Editors, Vineyard Gazette:

As many Americans attempt to make sense of Justice Roberts’s convoluted decision, we are reminded that in at least one recorded interview, Mr. Obama insisted in his own words and voice that the penalty phase of the deceptively-misnamed Affordable Care Act was not a tax. Despite the president’s previous assurances, now the main premise of the law has just been upheld on the grounds that it most certainly is a tax.

With the recent ruling, we have crossed a threshold whereby the government may now more freely tax the individual behavior of its citizens. If it can levy a tax based upon that which we fail to do, conversely, it may also levy taxes on that which we choose to do, and any type of personal behavior or activity which the government does not favor may be in the cross hairs of new taxes.

It is difficult to descry Justice Roberts’ reasoning, and some suggest that he has fallen prey to becoming overly concerned with his place in history, being influenced by a biased and complicit media, rather than acting to interpret the Constitution. In any case, it is doubtful that his name will even be remembered in jurisprudence once the current publicity dies down.

The question now must be asked as to who will pay for the waste, fraud, abuse and corruption that will follow in the new government bureaucracy that will have to be created to administer this monstrosity? Rather than being clear, the physical entity of this new law is based upon 2,700 pages of the worst legalese imaginable, and we have far too many glaring examples to the contrary as to how well the government manages taxpayer funds.

This does not bode well for the future, and when threats to personal freedom are considered, an extremely deleterious precedent has now been set.

Michael Fontes

West Tisbury