Thread by @bansisharma

A Special 'Wealth Tax' On People With Assets Above $50 Million

This is deceptive af. If implemented, govt will spend it in anticipation, and revenue will never ever materialize. Nobody with that kind of assets doesn't have it locked up in trusts. 1/2
cnbc.com/2019/01/24/eli…

If Warren is serious and not just trying to fool the masses who don't worry about managing wealth of that magnitude and so don't know how it's done, let her propose taxing trusts as well. I dare you @ewarren to just mention it, and see what happens to your candidacy. Do it. 2/2

One more thing. If you start taxing all wealth, including trust accounts, how long do you think it will take the ultra-rich to hide their wealth? You may consider forcing open bank lockers too (just to check for gold bars, diamonds, etc.). Oh, and homes too. Go full police state.

And about that $50 million threshold. That's just a number, right? Once the principle of 'wealth tax' is established, how long before that number starts moving lower to gobble up the middle class? I hear you already asked to model numbers for $10 million. How about $100,000?

As the socialist takeover tanks the economy and the Marxist taxation maw starts mowing down the ultra-rich, then the rich, then the upper middle class, and so on, people with $100,000 in assets will start looking unconscionably wealthy to the Bolshevik hordes, won't they?

1. Elizabeth Warren's 'Wealth Tax' Is an Unconstitutional Gimmick to Elbow Kamala Harris (by corralling leftist loonies)
It's a crying shame people have come to believe that Congress has the power to levy any tax it chooses, separate and distinct from whether it's wise or not.

2. Congress cannot levy a 'wealth tax' which is a tax on property, not on income. Here's a brief lesson in Constitutional government. Up until 1913, federal government used to collect its revenue mostly from tariffs.

3. Attempts by Congress to levy an income tax prior to 1913 were rejected by the Supreme Court as unconstitutional, because of these two clauses in the Constitution:

4. Article I, Section 2, Clause 3:

"Representatives and direct taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers."

In other words, direct taxes have to be based on population numbers not income.

5. Article I, Section 9, Clause 4:

"No Capitation, or other direct, Tax shall be laid, unless in proportion to the Census or Enumeration herein before directed to be taken."

This clause basically refers to a tax on property (e.g. a tax based on the value of land).

6. Hence the Sixteenth Amendment (passed in 1909, ratified on February 3, 1913):

"The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several States, and without regard to any census or enumeration."

7. And that's why Congress has had the power to exact an income tax since 1913. Notice, Congress still has no power to levy a 'federal property tax' (aka 'wealth tax') except in proportion to State population, not wealth.

8. Elizabeth Warren should of course feel free to propose a Constitutional Amendment, but people should understand what the mealy-mouthed politician is doing. If she herself doesn't understand what she is doing, Harvard has another reason to hang its head in shame.

The End

Our Ignorant and Complicit Mainstream Media

To my knowledge, no one in the mainstream media has pointed out that Elizabeth Warren's 'wealth tax' is unconstitutional, or even brought it up as a question. Why is that? Ignorance or complicity? I suspect both.

Wall Street Journal Came Through This Afternoon
Anyone who was reserving judgment on what I said in the thread above about Elizabeth Warren's 'wealth tax' proposal, doubt no more. This afternoon, Wall Street Journal writes about it in more detail than I could cover on Twitter.

Wall Street Journal also agrees with the rest of my assessment above. It is as though I wrote their whole article, which of course I didn't. WSJ is the only mainstream media in the U.S. worth taking seriously. I don't always agree with them, but I always respect them.

To be clear, I am not energized to defend the rich against taxation (I couldn't care less about the wealth of the rich per se, they are rich enough to take care of themselves, or higher somebody else to do it for them), I care deeply about our own individual liberties. 1/

The moment you create a precedent by agreeing to give the government power over your own property in principle, we are finished as a nation which values liberty above all, and we open the door to inevitable tyranny down the road. 2/

That's why people have to be super-vigilant about what new powers over themselves they confer on the govt. I'll oppose the 'wealth tax' even if the tax rate is only 0.00001% on wealth above $100 trillion. This power once legitimized will destroy the U.S. as we know it. 3/x

The best use of history is as an inoculation against radical expectations and hence embittering disappointments. Read the enclosed article by Kevin Williamson to brush up on history of demagogues like Elizabeth Warren. She is an abomination.

https://twitter.com/Neoavatara/status/1088829665739968512