I’ve said my piece - the tax brackets apply to everyone, even if not everyone is successful enough to have income in all of those brackets. That some income is taxed at higher rates doesn’t matter since the same rates apply to anyone with income in those brackets. That’s all equal protection requires. This equal protection argument has not be effective since 1913, and if there’s one thing people would do, it would be to challenge their tax bills under every conceivable argument. Good night.
“This equal protection argument has not been effective since 1913”
How long was seperate but equal legal before it was overturned? Korematsu has still not been overturned after 70-plus years and everybody in the country knows it’s wrong. We’ve had obviously unconstitutional policies for decades upon decades, from regulation of interstate commerce that isn’t commerce or interstate to the draft to sedition, and so on.
You’re telling me what? That they get grandfathered in, or that time settles all disputes? Banana oil. I guarantee you think something’s illegal that’s been around for ages.
“if there’s one thing people would do, it would be to change their tax bill under every conceivable argument.”
Have you any idea how hard it is to strike down laws? Especially laws that have spawned entire departments. The courts are part if government, after all. They wouldn’t stand in the way of what the central government needed to live (in the style to which it had become accustomed).
I beg you to read US v Caroline Products Co and its infamous footnote four. SCOTUS grants laws a presumption of constitutionality. Why? No reason, really. Unless, that is, they affect:
1. voting/the political process
2. “insular minorities”
3. prima face violations of the Constitution, including explicitly mentionedrights in the Bill of Rights (except the right to bear arms, or whatever else they don’t like)
Cases falling within such bounds are subject to “strict scrutiny.” Everything else is assumed to be constitutional if it passes the lower “rational basis” bar. Which means the state has to have some reason, whatever it may be. Mere “economic rights” fall under rational basis, which explains why equal protection arguments against progressive rates fail. Note how poll taxes on voting were struck down even though they are economic in nature because it dealt with voting.
There is no rational basis fir the strict scrutiny/rational basis division, nor the presumption of constitutionality. Like I said, it came from a footnote. But because of it, I can confidently say your argument that it’s been a hundred years and the equal protection defense would have been tried by now is toothless.
“the tax brackets apply to everyone”
How can you say that with a straight face when you know different brackets apply to different people?
“even if not everyone is successful enough to have income in all of those brackets”
But if you are more successful than someone else in a different bracket how do all brackets apply to everyone? That’s the opposite.
“That some income is taxed at higher rates doesn’t matter”
Are you saying it is unequal but doesn’t matter, or just plain doesn’t matter?
“since the same rates apply to anyone with income in those brackets”
Why are we talking about equality within brackets again? If you know those are equal, surely you know different brackets are unequal. I know you do.
“That’s all equal protection requires”
Not according to Brown v Board of Education. Blacks were equal in the black bracket and whites in the white bracket. But somehow it wasn’t enough.
By the way, I absolutely guarantee you SCOTUS won’t deny like you that progressive rates are unequal. They simply will apply rational basis instead of strict scrutiny and say the state having a legitimate interest in raising money is enough to get around equal protection.
Whoops, I meant Carolene Products.