sword. republicans clearly lost the legal battle. and may have won the political war. the ruling ignited many americans as if the electoral equivalent of a political pearl harbor, shot from lethargy and indifference, and conservatives are, to borrow a phrase from president, fired up and ready to go. the democrats got what they wanted. but, they didn't really get what they wanted in the sense they didn't get what they got. -- what they got was the responsibility for the largest tax increase in american history and not just on nasty old millionaires and billionaires, oh, no, it is going to bust the budget of americans of all income levels. middle class, buckle up. you were promised no tax increases. but, you got 'em. 21 tax increases in all, 12 of them will hit the group that supposedly was shielded, those making less than $250,000 a year. the court handed the president a island of victory, but has given mitt romney a complement of campaign material. it is clear, if you want to repeal obamacare, you have to repeal obama and the democrats and the congress on election day and if you are an employer, you are going to have to explain to your employees that they can vote for obama, but, if he keeps his job, it will be a lot harder for them to keep theirs and if you would rather give, maybe obama the opportunity to give you medical advice, rather than your own doctor, then vote for him bit your doctor may quit practicing medicine if obama keeps practicing his brand of spreading the wealth around. if this election was lacking clarity and urgency, that all changed on thursday. so, curse the court if you want to, i have to think the most frightened people in america tonight aren't the mitt romney campaign team but the democrat candidates who now get to explain to you, the voters why their party is popping you with the largest tax hike in history. while the unemployment rate is at a record sustained high with the largest number of people in our history, eligible for food stamps. as dr. phil might say, how is that going for you? [applause]. >> well the supreme court ruling is going to affect every american in some way and we'd like to hear from you, send us your comment and send them to huckmail@foxnews.com and, our first republican presidential forum featured three elected attorneys general, and some of the question to the candidates focused on the president's health care now and now we have a final ruling from the supreme court, we wonder when what do they have to say, joining us oak owing attorney general scott pruett, attorney general pam bondi from florida, the lead state in the litigation, and, virginia attorney general ken cuccinelli, who joins us from washington. [applause]. >> and, ken cuccinelli is also running for governor in virginia. let's get underway, first of all, attorney general pam bondi, you were the lead ag in the lawsuit and sat in the front row of oral arguments when they were going on a few months ago yet you were as blind sided as anybody, when the ruling came down on thursday on the basis of what kind of power congress will have in taxing. was this really that much of a -- part of the case before the court, the whole issue of the tax? we thought it was the commerce clause. >> governor we were totally blind sided and i'll tell you even the lower courts, who went against that, rejected the taxing power argument. so, no other court ruled that way, even in the -- even in the federal government's briefing, they didn't even start talking about the taxing power until page 52 and it was only 63 pages long, i mean, do any of us really believe that congress intended to tax the uninsured? of course not. and, president obama and the democrats never, ever pitched this as you said as a tax. this was pitched as a penalty. and, what happened, what we saw happen in front of the supreme court, was they chose to rewrite the law, not interpret it, in my opinion. >> ken cuccinelli we often hear the term, judicial activism. the fact that the court reached out and grabbed something that really was not on the table, is that judicial activism in action? >> well, it is actually worse than that. governor, the earlier version of the bill had the word "tax" in there, describe the fine you have to pay, as a tax and they amended that out and changed it to penalty and the chief justice went in on that part of the bill and rewrote it and rewrote it to be a tax and of course he had to dramatically expand the definition of what constitutes a tax under the constitution. that is what the dissent of scalia and kennedy and alito and thomas said, the chief justice had to rewrit the law to even plug then massive tax theory to uphold the portion of obamacare that was upheld. >> and, scott, let's talk about the tax issue. to repeal obamacare, we always thought that it would require 60 votes in the senate. because that is typically what it takes to get past the filibuster problem, the senate has, so, a majority would pass the house and the senate is a tough nut to crack because of the 60-vote water mark. however there is a court, because the court defined it as a tax. explain why that high water mark may have been lowered. >> as you said, there was always a great concern about the repeal effort and the reason there was so much focused on the court case, we were hopeful the court would get it right and take it out entirely in the legislative process and now that the court issued their decision it is focused entirely on what you said in your opening comments, you need to repeal obama another law to be repealed and now the court called it a tax the 60 votes are no longer necessary because it is a -- budget reconciliation and the senate can take up budget reconciliation and deal with those types of issues, with a simple majority and actually is encouraging those folks that are seeking to lead the repeal effort in the senate now have something they didn't have before the court decision. a court saying the tax and consequently can use budget reconciliation to pull the individual mandate out. >> so, just to be sure, right now, the democrats control the senate and that will not happen before november but if republicans were to take the senate, if there were a couple of free votes switching over and therefore trepublicans are in majority and harry the contrary reid goes to the minority status and mitch mcconnell, majority, and, they repeal obamacare, it requires the signature of a president which means, probably obama wouldn't sign that bill, but, a mitt romney would? >> that is exactly right. and what is i think more encouraging is that many say how could you repeal the entire act. can you get them to do that, and would require 60 votes but now that it is a tax you can do it weather the budget reconciliation, and if you take the individual mandate out, the tax it is called, guess what? the funding mechanism of all the regulatory change goes away, and the entire thing is collapsing, all they have to do is focus on the individual mandate through budget reconciliation and what we saw through the court case, can... >> i think that is a point we want to make to the audience, a lot of people didn't understand why so much focus on the individual mandate, because it is in essence a concrete foundation upon which the entire thing stands. if it goes out, you can say, well the rest of it is there but it has nothing to stand on. it collapses like a house of cards because the individual mandate was the funding mechanism upon which everything was predicated. if it goes, you can pretend it is there but it isn't there because there is no money for it and no basis for it and that is why it becomes a huge issue. did the supreme court decision open the door for the government to tax you on anything it wants? well, that is what i'm going to pose to these three attorneys general when we return. i'd love to hear from you, go to my web site, mikehuckabee.com and click on the fox news feedback seconds or sign up for my facebook page and follow me ( bell rings ) they remind me so much of my grandkids. wish i saw mine more often, but they live so far away. i've been thinking about moving in with my daughter and her family. it's been pretty tough since jack passed away. it's a good thing you had life insurance through the colonial penn program. you're right. it was affordable, and we were guaranteed acceptance. guaranteed acceptance? it means you can't be turned down because of your health. you don't have to take a physical or answer any health questions. they don't care about your aches and pains. well, how do you know? did you speak to alex trebek? because i have a policy myself. it costs just $9.95 a month per unit. it's perfect for my budget. my rate will never go up. and my coverage will never go down because of my age. affordable coverage and guaranteed acceptance? 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[applause]. >> governor huckabee: the government can tax you for not having health care, what else can it tax you about? how far can taxing power go? we'll get into that, this seg must be with our three attorneys general, pam bondi, scott pruett and ken cuccinelli. i want to ask the question, though, pam is there any other legal means that the states have to challenge obamacare? or is it over. >> well, first, you know, let's believe -- there is no inevitability that this is ever going to be fully implemented, because again the main parts take place 2014 and we have an election that can take care of that before. it is massive and complicated and needs to be fully digested by they'll states as to what we do next and also, don't forget, governor we also have multiple lawsuits out there, including one i am involved in, involving religious liberty and sterilization and the abortion pill and there is no way they'll prevail on that issue, forcing us against our religious liberty, churches, to provide things they don't believe in religio religiously. >> governor huckabee: was there a little bit of a silver lining in the cloud because of the medicaid ruling, at least states can say they will not do the expanded medicaid. >> right. there were two limitations put on the federal government that have not happened since the new deal and one was the commerce clause ruling went our way, but, of course, the bill was up head anyway and the other which you are referring to is the spending power for the first time since the new deal, the federal government had limits but on its ability to use the spending power and it is historical to use that power, basically this club the states. if you don't take this money, and do this new thing, we want you to do, in this case, the expansion of medicaid, we are going to take all of your medicaid money, and let me tell you how that work out for virginia. we have over $7 billion medicaid program, a little over $3 billion of that comes from the federal government, and, what they said was, if you all, virginia, won't expand your medicaid program, massively, under obamacare, then, we'll take all three million of those federal dollars and wipe your whole medicaid program out and that is what the supreme court said the federal government may not do, so now virginia gets to make the decision, without the threat hanging over its head and given what a budget-busting program, the biggest growth part of our budget, medicaid, has been for some time now, i think it is unlikely that our legislators and governor are going to try and swallow what, for virginia would be another $200 million a year, approximately, once it was fully phased in. we don't have the money and unlike the federal government, we have to actually balance our books. and we're pretty serious about that in virginia. >> governor huckabee: i want to get to the tax question, the supreme court said essentially they can punish you for not doing something. is it a very new approach to taxing, we tax you because you didn't do something? >> what is interesting about the opinion, the chief justice gave little attention to what type of tax and said the government has the taxing power and it can be constitutional under taxing power and there is really only four types of taxes congress can lay and collect, excise tax, tariffs, income tax and direct tax and a direct tax has to be what, apportioned among the several states. if this is considered a direct tax which the justice said, there is a concern there for folks in the future when the tax is applied to them and they can argue, look it is a direct tax and violates the constitution and as applies to me, we'll challenge this and there are opportunities in the future, depending upon how the tax is labeled, which of the four is it? we don't know, the court didn't label it but it is a tax related questions on a go-forward basis. >> governor huckabee: i haven't heard anyone bring up that argument. no one. is it the grounds for yet another legal challenge to the valued lid tt tty -- va lidty o obamacare. >> yes. >> and we were surprised about the ruling and why no one expected it is because it's a bad ruling. no one expected a ruling this bad. from the chief justice and, scott is absolutely right, of course about the limited number of taxes available to congress. now, they are very broad, but, that is one of those areas that was not investigated to the level and briefed at the level the commerce clause was. so that is one of the things we'll go back and look at, for future opportunities. >> governor huckabee: we want to continue this discussion and -- more with our attorneys general general and one question is, was chief justice john roberts being clever? or being liberal when he made his decision? we'll ask our panel what they think about it and talk more about the tax implications to your life. when we return. [applause]. >> governor huckabee: chief justice john roberts getting criticism from the right because he stood with the liberal justices on the supreme court. we'll get into that in this section and try and figure out what was behind it. i want to begin, i want to go back to ken cuccinelli on something. ken, if congress can tax us, in this way, is there anything for which we cannot be taxed? >> i'm sure the answer to that is, there is something but, sitting here, given the incredible breadth the chief justice put on the tax definition under the constitution, it is hard for me to conceive immediately of what that might be. along the lines of scott's comment, one of the things i might have thought was, it couldn't be an excise tax on doing nothing. they've supplied excise taxes to work before, for instance, for social security. but, for doing nothing, the failure to do something, this is, itself, brand new and it is part of why the chief justice has expanded the taxing power to a point never imagined by the founders in his opinion here. and, it is very unfortunate, it could cause a serious problem in the future, but i will point out, the one power that congressman and senators are most afraid of voting on is the tax power. >> governor huckabee: because the political ramifications... >> right. >> governor huckabee: of a tax, especially in the middle of a recession. >> right. >> governor huckabee: let me ask attorney general bondy and attorney general pruett from a legal standpoint what do you look into the future and say, wow, we better buckle up and brace, because if congress can do this, here's what else they can do. what do we ned to be afraid of. >> unfortunately, what is referred to, there's a consequence of voting for a tax. and it is normally a legal process but in this situation, justice kennedy said from the bench the court stated a statute congress didn't pass because it was not a tax -- they applied it retroactively and the penalty, you said, the largest tax increase in our nation's history, perhaps. they didn't vote for it, and they said it wasn't a tax and it was a penalty. and, that is what is unfortunate about what chief justice roberts did, that he wrote and salvaged the statute congress did not pass. >> he rewrote it and look at congress's intent, if the democrats and congress, and the president, ever pitched it as a tax, it would have never, ever, ever passed. ever. and, at least we can look at the portion that we did win under the commerce [applause], because i fully believe that if we had lost under the commerce clause, there would be absolutely no limits to the federal government's power. none at all. >> and then the question about, is there any limits on the executive power and, in itself, it says that if you don't put energy efficient windows in your home, they can tax you $50. and i think the question of -- truly, what you are doing is you can tax away, to compel conduct like with the commerce cause and that is unfortunate about the outcome snoond ca outcome. >> call it a penalty and you can get away with it. >> governor huckabee: in a crime trial, you are on trial for murder and your prosecutors prosecute you for murder and the defense lawyer defends you against murder and the judge says, no, you are not guilty of murder, but we'll get you for bank robbery. something that wasn't even on the table, i feel like it looks like that to me. >> bank robbery is a good choice, governor, because... you know, that is a lot of what happened here. [applause]. >> governor huckabee: instead of robing a bank, you are being robbed. >> and are stealing from the future, because one of the differences between the states and the feds is we have to balance our budgets and they don't and they don't heavy this money to spend and as you pointed out they passed one of the biggest budget busting bills in history, and, the supreme court let it stand up that way. >> governor huckabee: what is your view of the mind of john roberts, and i know you are not clairvoyant here, but you are an attorney, an attorney general. look into his head, and tell us, what happened? >> you know, i can tell you, i still believe john roberts is a man of great integrity and i don't think he did it for personal reasons. i fear that he was frighten because we all knew president obama and the democrats were going to demonize the u.s. supreme court. if they struck it down in full and so i fully believe that he was concerned about protecting the integrity of the court, perhaps. you know, he's a brilliant man and i frankly don't think he can possibly believe his opinion is persuasive. >> governor huckabee: any in sight. >> when you look at chief justice roberts' confirmation hearing he talked about the modesty of the court and that is a conservative ideology, to say courts ought to be humble and modest and let the legislative branch legislate and he talked about that for a number of years and you look at the opinion he gave way too much deference to the legislature branch and the executive branch. >> governor huckabee: well, one other thing... >> the constitution, in the hands of this president, is a dangerous thing. [applause]. >> and we need to make sure, the executive and legislature branch are held accountable and that is where he failed. i think as strict instructions goes, he got the commerce clause right and the powers right but he didn't get right the humility, he talked about in the confirmation hearing and will give great deference to the legislative process because in this