told can no longer be mailed at the US Post Office. Government is so afraid you can mail your cash overseas to escape taxes the Post Office informed us you cannot mail “coins” because that is currency. When we try to explain these are Roman coins that cannot be spent in a store, they reply they are “coins” and thus are “currency” and can no longer be mailed. If it quacks like a duck; looks like a duck; it doesn’t matter because it has some green and that means it’s a frog! You know what this means! They are now secretly scanning packages for cash to now be confiscated. There goes the $100 bill in birthday cards. It is now ILLEGAL! What? You didn’t see that on the nightly news? It’s you OBLIGATION to know! Shame on you!

Anyone who cannot see they are trying to eliminate ALL tangible money must be blind. They want electronic money – no gold standard. Gold will become the UNDERGROUND economy, never the “official” form of money if the bureaucrats have anything to do with it – and they do! The only shelter will be tangible assets for long-term capital. Forget buying and selling. They will take 50% of that very soon. The strategy is to realize we are looking at the collapse of government by implosion as has been the case with every major core economy in history. So hang on – this will be an interesting ride.