Posted on 08/19/2012 6:26:32 AM PDT by Kaslin
The written testimony that Jonathan Adler and I submitted for the House Oversight Committee hearing on the Internal Revenue Service’s unlawful attempt to increase taxes and spending under Obamacare is now online. An excerpt:
Contrary to the clear language of the statute and congressional intent, this [IRS] rule issues tax credits in health insurance “exchanges” established by the federal government. It thus triggers a $2,000-per-employee tax on employers and appropriates billions of dollars to private health insurance companies in states with a federal Exchange, also contrary to the clear language of the statute and congressional intent. Since those illegal expenditures will exceed the revenues raised by the illegal tax on employers, this rule also increases the federal deficit by potentially hundreds of billions of dollars, again contrary to the clear language of the statute and congressional intent.
The rule is therefore illegal. It lacks any statutory authority. It is contrary to both the clear language of the PPACA and congressional intent. It cannot be justified on other legal grounds.
On balance, this rule is a large net tax increase. For every $2 of unauthorized tax reduction, it imposes $1 of unauthorized taxes on employers, and commits taxpayers to pay for $8 of unauthorized subsidies to private insurance companies. Because this rule imposes an illegal tax on employers and obligates taxpayers to pay for illegal appropriations, it is quite literally taxation without representation.
Three remedies exist. The IRS should rescind this rule before it takes effect in 2014. Alternatively, Congress and the president could stop it with a resolution of disapproval under the Congressional Review Act. Finally, since this rule imposes an illegal tax on employers in states that opt not to create a health insurance “exchange,” those employers and possibly those states could file suit to block this rule in federal court.
Requiring the IRS to operate within its statutory authority will not increase health insurance costs by a single penny. It will merely prevent the IRS from unlawfully shifting those costs to taxpayers.
Related: here is the video of my opening statement, and Adler’s and my forthcoming Health Matrix article, “Taxation without Representation: the Illegal IRS Rule to Expand Tax Credits under the PPACA.”
Welcome to the 0bamanation!
Seems like various career managers at IRS could be arrested and imprisoned on the afternoon of January 21 at the latest.
IMHO ...this mess doesn’t go away until We the People pull it out by the roots.
That means......no funding. Nada. Zip. Zilch. So the rats and squirrels can eat the stuffing out of the empty chairs.
You have to pass it to find out what’s in it...
“Seems like various career managers at IRS could be arrested and imprisoned on the afternoon of January 21 at the latest.”
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There will always be quislings who will cooperate with despots and participate in lawless actions. Many of these “career” officials would be members of the Senior Executive Service (SES) and while their lawless actions likely cannot be punished by imprisonment they can BE DEALT WITH. Those careerists who participated in the oppression of the American people can be offered mandatory reassignment to Guam. They can take the reassignment or retire/resign. In any case, it would be good riddance to them.
Many other despicable members of the oppressive federal career civil service would be able to escape justice of just about any kind. America is in dire need of massive reductions in the size of federal agencies, indefinite pay freezes and the phase out of “locality pay” (essentially used to give higher pay in the headquarters levels in places such as DC, San Francisco and New York.
Most federal employees long ago lost a sense of being public servants and now see themselves more as overlords and rulers. Those that don’t see themselves as “entitled” to constant high pay (regardless of amount or even existence of work), extravagant benefits and early, generous retirement.
Socialism Is Legal Plunder - Frederic Bastiat 1801-1850
Plunder and death...it's how socialists roll...over "free"/s people
DEFUND socialist collectives (especially Obamacare), foreign AND domestic. DEPOPULATE lying, con-artist socialists (especially Obama) and their enablers from the body politic and your life.
Everything about socialism is sham and affectation. - Frederic Basiat 1801-1850
After that it's easy to...
...live - free - republic/Americans
Very well-stated, House Atreides
The Law Defends Plunder
But it does not always do this. Sometimes the law defends plunder and participates in it. Thus the beneficiaries are spared the shame, danger, and scruple which their acts would otherwise involve. Sometimes the law places the whole apparatus of judges, police, prisons, and gendarmes at the service of the plunderers, and treats the victim — when he defends himself — as a criminal.
See if the law benefits one citizen at the expense of another by doing what the citizen himself cannot do without committing a crime.
Then abolish this law without delay, for it is not only an evil itself, but also it is a fertile source for further evils because it invites reprisals. If such a law — which may be an isolated case — is not abolished immediately, it will spread, multiply, and develop into a system.
In fact, this has already occurred. The present-day delusion is an attempt to enrich everyone at the expense of everyone else; to make plunder universal under the pretense of organizing it.
Frederic Bastiat 1801-1850
DEFUND it. DEPOPULATE them.
BIG government IS crony socialism. (witness history and current events)
But it doesn’t matter whether it (this particular IRS rule) is legal or not.
The NYTimes, WashPost and Obama’s ABCNNBCBS “WANT” it to be legal.
Therefore, it IS legal.
...
By the way, if the Roe vs Wade ruling making abortions legal (claiming that no government can interfere with a “private” doctor-patient relationship or decision) IS “legal” moral, ethical, and “constitutionally correct”, then how can the Obamacare decision be upheld FORCING a government panel and government funding into EVERY healthcare decision and healthcare treatment?
“The IRS should rescind this rule before it takes effect in 2014.”
Good luck.
NO YOU DON'T
Nice try at distraction from the topic which was the HIGH-LEVEL officials at the IRS who write LAWLESS regulations to oppress and illegally tax Americans.
So, I think you know very well that I was not referring to “front line” postal employees. I see these folks everyday and do know they are working very hard, doing their LEGAL jobs, providing a PUBLIC SERVICE every WORK day. I’ll ignore, for the moment, that subset of those postal workers (who are most likely union officials) who do things such as treat ABSENTEE BALLOTS as third class mail and stash them away for three weeks before introducing them into the mail-stream.
So let’s put aside the distractions and get back to HIGH-LEVEL federal employees who are in fact trying bypass the law in their writing of federal regulations that implement taxes that were not authorized by the underlying laws. Those are the folks who mistakenly think they are our overlords. THOSE lawless individuals and their illegal and oppressive actions are the subject of the opening post—and I think that you know that.
And your statement that these lawless high-level officials “...probably despise you for having this attitude...” is probably correct. Such oppressors would typically hate those of their “subjects” who object to and do not recognize the legality of the rule of such overlords.
And, by the way, you come across as one who is INTIMATELY familiar with such highly paid (above and unrestrained by the law) headquarters type folks and their attitudes.
Sorry if you think I’m being “uppity” and not having the proper attitude toward my rightful overlords and their right to rule by diktat and fiat.
Now, sarcasm aside, the top officials in all these agencies DO NOT WRITE THE RULES. They have folks on staff somewhere who specialize in that ~ and they slip stuff in. What you have in the top staff are the people who give orders, make decisions, send each other out for coffee and croissants and keep likker bottles in their large desk drawer.
Your concern in this issue is about people at the top issuing orders with no regulatory force of law behind them. Jail the bureaucrats at the top.
And yes, the greater part of the federal workforce is made up of postal employees and enlisted personnel. All those other pukes don't know sheiss!
“...the top officials in all these agencies DO NOT WRITE THE RULES. They have folks on staff somewhere who specialize in that ~ and they slip stuff in......”
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You must KNOW better than this. The criminal acts being done by the Obama administration are not (with relatively rare and widely scattered exceptions) being done by low level maverick bureaucrats “slipping stuff in”. They are being perpetrated at the specific directions that are coming down from high in the administration. There is a reason that Obama and his handlers placed Cass Sunstein in the newly created position of “the regulatory czar”.
The statists know that they can accomplish much of their agenda not by passing actual laws (for which they would not usually have the votes) but instead through use of the regulation writing process and decisions/directives coming from unelected lifetime judges. And believe me, Cass Sustein and the huge number of political appointees that Obama has scattered in positions of authority/influence throughout the various federal agencies are not spending their time “sending out for coffee and croissants”. They are instead very deliberately doing every thing they can do to advance their causes, destroy their enemies and our liberties. They are doing everything they can to destroy the American economy and productivity.
Yeah, stuff gets slipped in and causes all kinds of problems years down the line.
This is the stupidest crew I've seen in decades.
OUTSTANDING per usual, Robert A. Cook, PE
BTTT!
Interesting exchange BUMP!...music to read your posta by...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OEo9Bh679wM
I’m still not convinced that it was actually ruled “constitutional”.
The net decision being that Congress CANNOT do it under the Interstate Commerce Clause.
But Congress COULD do it if they call it a “tax”
AFAIK, the statutes were passed and they call it a PENALTY, not a tax.
The statutes as written do not conform to what the Supreme Court said about Congressional power...
I think they gotta take it back to the drawing board, the SC has ruled in the past that statutes dealing with taxes have to be STRICTLY construed.
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