Eric Schepard has written a great piece on this topic. He draws parallels between the conservative arguments against the Agricultural Adjustment Act and conservative arguments against the ACA (in particular, the arbitrary "limitations" rules). He also uses the dissenting opinion of Harlan Fiske Stone (a Republican appointed justice) in the AAA ruling to explain why the conservative arguments in both cases are wrong.
Conservative justices may hate Obamacare, but they should not overrule Congress
Excerpt:
The Constitution’s text, which allows Congress to tax and spend to provide for the nation’s general welfare, seemed to authorize the AAA. But the court’s conservative majority ruled that Congress could not tax and spend to regulate agriculture, even if agriculture substantially affected the nation’s welfare.
The majority opinion argued that this limitation – which appears nowhere in the Constitution – was necessary to prevent Congress from enacting a raft of horrible regulations that would redistribute wealth throughout the economy.
Stone’s dissent reminded his colleagues that they decide only whether Congress could enact the AAA, not whether it should. Stone argued that the broad language of the tax and spend clause confirmed that the framers meant to grant Congress extensive powers to exercise at its own discretion.
And rightly so, he exclaimed, for the people can replace a Congress that enacts a dumb law, while only the unelected court’s “sense of self restraint” prevents abuses of its own power. Indeed, Stone’s closing suggested that the court’s decision to usurp Congress’s power over the national economy would ultimately threaten the liberties of the people more than the horrible regulations that the court’s majority feared.