This is a Cato special podcast. I'm Caleb Brown. The Supreme Court's

curious ruling on the Affordable Care Act has left many people wondering if the

federal government's taxing power has been

unleashed to compel people to buy or die.

Ilia Shapiro, senior fellow in constitutional studies at the Cato Institute, argues

the court did no such thing.

Randy Barnett, who I think is more positive on the Obamacare ruling

than a lot of libertarians and conservatives makes this note which is

Obamacare is a tax because the Supreme Court rewrote the law to make it one.

The Supreme Court did not uphold Obamacare's individual insurance mandate as a tax.

And that is a very subtle distinction.

As you see it, what does that mean? It's very subtle for purposes of the law, and lots of lawyers will spill lots of ink

and briefs going forward.

But what it means for practical purposes is another way of saying that Chief Justice Roberts rewrote the law to

enable to find it constitutional. He didn't find it constitutional as is. He did not

adopt the arguments made about the taxing power that the government made or that liberal

law professors made.

He essentially reconstrude what was in the statutory text in order to save it using his conception of the taxing power.

Specifically, he talks about the size of the tax relative to the activity that the federal government would like you to be involved in in this case

purchasing insurance and in reading the language I thought it was just sort of wishy-washy

and mealy mouth saying well if it's not too big the tax then it's

fine but if it is big then it's unconstitutional that's exactly right if the

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