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1. Elizabeth Warren's 'Wealth Tax' Is Unconstitutional and Unwise
Apart from whether it is wise or not, people should first and foremost understand that Congress is constitutionally limited to the kind of taxes it can levy. A federal 'wealth tax' is unconstitutional.
Apart from whether it is wise or not, people should first and foremost understand that Congress is constitutionally limited to the kind of taxes it can levy. A federal 'wealth tax' is unconstitutional.
2. 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, not income/property.
"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, not income/property.
3. Because of article 1, section 2, clause 3, even federal income tax was unconstitutional up until 1913, when the Sixteenth Amendment to the Constitution was passed specifically to make income tax constitutional.
4. 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."
"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."
5. Wealth tax is not a tax on income, but on property, as Elizabeth Warren helpfully explains in the above video. And no constitutional amendment has yet been passed to allow the federal government to levy a wealth tax. Only States can levy a property tax per State Constitutions.
6. Elizabeth Warren is of course free to propose a Constitutional Amendment, but people should understand what the mealy-mouthed politician is doing by proposing a wealth tax. If she doesn't understand what she is doing, Harvard has another reason to hang its head in shame.
7. Our Ignorant and Complicit Liberal Mainstream Media
To my knowledge, no one in the liberal 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.
To my knowledge, no one in the liberal 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.
8. And about that $50 million threshold. Once the principle of 'wealth tax' is established, how long before that number starts moving lower to gobble up the middle class? I hear Elizabeth Warren had already asked to model govt revenue for a $10 million threshold. How about $100K?
9. As the socialist takeover eviscerates the economy and the Marxist taxation maw starts mowing down the ultra-rich, then the rich, then the upper middle class, people with $100,000 in assets will start looking unconscionably wealthy to the Bolshevik hordes, won't they?
10. 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 hire somebody else to do it for them), However, I care deeply about our own individual liberties.
11. 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. There is no liberty without property rights.
12. 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.
13. 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 the history of demagogues like Elizabeth Warren. She is an abomination.
nationalreview.com/2019/01/elizab…
nationalreview.com/2019/01/elizab…
14. "What Warren is proposing is essentially a federal version of the hated asset-forfeiture programs that have been so much abused by law-enforcement agencies — minus the allegation of criminal misconduct and made universal and annual."
15. "Funny thing about Senator Warren’s asset-forfeiture scheme. Like many similar proposals, it probably would not raise much revenue and might in fact leave the country as a whole economically worse off."
16. "And the people advising Warren on that are perfectly content with that outcome, because, as Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman argue in the case of @AOC's proposal to radically increase income taxes, this is to be understood not as an economic question but as a moral one."
17. Saez and Zucman write that it is simply morally obligatory to hurt wealthy people. "The point of high top marginal income tax rates is to constrain the immoderate, and especially unmerited, accumulation of riches.”
18. And who gets to decide what’s merited and what’s unmerited? What are the chances that, say, Senator Warren’s modest millions or her multimillion-dollar home are deemed “unmerited”?
19. What decides, of course, is “unrestricted power based on force, not law,” because the law cannot substantially answer that kind of question but can only instead encode the desires of people with power, which is what Senator Warren is seeking more of.
20. When the socialist schemes of Joseph Stalin foundered, he blamed the “kulaks,” i.e. those who had enjoyed the “unmerited accumulation of riches.” There was never any real definition of a “kulak.” Basically, if you had one cow and your neighbor had two, he was a kulak.
21. Stalin announced the “liquidation of the kulaks as a class” as a necessary precondition for the progress of his program, which was, like Kamala Harris, “for the people.” Dekulakization was responsible for the deaths of about 5 million subjects of the workers’ paradise.
22. Expropriating the wealth of the rich is necessary to fund benefits for the people (“The affluent,” Saez and Zucman write, “can contribute more to the public coffers. And given the revenue needs of the country, it is necessary”).
23. Saez and Zucman write hopefully of the prospect that high tax rates would make the class of people with larger incomes “largely disappear.” Representative Ocasio-Cortez declares it “immoral” that we have a “system that allows billionaires to exist.”
24. Marshall Steinbaum, the research director of the progressive Roosevelt Institute, wrote: “It’s increasingly clear that having wealthy people around is a luxury our society can no longer afford.”
25. And, so, here we are again: The kulaks must be liquidated as a class. But who is a kulak?
We might glean some insight into that from the progressives’ thinking in the recent free-speech debates, which goes something like this:
We might glean some insight into that from the progressives’ thinking in the recent free-speech debates, which goes something like this:
26. “We’re all in favor of free speech, but Nazis should be chased from the public square, by violence if necessary, and we should harass their employers in order to ruin them financially. Also, everybody who disagrees with me is a Nazi, even children wearing hats I don’t like.”
27. "You may not feel like a kulak. You may take comfort in hearing that only the “tippy-top” wealthiest people are to be expropriated in the name of social justice. Those children at Covington Catholic probably didn’t think they were Nazis either."
The End
The End
