Posted on 06/17/2003 5:27:22 AM PDT by xrp
Retired Army General Wesley Clark has been very effective in keeping his face and opinions in the media forefront the past year or so. There’s a reason for that. Political aspirations. Clark is toying with the idea of announcing as a Democratic candidate for President of the United States. Truth is, he’s after the number two spot. Vice Presidential candidate for now, the Oval Office Later.
Clark was a guest on Tim Russert’s Meet the Press this past Sunday. The questioning turned to Clark’s political ambitions and his feelings on the Bush tax cut. Clark says that he would not have supported the tax cuts … and gave the following reason:
“Well, first of all, they were not efficient in terms of stimulating the kind of demand we need to move the economy back into a recovery mode, a strong recovery and a recovery that provides jobs. There are more effective ways of using the resources. Secondly, the tax cuts weren’t fair. I mean, the people that need the money and deserve the money are the people who are paying less, not the people who are paying more. I thought this country was founded on a principle of progressive taxation.”
Sorry, General Clark. You have the Constitution of the United States mixed up with the Communist Manifesto. Don’t feel bad though. This is a very common problem with Democrats. Your political bedmates just can’t seem to tell the difference between the two, and apparently either can you.
This country was most definitely NOT founded on the principle of progressive taxation. In fact, the Supreme Court ruled that a progressive income tax was unconstitutional! It was only after the States ratified the 16th Amendment to the Constitution that a progressive income tax became possible.
So, just where does this idea of progressive taxation come from? Since you’re running for president, General Clark, we would have hoped you would have known this. But, since you don’t, I have a little reading assignment for you. It’s a document written in 1848 by two characters named Karl Marx and Frederick Engels. It’s called the “Manifesto of the Communist Party.” “Communist Manifesto” for short.
Buried in the middle of the Communist Manifesto you will find a list of things that will have to be accomplished in the “most advanced countries” in order to bring about the realization of the dream of a proletariat revolution. You don’t have to read far on that list, General Clark, to see where just what type of government is founded on the principle of progressive taxation. Item number two reads “A heavy progressive or graduated income tax.”
So, General Clark. There you go. It’s not the United States that was founded on the principle of progressive taxation … it’s Communism. It would have been nice if Mr. Russert had been aware of this fact, but even if he were it would have made no difference. Tim Russert has made his opposition to tax cuts for people who actually pay taxes very clear over the past year.
You might also be interested in knowing, General Clark, that Item number 10 on the Communist Manifesto list is “Free education for
all children in public schools. …” That’s government schools, General Clark. You might want to avoid saying that government schools were one of the founding principles of the United States. They weren’t.
Some advice, General Clark: If you intend to pursue your run for the Vice Presidential nomination it might be advisable to refrain from citing portions of The Communist Manifesto as part of the founding principles of our country.
Yep, that is only the latest abomination against freedom which has been popularized by the War on Drugs. Predictably, property confiscation has been expanded beyond drug offenses to other crimes against the State. But when you give it a nice name like "Asset Forfeiture" it sounds so, well... progressive.
The military structure is about as socialist as it gets.
Why is this the case? Because the less surplus income a peson has, the less they are able to afford to pay taxes. But they key is to avoid brackets and to keep the rate increases moderate at all levels, so as not to punish success. Rebates and deductions are pretty ideal in this regard.
The big downside with letting the poor off the hook for taxes, however, is that they benefit from the taxes paid by others, which simply encourages them to want more entitlements. Sometimes, I think it is too bad that we've got an obsession with letting everyone vote, even if they don't understand anything about government, contribute nothing to its operation, and can't find their own country on a globe.
But it is interesting Russert gave him the serious MTP airtime he's giving to all presidential candidates, followed so closely by this speech. Maybe it's a slow news day for MSNBC, haven't heard them cover the Roe in Roe V Wade make her big announcement...no surprise there, but it seems unusual for MSNBC to cover a speech by Wesley Clark unless they think (or want it to be), significant.I'll have to check to see if other news networks are showing it too.
Uh, you need work on your dates. There was no progressive tax mentioned in the Constitution upon ratification nor part of the federal government for a decade hence - by your own dates you provide here. So Clark's statement I thought this country was founded on a principle of progressive taxation is false, as is yours.
Uh, once again, dude, there is no provision for progressive taxation in the constitution, only the ability to choose to levy such. If this country was founded on a principle of progressive taxation, it would have been part of the Constitution from the git-go, not part of a legislative action a decade later.
I guess you're one of those Clintonian types who can take events that happened a decade apart and claim they happened at the same time.
Instead of favoring "progressive" taxation the Founders actually disfavored it! The Founders were very wary of DIRECT taxation -- taxes on wealth, property, land, income, holdings, etc. Direct taxation INCLUDES "progressive" [income] taxes. They saw those as ripe for abuse, essentially not checkable by the public. Exactly what history has born out.
The Founder's favored INDIRECT -- import and export levies, sales tax, etc. Taxes on TRANSACTIONS, not holdings. Such taxation has a natural feedback from the citizens. If they can't bear it, the level of it, they reduce the transactions! No law, no vote, no insurrection -- peaceful and quiet like. Effective. A marvelously effective and potent check on abuse.
And so too history bears that out -- check out the states and their histories of sales taxation. The public is quick and fierce to hold such taxation in check.
Here is what Founder Hamilton said, in Federalist 21, December 12, 1787:
There is no method of steering clear of this inconvenience, but by authorizing the national government to raise its own revenues in its own way. Imposts, excises, and, in general, all duties upon articles of consumption, may be compared to a fluid, which will, in time, find its level with the means of paying them. The amount to be contributed by each citizen will in a degree be at his own option, and can be regulated by an attention to his resources. The rich may be extravagant, the poor can be frugal; and private oppression may always be avoided by a judicious selection of objects proper for such impositions. If inequalities should arise in some States from duties on particular objects, these will, in all probability, be counterbalanced by proportional inequalities in other States, from the duties on other objects. In the course of time and things, an equilibrium, as far as it is attainable in so complicated a subject, will be established everywhere. Or, if inequalities should still exist, they would neither be so great in their degree, so uniform in their operation, nor so odious in their appearance, as those which would necessarily spring from quotas, upon any scale that can possibly be devised.Hamilton astutely notes a major consideration, a corruptive factor, in taxing holdings. The valuation. He talks of real estate, land. Yet his reservations apply to any form of holding -- and even to that "transaction" we call income. Income comes in gross and net, and we tax the net, creating many opportunities for mischief -- all well proven in history. Even if we taxed the gross, there would be problems. For a person deserves and desires the first quaff of his own bottle.It is a signal advantage of taxes on articles of consumption, that they contain in their own nature a security against excess. They prescribe their own limit; which cannot be exceeded without defeating the end proposed, gthat is, an extension of the revenue. When applied to this object, the saying is as just as it is witty, that, "in political arithmetic, two and two do not always make four." If duties are too high, they lessen the consumption; the collection is eluded; and the product to the treasury is not so great as when they are confined within proper and moderate bounds. This forms a complete barrier against any material oppression of the citizens by taxes of this class, and is itself a natural limitation of the power of imposing them.
Impositions of this kind usually fall under the denomination of indirect taxes, and must for a long time constitute the chief part of the revenue raised in this country. Those of the direct kind, which principally relate to land and buildings, may admit of a rule of apportionment. Either the value of land, or the number of the people, may serve as a standard. The state of agriculture and the populousness of a country have been considered as nearly connected with each other. And, as a rule, for the purpose intended, numbers, in the view of simplicity and certainty, are entitled to a preference. In every country it is a herculean task to obtain a valuation of the land; in a country imperfectly settled and progressive in improvement, the difficulties are increased almost to impracticability. The expense of an accurate valuation is, in all situations, a formidable objection. In a branch of taxation where no limits to the discretion of the government are to be found in the nature of things, the establishment of a fixed rule, not incompatible with the end, may be attended with fewer inconveniences than to leave that discretion altogether at large.
I would imagine that would be the practical result if they could implement a 'perfect' progressive system.
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