bob: of all the discussions we have had about obamacare around the issue, not one of you raised the tax issue. not one of you. eric: it was never an issue. it was commerce clause. greg: it wasn t a tax. we stupidly took them at their word. we thought maybe they weren t lying or maybe they were competent. turns out they re lying and incompetent. bob: you call it a tax makes eric: we didn t call it a tax. this table didn t call it a tax. supreme court justice roberts called at it tax and it passed because it was a tax. bob: you never brought up the tax aspect of it before. dana: because president obama never said it was a tax. now chief justice who they hang their hats on upholding the law called it a tax. then they say it s not. kimberly: heads up it would work. dana: sore losers are really annoying. sore winners are worse. the fact it goes on to almost all americans that whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. this is a tax? why is the i.r.s. hiring 4,500 new agents? to collect a
on. eric: i m not sure that the supreme court should change something to call at it tax. coming up, politics behind the fast and furious scandal. both sides claiming the moral high ground. no room up there for both, though. is there? greg has thoughts next. greg: i do! the postal service is critical to our economy, delivering mail, medicine and packages. yet the house is considering a bill to close thousands of offices, slash service and layoff over 100,000 workers. the postal service is recording financial losses but not for reasons you might think. the problem ? a burden no other agency or company bears. a 2006 law that drains $5 billion a year from post office revenue while the postal service is forced to overpay billions more into federal accounts. house bill 2309 is not the answer.
if you want to pass the roberts test as constitutional you have to call at it tax. in the legislation. bret: yeah. so white house press secretary jay carney asked about this numerous times, numerous ways in the press gaggle today. he said in one response about this, calling at it tax. you can call it what you want. he said it s a penalty. not a tax. is this a problem for them, john? i hope so. penalties, taxes, it s 2400 pages of micro management. it s a bad thing. it takes our freedom and our money. i hope it s a problem. it s not a problem. c mon. even mitt romney in romney care did the same thing. just what charles described so accurately. refused to call it specifically a tax. said it was incentive for people to get insurance or penalty on people who didn t get insurance.
chuck schumer s proposal to levy a 30% capital gains tax on people who renounce their citizenship after edwauardo saverin rin threatened to leave the country presumably to avoid taxes. you said i think schumer can probably find the legislation to do this. it existed in germany in the 30s. at the probably just plagiarized and translated it from the original german. now, in a season where political rhetoric is as sharp as it s been perhaps historically, do you think having these lowed metaphors is an effective tool in getting both sides of the aisle to compromise to move the country forward? what schumer is talking about doing is having an exit tax for people who try and leave the country. that was done in germany, it was done in east germany under is the soviet occupation when people wanted to leave, they were told you have to pay for your wonderful education, it was an exit tax.
individual has renounced their citizenship to avoid taxes, they would be barred from returning to the united states, period. martha: the wall street journal in an editorial calls democratic senators chuck schumer and bob casey a pair of envy specialists and says a punitive exit tax on the facebook ex-pat is not worthy of america. this man-made a ton of money on a company started in the united states and he should be free to do it. reporter: how would you know how someone has decided to renounce citizenship. martha: it s a fascinating story and we ll watch it coming up in two hours. thank you, sir. bill: hard to find a lot of companies that reach 900 million people around the world.