The Supreme Court decision upholding the health-insurance
mandate in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act
(ObamaCare) has an Alice-in-Wonderland feel to it. As Lewis
Carroll wrote in Through the Looking Glass,   Chief Justice John
Roberts’s opinion holds that the penalty for not complying with
the mandate is both a tax and not a tax—depending on the
question. If the question is whether someone may sue to strike
down the mandate, the court says yes, because the penalty is not
a tax. Under the Tax Anti-Injunction Act (first passed in 1867
but since updated), one may not ask for an injunction against a
tax before it has been enforced. One must wait to be taxed,
request a refund from the IRS, and if turned down, then sue the
government. In the ObamaCare case, the Court denied such an
attempt to have the challenge dismissed by declaring the penalty
not a tax.  But only for purposes of the Tax Anti-Injunction
Act. It was another story when the question was whether the
mandate is constitutional.  The gover