Posted on 06/29/2012 6:20:10 AM PDT by Spartan79
Conservatives and libertarians are despondent today, bemoaning the perfidy of Chief Justice Roberts in his failure to join four other justices who were willing to strike down the entire monstrosity we call Obamacare. It is, indeed, a hard bullet to chew.
Perhaps we can console ourselves by entertaining thoughts about some worthy aims this newfound strange and wonderful to overcome all other constitutional hurdles to a police by just calling something a tax!
I'll start with two conservative objectives that could be advanced:
Gun ownership. Numerous studies have shown that widespread gun ownership deters crime. Those who don't own guns are "free riders", enjoying the benefits of the protection their gun-toting neighbors provide them while escaping any of the cost. Thus, I propose: a $1000 annual tax to be levied upon any adult citizen who does not provide to the IRS evidence that he/she owns and is currently qualified to use at least one firearm. Exceptions will of course be available for the disabled, blind, elderly and feeble, or others who cannot safely use a weapon.
2. Married/unmarried status. Numerous studies have demonstrated that those who are married live healthier lives and live longer than the single. Moreover, it has been conclusively demonstrated that getting married and staying married is the single best way for people and their children to stay out of poverty. Hence, I propose: a $5000 annual tax on unmarried people over the age of 21. Deferments of course should be available for those currently enrolled in college. Widows/widowers and divorced individuals will be eligible for a three-year waive, from the date of divorce or date of death of spouse.
I'm sure Freepers can think of many more suitable candidates for taxes which might further worthy conservative projects. I'll be anxioux to read some of your suggestions.
Oops! I hit post instead of preview, so a couple of typos made it through.
Oops! I hit post instead of preview, so a couple of typos made it through.
Buying a house and paying a mortgage has tax benefits, a big tax benefit for those well off enough to own their own home.
Marriage has tax benefits if only one of you works, and is a huge tax liability if both of you work.
Tax policy already has incentives to marry or not marry - and this is a tax policy that really hurts working women and their families.
But I get your point completely. It is idiotic to determine tax policy based upon favored behaviors or status; and to have tax penalties for unfavored behaviors and status.
I believe that under the concept of equal protection under the law we should all pay the same rate on income, currently around 18% IIRC.
I know I pay a lot MORE than 18%, to make up for all those who pay significantly less on incomes significantly higher (hi John Kerry, taxed at 3% on millions in income, I am talking to you).
And if we cut our government down to a reasonable and Constitutional size - we could all pay 9% or less.
But Congress, the States, and the Municipalities all seem addicted to attempting to shape public behavior based upon tax policy.
How about we tax not having a brain- liberals would go broke
And after that one passes,
pass the “broccoli bill” just to show how ridiculous this ruling is.
Roberts and his four co-conspirators would find it unconstitutional to require that citizens own firearms. But taxing citizens for not owning firearms, not so much.
Actually, as i was was thinking along these lines and how unprecedented yesterday’s ruling was, I did think of one possible precedent, but my history-fu is weak.
I have a vague recollection that at least at some point during the post-Revolutionary War era, that there were laws on the books in some places (not at the federal level, as far as I know) that required each household to provide men and arms for the militia, or pay some form of fee/fine/tax that was then used to help outfit the militia. Am I imagining this, or can someone find a reference for it?
Often, liberals use the argument that if you have a right to something the government must provide it.
Therefore, if all citizens have the right to keep and bear arms...
See I knew it would only take a day to see the real brilliance to the ruling of the supreme court in both the Arizona and Obamacare.
If the federal gov alone has the right to deport then we can go thru all the blue states with a heavy hand to clear out all illegals. We can tax any thing that we want to be promoted.
Lets tax people who do not pledge Allegiance to God and country. Man this is a great Country. It works both ways...
RE: taxing the unmarried status. When I was a girl, married people had lots of tax breaks. They had children to raise and needed encouragement to raise them well. So, they got to file taxes as a unit with exemptions for each child, etc.
Single people did not get those tax breaks. Well, some folks thought that was discriminatory, and made a fuss until all tax benefits for married couples were eliminated.
Some people actually believe that if you have no children you should not have to pay the levy taxes for schools! In fact I remember a neighbor who was a single woman, a teaching professor at the local university, - who taught elementary education classes to young college women - this woman actually complained to my Mother once that she ought not to have to pay taxes for all the school since she did not have any children. Only a brain-dead liberal would be so dimwitted.
I think we should return to the previous tax policies regarding marrieds and tax exemptions for children. There is no need to actually put a tax on unmarrieds. The former approach worked well for the first two centuries of the USA!
It’s a matter of wisdom, if not of intelligence, that society needs stable marriages in which to bring forth offspring and raise them well. Our country with its excessive permissiveness and liberalism has lost its way. We no longer value children, ot personal sexual morality.
It’s a mystery to my why liberals always bring up certain lifestyle characteristics that they want to tax - like smoking, obesity, etc. Yet, they never put for a proposed tax on out-of-wedlock sexual interocourse, or homosexual activities. The cost to society are enormous, and I needn’t list them all. But the broken lives, and homes, childrens’ bad behaviors, and medical complications, diseases, etc are rampant and very exensive. Instead, liberal actually enourage this type of behavior and want good Christian folks to pay for it. Has it never occurred to them that Mother Theresa’s Sisters of the Poor would have to take prescious funds for the poor and indigent, and give them to the government to enable sinful and harmful behaviors? Liberals who promote this type of living style are idiots of the highest order.
Make it red meat and watch vegans heads explode.
Like the Dred Scott decision, which overlooked the obvious wrong of declaring human being property, and the Kelo decision, which codified the ability of government to take property from one citizen against the original owner's will and give it to another citizen, yesterday's decision ignores an obvious and glaring wrong that on its face should have been a 9-0 ruling against the individual mandate.
The ability of the Feds to tax inaction is a grievous wrong that exposes the high court's inability to rule on the basis of principle. The tax is not a penalty, Roberts said, and after all the tax is less than the cost of insurance anyway. I suppose that's supposed to provide comfort, but it does not, at least to me.
Would a tax on not buying a new car every four years be Constitutional? Say the tax is only $10,000. After all, that's less than the cost of a new car? And the government has an interest in promoting the general welfare via safer, more fuel efficient, and less polluting new cars, doesn't it? Would Roberts be okay with that? Or have judges become Nomenklatura who will decide how to apply laws based on the special knowledge of the enlightened, perhaps divining the best course of action by consulting a wise Latina?
Roberts said it's not the Court's job to protect people from the consequences of their political choices. I wonder if the executioner whispered those words in Marie Antoinette's ears just before the blade dropped?
Demonstrating that gun ownership and marriage are beneficial to the state probably ought to isolate Democrats sufficiently to begin taxing a lot of them right off the bat.
Think of some other characteristics and we may have a winner!
Also, consider that the Roberts arguments in the Arizona case definitely justify leaving it up to the federales to have exclusive jurisdiction whenever a federal government employee, appointee or elected official are injured or killed in what we may euphemistically call 'criminal acts'.
For example, Harry Reid is driving down the highway and a drunk driver T-bones his car killing his wife, injuring his daughter and breaking his leg. The cops come ~ identify the victims, so they call in the ambulance for the now dead wife and the injured daughter. Harry gets to lay there with a broken leg until the FBI or Secret Service discover that he's been in an accident.
The crew that arrives to tow the now demolished automobile drags his body to the side of the road and tows off the wreck.
This would happen simply because there's a federal law that makes it unlawful to injure or kill such people. Their dependents would still be subject to the tender mercies of the state and local governments, but not them.
I started working on the idea years back as a sort of joke ~ just to make a point about "Exclusive Jurisdiction" having it's own negative outcomes so you really have to be careful when you invoke it.
Then Roberts and the mind-numbed robot women on the USSC come along and lift the greater part of my cynical arguments and say "see there, that is what is good, and your involvement is bad you bad boys. Stay away from those illegals".
We should be able to ram this stuff down their "proverbial" throats ~ make them actually live with the full conseaquences of their bizarre view of the world.
At a minimum, just one state cutting the federales off from ordinary police protections would probably get them to visit their physicians to check on their medications.
Better idea if Repubs get control: stop subsidizing the Left. Use the budget power to cease funding HUD, EPA, EEOC, etc. Cease all welfare funding grants to the states. Cease all federal research grants to social science departments. Etc.
Good one
Tax anybody who doesn’t document compliance with the Atkins Diet.
To add to the marriage thing, there is also evidence that hetero couples are strongest so it should be stipulated that the tax is on people who are not married to an opposite-gender person.
There are also great health benefits to having a pet, so we should tax anybody who doesn’t have a dog, cat, gerbil/hamster, or fish.
We should tax anybody who doesn’t own a generator, at least a 12’ x 12’ garden, and perhaps a bomb shelter, since there is a great possibility that every person will someday need those items.
Just a few ideas.
There is also a protective health benefit (protecting against breast cancer) to having a live child before aborting, so we should tax anybody who aborts their first child. And in fact there are great health benefits to never having an abortion so we should tax anybody whenever they have an abortion.
To make sure there are no claims of gender discrimination - there are preventive health benefits to male ejaculation so we should tax any male who can’t document that he’s ejaculated at least once a day.
They want state control of everything? Along with the broccoli law, we could make things very, very interesting for these people.
You need to read the Militia Act of 1792. It required individual purchase of arms, and taxed failure to do so. Catch is the Constitution enumerates an explicit separate power for such legislation (Congress empowered to organize & equip the militia).
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.