Supreme literalism
by digby
This does seem like the best evidence of the legislative intent in the Obamacare subsidy legal controversy (Halbig) now wending its way through the courts. Not that it will matter to the Roberts majority if they decide to be literalists about this and strike down the subsidies in states with the federal exchange due to a drafting error:
Not only did the legislators themselves never intend to cut out subsidies for the federal exchange, the CBO, that all-important arbiter of the law's costs, never once factored it into its analyses.
"It definitely didn't come up. This possibility never crossed anybody's mind," David Auerbach, who was a principal analyst for the CBO's scoring of the ACA, told TPM on Thursday. "If we started to score it that way, they would have known that, and they would have said, 'Oh, oh my gosh, no, no no,' and they probably would have clarified the language. It just wasn't on anybody's radar at all."
It's pretty to think the conservative majority gives a damn about any of that. But it's entirely possible that since all claims to legitimacy went out the window with Bush vs Gore anyway they just don't give a damn anymore how ridiculous their reasoning is. I can see them saying with a straight face that they have to strike it down but it's no big deal because the congress --- now being dragged around by the tail by Ted Cruz and Steve King --- just has to make a couple of little changes if they want a different outcome. I can see the supercilious grin on Alito's face already ...
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