10 Polemics from the Supreme Court Decision

2. "The broccoli horrible"
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg used this phrase somewhat sarcastically in her ridicule of Justice Roberts' rejection of allowing the individual mandate to be enforced under the Commerce Clause.

Roberts wrote, "Under the Government's theory, Congress could address the diet problem by ordering everyone to buy vegetables."

Ginsburg countered: "As an example of the type of regulation he fears, the Chief Justice cites a Government mandate to purchase green vegetables ... One could call this concern 'the broccoli horrible.' Congress, the Chief Justice posits, might adopt such a mandate reasoning that an individual's failure to eat a healthy diet, like the failure to purchase health insurance, imposes costs on others."

3. "A loan shark's extor­tionate collections from a neighborhood butcher shop."
Variations of this phrase refer to a precedent case from 1942 in which the Commerce Clause authorizing Congress to regulate interstate commerce was extended to allow federal regulation of loan-sharking. This version was found in Justice Roberts' majority opinion in which he ruled that the individual mandate could not be enforced under the Commerce Clause, but could be as a tax.

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