Posted on 11/01/2014 6:20:33 PM PDT by OneWingedShark
So, I've been working on a little booklet to present/illustrate the reasons why the amendments are needed in addition to the amendment-text itself — I'm not entirely pleased with the justifications I've written up, and I'm not sure that these are enough for presenting to an Article V Amendment-convention, but nonetheless here they are.
I have this in my notes:
The phrase “to regulate commerce among the several states” that is found in Article 1 Section 8 of The Constitution shall limit the Federal Government solely to insuring there are no taxes, or tariffs, or restrictions, or any other barriers to free trade and free commerce between and among any of the several states and thus allow for unrestricted commerce between and among the states. Upon specific application from the Governor or chief executive of any of the several states, congress shall have the authority to mediate any trade disputes that may arise among them.
The seventeenth amendment is hereby repealed.
The Governor or chief executive of each of the several states shall determine the manner and method of selection of their United States Senators.
Beginning on the first day of January of the first year after ratification of this amendment, the sixteenth amendment and the current income tax code shall be fully repealed, and replaced with a 15 percent flat rate income tax that shall be levied against all wages earned in each of the various States and territories of the United States with no exemptions and no exceptions.
Beginning on the first day of January of the second year after ratification of this amendment, all federal taxes on income shall be wholly abolished and a 15 percent tax shall be levied against all retail sales transactions in each of the various States and territories of the United States with no exemptions and no exceptions. This tax shall be collected by each of the various States and territories of the United States and shall be transferred to the federal government on a monthly basis.
Thank you very much.
The beauty of what you are proposing is that none of them are programmatic like prohibition was.
Some huge problems of prohibition was that the terms weren't well-defined (e.g. intoxicating liquors
) and essentially left up to the bureaucracy [IIRC]; thus we had beer (with a low ABW) defined as an intoxicating liquor
after the The Volstead Act whereas prior [IIUC] it would not have so been counted.
IMO, it all boils down to keeping the ability to define things out of the government's hands.
Thus, when revoking the Congress's power to regulate the Dollar's value and explicit amount must be provided, as well as safeguards against them working around the constraints.
Or nailing down what parameters are acceptable on an income tax
— in fact, one item that would eliminate all this 501(c)3 crap w/ the IRS would be to define income
as something that only an individual person has, thus no company or organization would be subject to an income tax. (And from there, tax exempt
becomes meaningless for organizations and churches especially needn't fear the IRS stomping on their tax-exempt status.) — Such a a move would be, I think, a bit too radical a departure from what we have to be embraced by the general population.
What a mess? What a crock.
These are poorly thought out suggestions. Thankfully they will not be on any agenda for an Article V convention. Still, at least his heart is in the right palce and his head screed on relatively straight.
Unlike the “FUDmasters,” constantly cranking out the crock that an Article V Convention would open up every provision of the Constitution for revision.
Instead of blowing bad smelling smoke, why don’t you make an effort to educate yourself?
> “The seventeenth amendment is hereby repealed.”
>
>> The boss constituents behind our state assemblies are more socialist and corrupt than the general population.
Is that relevant to the general underlying intention of the founders that the Senate be representative of the States themselves?
Just because “this hurts us [now]” or “this inconveniences us [now]” doesn’t mean that altering it is a good idea — a practical example is the separation of powers with am Executive, Legislature, and Judiciary — while it might be expedient if “our President” could enact laws in the short-term, it would also allow not-”our President” to wield those same powers to our detriment.
Indeed, if we are to be Constitutionalists we must respect the Constitution especially when it is an inconvenience to us. To do anything less is to release the government from the “chains of the Constitution” to wreak havoc against us.
“...in questions of power then, let no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the constitution...”
— Thomas Jefferson
Thank you for the complement on my heart and [mostly] head.
As to these being poorly thought-out, please elaborate; I should like to see what I missed.
Unlike the “FUDmasters,” constantly cranking out the crock that an Article V Convention would open up every provision of the Constitution for revision.
Instead of blowing bad smelling smoke, why don’t you make an effort to educate yourself?
Indeed, implicit in their assertions is that not even 13 States would stand up against utter crap… and if that is the case, then there is no way to reign in or eliminate the rampant statism in government without bloodshed.
Amend the constitution to eliminate the income tax amendment and ban any taxes on property.
Amend the constitution to eliminate the ability of congress to write tax law. Federal and state. And void all existing tax law.
To finance the government amend the constitution to impose a national sales tax of 10% federal and 5% state. Provide the ability for congress to request permission from the state’s to raise the tax rate in a national emergency, but require three quarters of the state’s to approve the increase. The rate increase expires biennially unless three quarters of the state’s vote to retain it.
Amend the constitution to eliminate judical review. (This takes care of the tyrants using the courts to impose their will upon us.)
Amend the constitution to prohibit wealth transfer payments of any type by government, federal, state, and local governments. (No more vote buying using the treasury.)
These are my ideas about taxes. This is the only way to to bring the federal monster to heel. And it has the benefit of encouraging business and commerce. I agree with the return to the gold standard but we would have to work out the details. I also agree with repeal of the 17th amendment.
I can't understand how doing the work of the leftust tax exempt foundations can have a good outcome.
Point taken. On something related that you brought up, separation of powers is already violated by having a horde of lawyers in our legislatures and executive offices. It will all come out in the default and collapse caused by them and other kinds of crooks, though.
Too wordy, too specific, open to being misconstrued. I’ll stick with Marc Levin’s drafts in “The Liberty Amendments”. Simple, to the point and language appropriate to the task at hand. Like I said, though, I applaud your efforts.
To be successful we need to remain focused, however.
I'm not sure that a sales tax at the national level is a good idea, though applying a single, fixed rate to it's jurisdiction takes most opportunities for mischief out.
There's a big problem with the emergency increases measure — remember the Romney-cheerleaders claiming thet he'd issue ObamaCare exemptions to all the states? Well, those exemptions would be an excellent way to apply extortion to the states: Gee, that's a nice exemption you have there Arizona, it'd be a shame if something happened to it because you didn't extend the duration of the emergency tax-rate…
Moreover, with something like that there's a temptation to pass it as a matter of course
— the funding of the Army is an excellent example, it's in the Constitution that they aren't to be funded for more than two years at a stretch, as a discouragement from a standing army. Yet, when was the last time that the existence of the Regular Army was in doubt due to not being funded at all?
(Originally, funding for the Army was on a "commission" basis, for particular operations, just like raising the armies involved drawing men from the States.)
Amend the constitution to eliminate judicial review. (This takes care of the tyrants using the courts to impose their will upon us.)
While I agree that the black-robed god-kings need to be restrained, I'm not sure that judicial review
per se is unconstitutional; you see even in this anti-judicial review
article they explicitly state that the power of the supremem court extends to Controversies to which the United States shall be a Party
— and if the United States is not a party in matters regarding its Constitution then when is it?
Moreover, if we explicitly remove judicial review
from them it would behoove us to institute an explicit review for Constitutional issues; I am unsure what such a review body would look like, nor have I heard any particularly good ideas on the matter.
Though, it is possible that explicitly removing the power of judges to remove members of Grand Juries and reaffirm the power of the Grand Jury as an investigative body able to order prosecutions (via presentment) would be a good amendment.
(See Roger Root's )
Amend the constitution to prohibit wealth transfer payments of any type by government, federal, state, and local governments. (No more vote buying using the treasury.)
I think the Fiscal Responsibility Amendment would do that… if not how would it be avoided?
These are my ideas about taxes.
While I obviously don't agree with all of them, keep it up!
These are issues that need thought about rather than swept under the rug until tax-day, no?
(Besides, if everyone thought the same way there'd be no better ideas than what everyone else had.)
This is the only way to to bring the federal monster to heel.
I agree that a lot depends on reigning in taxation power, but there's more than just that: the special exemptions/immunities of LEOs, politicians, etc for one.
And it has the benefit of encouraging business and commerce.
I'm not sure about that — I would think a sales tax would tend to discourage buying/selling.
Could you provide an example of where sales-taxes promote more business than a universally applied flat-rate income tax?
I agree with the return to the gold standard but we would have to work out the details. I also agree with repeal of the 17th amendment.
Those details are what half of the Fiscal Responsibility Amendment is about (secs I to IV).
Fairly true — I don't think adding a no lawyer shall be appointed to the [insert branch here]
-clause would be good though.
There is some evidence that the 13th Amendment we have now overwrote
another amendment, one which would have addressed this via prohibition on titles of nobility
. Even without this there are irregularities around the 13th/14th which call into question their validity: Non-republican [Reconstruction] governments of the southern States imposed by military force and fiat, cannot ratify anything. Either the Fourteenth is legal and the anti-slavery amendment is not, or the anti-slavery amendment is legal and the Fourteenth is not.
It will all come out in the default and collapse caused by them and other kinds of crooks, though.
True; I'd rather eliminate their ability to harm the rest of us though.
Wordy, specific, and open to misconstruction? How so?
I'll admit that the financial responsibility and tax reform amendments are more convoluted than I'd like; however that would be unnecessary if the government were honorable, but its lack of honor is precisely why such amendments are now needed.
I’ll stick with Marc Levin’s drafts in “The Liberty Amendments”. Simple, to the point and language appropriate to the task at hand.
I read a few of them; some were good, others seemed to me to not be that great. (Though, I can't recall specifics at the moment.)
Like I said, though, I applaud your efforts.
Thank you; your critique is quite welcome.
>> “Is that relevant to the general underlying intention of the founders that the Senate be representative of the States themselves?”
>
> I do have one more argument. Are the states represented by the small bands of crooks hoisted into offices by their government-connected kingpins, or by all of the people of each of the states?
A very good argument; but I think that strays a little bit too much into the State’s own business — to declare that a State cannot [mis]manage itself would be tantamount to repealing the tenth amendment, no?
This is to say, that if the States are not free to abuse their own freedoms, then those freedoms don’t actually exist... just like an individual’s right to print doesn’t exist if there’s a special government approval that needs to be obtained via license. Or, in philosophical terms, “limited freewill” cannot exist: for if the choice was constrained to exclude the evilest of choices then it is no longer free but constrained to what evil is allowed by the constraining entity.
Thanks!
I don’t want to spend a lot of time on this; like I said I think your heart is in the right place and your intentions are laudable.
But, since you asked, I’ll start and end with your first item:
“No tax, federal or state, shall ever be withheld from the wages of a worker of any citizen of either.”
You don’t need to say worker; withheld from wages is enough. Unless you mean to permit withholding from wages for people other than workers. Do you want to allow withholding from wages paid to non-citizens? And what is “a worker of any citizen of either”?
“No tax on incomes shall be withheld from wages.” gets the job done without creating issues as yours does. That’s an example of what I mean.
I am generally opposed to amendments to the constitution. At least as they have been proposed in the more recent past.
I think that the repeal of several of the more recent amendments is appropriate. The 16th, 17th, 23rd, and 26th all need to be repealed.
If we are to have an income tax, which I oppose on principle that it is legalized theft. Property (real estate) taxes I am a little more understanding of, but they are paid to the locality/county so I have more input over their enactment and rates.
I particularly liked your holding the politician/bureaucrat financially responsible for violating the rights of the citizenry.
I might add that the application of pensions to elective office tenure should be prohibited. This will deincentivize the running for re-election.
Further, there should be some language that a former politician/bureaucrat cannot profit from their tenure for at least five years and that any gains so derived shall be forfeited and penalty shall be five years in prison, and when they leave prison they are penniless.
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