Posted on 02/16/2014 6:09:45 PM PST by JOHN W K
That he does - on more than just this board too.
He’s got a jealous hard-on against Levin and spends a lot of time bashing him and his positions.
Do all "conservatives" support that position?
JWK
I might not have anything at all against such a policy... It's just not what the Constitution requires.
Yep, all good quotes from the Founders.
Unfortunately, not one of them supports your notion that somehow or other the Constitution requires apportionment of electors to states in proportion to their contribution to total taxation. Which it most emphatically does not.
SEE: Article II, Section 1:
Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors, equal to the whole Number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress:
And how is each state's number of representatives determined? It is determined by the rule of apportionment which ties both representation and taxation by the same standard --- each state's population size.
What do you have against the rule requiring representation with a proportional financial obligation?
Are you really ok with 45 percent of our nation’s population who pay no taxes on incomes being allowed to vote for representatives who spend federal revenue which the remaining 55 percent of our nation’s hard working and productive population has contributed into our federal treasury via taxes on incomes when our Constitution requires “Representatives and direct taxes Shall be apportioned among the Several States”?
JWK
It’s not PORK. It’s a money laundering operation used to plunder our national treasury and fatten the fortunes of the well-connected in Washington.
Sorry pal, I agree that the language of the 16th Amendment specifically negated the Apportionment rule.
I don’t like it, and I’m confident this country would be far better off had the 16th and 17th Amendments not become part of the Constitution.
That said, Mark Levin is spot on.
I have somewhat specialized in constitutional criminal procedure since completing law school, but I’m quite up to speed on the other relevant portions of the Constitution as well.
I’m not claiming to always be correct without some research, for there are some very complicated (unneccessarily complicated) issues.
The 16th amendment changed it.
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.
Prior to the 16th Amendment ... No Capitation, or other direct, Tax shall be laid, unless in Proportion to the Census or Enumeration herein before directed to be taken.
Congress, from the very ratification of our Constitution, had power to lay and collect taxes calculated from profits, gains, and other “incomes” without apportionment and this was not only established in Springer vs. United States when the Court upheld an un-apportioned tax on incomes imposed during the Civil War, but the Court also examined and explained what made the Corporate Excise Tax of 1909 (a tax calculated from profits and gains) “indirect” and not requiring apportionment, see FLINT v. STONE TRACY CO., 220 U.S. 107 (1911).
Keep in mind that to this very day, “direct taxes” are still required to be apportioned as stated by the Court! In Eisner v. Macomber 252 U.S. 189, 206 (1920), a case dealing with direct vs. indirect taxation the tax was struck down as being direct and not apportioned. The Court stated:
“[T]his amendment shall not be extended by loose construction, so as to repeal or modify, except as applied to income, those provisions of the Constitution that require an apportionment according to population for direct taxes....This limitation still has an appropriate and important function, and is not to be overridden by Congress or disregarded by the courts.”
A few years latter in another case dealing with direct vs. indirect taxation, in BROMLEY VS MCCAUGHN, 280 U.S. 124 (1929), the Court emphatically stated “As the present tax is not apportioned, it is forbidden, if direct.”
And let us not forget that even Justice Roberts stated in the Obamacare case:
A tax on going without health insurance does not fall within any recognized category of direct tax. It is not a capitation. Capitations are taxes paid by every person, "without regard to property, profession, or any other circumstance." Hylton, supra, at 175 (opinion of Chase, J.)(emphasis altered). The whole point of the shared responsibility payment is that it is triggered by specific circumstances—earning a certain amount of income but not obtaining health insurance. The payment is also plainly not a tax on the ownership of land or personal property. The shared responsibility payment is thus not a direct tax that must be apportioned among the several States.
The truth is, the requirement that Representatives and direct taxes are required to be apportioned nas never by changed, nor has Article 1, Section 9, Clause 4 been repealed and declares:
No Capitation, or other direct, Tax shall be laid, unless in Proportion to the Census or Enumeration herein before directed to be taken.
JWK
I do miss his posts.
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