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I likewise do not approve of the Feds expanding their powers arbitrarily by declaring the punishment for whatever they wouldn’t otherwise be allowed to enforce “a tax”. Calling the insurance mandate constitutional because the punishment was a “tax” was abusing the intent of the law.

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It's pointless to try to draw a distinction here, because you can re-frame the exact same behavior several different ways, some of which are already common, so it doesn't represent any expansion of power. Like, raise taxes by that much and give people with insurance a credit for it, but not those without insurance. Done. No "worse" than e.g. child tax credits, as far as constitutionality. Insisting that the law do some particular word-dance to get to the exact same place isn't productive and doesn't defend liberty.

If you worried about fines being used to deter activities society doesn’t want, and that fine money being collected as tax revenue, you are at least 200 years too late.

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