Blackmoor Vituperative

I confess that the continued authority to selectively tax citizens in order to encourage desired behaviour disappoints me, but not because of Obamacare. I am mostly indifferent to the Affordable Care Act itself, because it will affect less than 2% of the people in this country in any significant way. My own health care costs will continue to rise, with or without it.

It disappoints me because it makes it less likely that the existing tax system will be eliminated and replaced with a fair tax (such as the FairTax), since the current tax system is rife with such selective taxation. For example, if there were no taxation benefits or penalties associated with getting married (or not) or having children (or not), there would no longer be any reason for the government to interfere in who could marry whom — it would be a purely personal issue between consenting adults, beyond the authority of government to regulate or prohibit (and that’s how it should be, in my opinion).

Had the selective taxation of citizens in order to manipulate their behaviour been declared to exceed the authority granted to our government, a great deal of the current tax code would have had to have been discarded. But it wasn’t, so it won’t be. Despite the wailing and gnashing of teeth, the Supreme Court’s ruling really only affirmed one thing: the status quo has been preserved. Which, ironically enough, primarily benefits the people doing most of the wailing.

I am disappointed, but not angry, nor terribly surprised. Life goes on.