“The Politics of Robin Hood”
Recently, in a discussion with a plumber, presidential hopeful Barack Obama stated that his plan to raise taxes on wealthy individuals was to ‘spread the wealth around’. Now, I think that we can all agree that this tax plan is meant to appeal to and, ostensibly, benefit the lower and middle classes of this nation. Strangely enough that description sounds a lot like the activities of the folk hero Robin Hood. My question is, is that even constitutional, and does it conform to the ideals that formed this nation?
To ascertain this, we must first examine what powers the government of the United States holds in regards to taxation. In Article I, Section 8 of the US Constitution, the powers of Congress to impose taxes are outlined:
The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;
You will take note that the text does not mention a tax on income. The taxes described in the passage are intended to be levied on products or services. This would have been the most prudent method of collecting taxes at the time, as the maritime shipment and trade of goods was a massive part of the US economy. Each ship could be levied a tax on its goods as it came to port.
In fact, it wasn’t until February of 1913 that the 16th amendment was passed, allowing the federal government to collect income taxes directly from the citizenry. The following is the text of the 16th Amendment.
“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.”
So there you have it. The government does have the right under law to collect taxes as it sees fit. Of course, most of us already know this due to the rather torturous process of filling out tax forms each year or shelling out some of those hard-earned dollars to have someone else do it for you. Having established this fact, let us return to the text of Article I, Section 8.
The specific reasons given for the application of a tax or duty by the federal government are as follows:
…to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States…
So taxes, as the US Constitution states, can only have a few specific purposes. Paying the debts of government is certainly reasonable, as it is the duty of our government to do business abroad for the citizenry.
At the time of the creation of the Constitution, the US was most certainly still in debt to a number of Dutch and other European sources that were tapped for loans to finance the War of Independence. One of the chief duties of President John Adams during the war (prior to his service as Chief Executive) was to parlay with Dutch Banks in an effort to acquire loans for this very purpose. Having used these monies to defend the United States, we come to the second reason for the imposition of taxes.
Providing for the common defense of this nation is one of the stated duties and purposes of the federal government as outlined in the Preamble of the document:
We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
It is therefore reasonable and rational to expect and submit to taxation for the purposes of defending the nation. Many of the strongest advocates for ratification of the Constitution were very clear on this point. State militias would not be a sufficient force to repel foreign invaders or quell armed conflicts between the states. It was in the best interest of the States to provide for a common army for this purpose.
Likewise the third enumerated reason for taxation is listed in the preamble and repeated in Article I, Section 8, although the wording is slightly different in the two iterations: “promote the general Welfare” and “provide for the general welfare of the United States” respectively. This is where the verbal contortions begin. What is the definition of “the general welfare”?
Following the above quoted portion of Section 8 is a list of activities that congress shall have power to do (most of which would require monies provided by taxation). The list includes such things as providing a post office, encouraging scientific and artistic work and providing for copyright, the creation of roads, and a number of others that relate to raising, arming and governing military forces of differing types. All of these things add to the general welfare of a nation. Without roads, commerce will stagnate, without a post office sufficient to serve the many states, communication would be awkward and unnecessarily slow and the encouragement of scientific advancement will benefit the industry and artistry of the nation. There are not however any powers mentioned in this list that pertain to distribution of wealth to anyone other than those people or departments of government appointed to the several tasks. In fact, there is a statement to the contrary:
“No Capitation, or other direct, Tax shall be laid, unless in Proportion to the Census or Enumeration herein before directed to be taken.”
So, Section 8 of the Constitution states that any other direct tax levied must be proportional to a census. It would only make sense that each state would pay a tax in proportion to the number of its inhabitants since that would affect the amount of services (postal, road related or otherwise) that each state would make use of. Still, there is a conspicuous lack of wording regarding personal incomes or the rates at which income levels should be taxed.
In fact, it wasn’t until February of 1913 that the 16th amendment was passed, clarifying the federal government’s ‘right’ to collect income taxes from the citizenry. The following is the text of the 16th Amendment.
“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.”
Voila. The government now has the right under law to collect taxes from individual incomes regardless of the source. Of course, most of us already know this due to the rather torturous process of filling out tax forms each year or shelling out some of those hard-earned dollars to have someone else do it for you.
It is at this point that we must turn to the now bulging Federal Tax Code. According to the Tax Foundation the first income tax levied looked like this:
“a person earning from $600 to $10,000 per year paid tax at the rate of 3%. Those with incomes of more than $10,000 paid taxes at a higher rate.”
This is an example of a graduated income tax. Although the type of tax or structure of the tax that Government can levy is not specifically mentioned in the Constitution, a graduated income tax is mentioned in another politically based document written in1883. That document is called the Communist Manifesto. Amongst the planks of the communist manifesto you will find the following:
“A heavy progressive or graduated income tax.”
Wow. Now we have communist doctrine being inserted into the Federal Government through the vehicle of the US Tax Code. To follow this doctrine to its conclusion, however you must examine the rest of the list of tenets that underlie communist theory:
Abolition of property in land and application of all rents of land to public purposes.
A heavy progressive or graduated income tax.
Abolition of all right of inheritance.
Confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels.
Centralization of credit in the hands of the State, by means of a national bank with State capital and an exclusive monopoly.
Centralization of the means of communication and transport in the hands of the State.
Extension of factories and instruments of production owned by the State; the bringing into cultivation of waste-lands, and the improvement of the soil generally in accordance with a common plan.
Equal liability of all to labour. Establishment of industrial armies, especially for agriculture.
Combination of agriculture with manufacturing industries; gradual abolition of the distinction between town and country, by a more equable distribution of the population over the country.
Free education for all children in public schools. Abolition of children’s factory labour in its present form. Combination of education with industrial production, &c., &c.
Some of (if not most of) these tenets are directly in conflict with the principles that are described in our Constitution, specifically, the right to own land and property. If this tax system is part of a list of theories that can be specifically shown to be in direct conflict with the founding documents of our nation, how can it be that they are applied under our laws?
The simple answer to this is “wealth envy“. A progressive income tax can be offered to the nation-at-large by use of a very simple tactic: if you make less, you pay less. Sounds simple right? The rub comes in when you realize that there are far more people in this nation at the lower end of the scale than there are at the top. That means that when a tax of this type is implemented, it is almost impossible to reverse. The majority of people will almost never agree to pay more than they are now unless the wealthy minority are also taxed at a higher rate. This has taken other forms within the various states. In California for instance, there is a “Millionaire’s Tax”. Now that ‘everyman’ has a vote, why not tax the affluent minority?
Now we have come full circle to the policies of Barack Obama. Barack wants to raise taxes on those people who make more than $250,000 per year. If you consider the current tax brackets as levied by the federal government, that puts those people in the 33-35% tax brackets, (based on how you file) which are the top two brackets. How many people can claim to ‘reside’ in that bracket? Not many. In the most recent data available from the IRS, (from 2005) taxpayers that earned more than $200K in 2005 represented *almost* 4% of total returns, however, the top two tax brackets paid almost 42% of all taxes! How’s that for their ‘fair share’? If you add the ‘upper middle class’ of America, well over 50% of all taxes are being paid by the wealthiest of us! (Just for the sake of housekeeping, all of the foregoing tax information was pulled from the IRS website)
http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-soi/05inrate.pdf
It appears that the wealth is already being ‘spread around’ pretty well to me. How is it that Barack now (even withstanding the Bush tax cuts) wants to raise my taxes even further? Remember the wording from the Manifesto a “heavy” graduated income tax.
With every day that passes, that income tax is going to get heavier and heavier until the system folds and the only group large enough to pick it up is the federal government. Barack is a Marxist. He has admitted himself that he was fond of Marxist professors and student groups in college and he is now openly promoting Marxist theory on the campaign trail. It only follows that he is amenable to the application of Marxist theory in other realms of government.
Now, to answer our questions from the beginning of the post, is this kind of taxation constitutional? If you are of the ‘school of limited government’ as most of our founders were, you will say “no” on the basis that there is no specific enumeration of power that makes the federal government the final arbiter of wealth. Nothing in this document even hints at the idea that the federal government should be in the business of making sure that the wealth of the nation is ‘fairly’ distributed. In fact a word search of the Constitution returns zero occurrences of the word ‘fair’ anywhere in the document. Clearly, that eliminates any mention of ‘fair distribution’ of wealth. So we look for the word ‘wealth’…again, the search returns no occurrences. The Constitution stands mute on the issue of wealth redistribution. Could it possibly be that the founders of this great nation left that out on purpose?? Was it a gigantic oversight by the wise (and I believe divinely inspired) men who shaped our system of government? Hardly. The men who founded this nation made very clear what the purposes of the Government would be and specifically left all other powers to the respective states in the 10th amendment in 1791:
“The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”
These men who founded this nation wanted as little federal government intrusion into the life of the states or people as is possible. Clearly, the Marxist ideal is in direct conflict with this line of thought.
So, all you Barack supporters who aren’t bothered by his ‘spread the wealth’ comment, be aware of what you are supporting. The preamble clearly puts such Marxist ideals at direct odds with the spirit of the US Constitution:
“We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America”.
Liberty is the bane of Communism. That is why communist governments despise the USA. The very concept of liberty and personal betterment undermines the entire concept of the “communist utopia”. So, now that we have established the field of ideological warfare, are you for the US, or against it?
As far as this voter goes, Barack Obama is an Enemy of the State…
Comments
2 Comments on “The Politics of Robin Hood”
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brmurray on
Wed, 22nd Oct 2008 10:53 pm
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Brooks on
Fri, 24th Oct 2008 6:05 pm
the constitutionally of our government must be questioned at time. However, the dumb mass of Americans plug along there day with the “its not affecting me” mentality. But over time gov’t will erode away any resistance until the people cannot stand up against the tyranny of a abusive gov’t body. Good first post K!
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