Tax Day

The cure for the evils of democracy is more democracy!

H. L. Mencken, Notes on Democracy, 1926

In facetious ‘honor’ of this being the week that federal law mandates the submission of income tax filings, the Madison Conservative is presenting an abbreviated version of the blog this week to provide some insight into the current realities of income tax law and the hypocrisy of the Obama administration in its continued histrionics relative to ‘tax fairness’.  The President has been continually haranguing the electorate that those who can afford to pay more in taxes should do so, in order to demonstrate their patriotism.

Consider these facts about the tax system in this nation and the incredulity of the two most powerful men in the world with regard to the tax ‘fairness’ issue.

First, here is the idea of taxation as intended by the framers and founders of this country:

The United States Constitution, Article I, Section 9:

No Capitation, or other direct, Tax shall be laid, unless in Proportion to the Census or enumeration herein before directed to be taken

Concisely and specifically written; to demonstrate the dangers of a Congress acting ‘in the best interests of fairness to the nation', consider the sixteenth amendment to our august governing document:

The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several States, and without regard to any census or enumeration.

A direct reversal of the founders’ intent, and one that has become a blight and a plague upon the freedom of the American people.

There is also this fact to confirm the belief of the American people that they are in fact being taxed too much and that indeed this nation does not have a taxation problem, it has a definite spending problem – (please note the dates provided – they occur AFTER Tax Day):

April 18 will be Tax Freedom Day, the day when Americans have worked enough to pay all of their federal and state taxes for 2013 – a round total of $4.22 trillion, according to an analysis done by the Tax Foundation.

That's five days later than in 2012.

Americans will pay more than $2.76 trillion in federal taxes and $1.45 trillion in state taxes for 2013 -- for a total of $4.22 trillion in taxes, or 29.4 percent of income. (Figures are rounded.)

April 18 is the 108th day of the year, or 29.4 percent of the calendar year.

Mitt Romney was chastised mercilessly by the political left when it was revealed that his tax rate was a shade over 15%. He was accused of squirreling money away in off shore accounts, and the point was raised about his ‘economic patriotism’ for having such a low rate. The mass media went apoplectic that his rate was not closer to the accepted ‘fair’ rate of 39%, the intended target of “tax equity’, so that the middle class would not have to pay for ‘tax cuts for the rich’.

In that context, consider this official government release:

President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama paid $112,214 in federal income taxes in 2012 on adjusted gross income of $608,611, an effective rate of 18.4%, the White House said Friday.

Finally, a favorite of the Madison Conservative. There are many terms to describe this type of arrogance and outright theft. It is a fitting encapsulation of exactly what is wrong with the political class, the tax system and the mindset of a bloated and ineffective government.

To wit:

Vice President Joe Biden and his wife, Dr. Jill Biden, took in $26,400 in 2012 by renting a cottage on the property of their Delaware home to the Secret Service, tax records released by the White House revealed.

They netted $17,944 of that rental money.

The namesake of this blog would be appalled.

The tax-paying electorate of America should be equally outraged and figuratively take pitchforks in hand and storm the castle.

The Sixteenth Must Go

“In order to form a more perfect union”.

The founders and the framers knew that the Constitution they had written was not perfect and thus this specific phrase contained within the preamble is testament to their belief that subsequent generations would need to amend it and so they created the constitutional mechanisms necessary to do just that.

Throughout our history the overwhelming majority of the amendments to the Constitution have been instituted in the pursuit of that elusive goal of a more perfect union. There have been two specific amendments however have been so ill conceived that one has been repealed and one must be rescinded for the country to fully prosper as it moves well into its third century of being.

One of these two aforementioned amendments passed was intended to regulate conduct by passing legislation aimed at outlawing the creation of a specific item of commerce – alcohol. This led to a decade (1920 -1933) known popularly as Prohibition. The folly of using the United States Constitution for this type of social engineering was repealed and to date there have been no further attempts to amend the Constitution based upon personal conduct.

The second of these amendments is the only one that directly contradicts the intent of the framers and the founders and has become such a blight upon the nation that it must be repealed.

The founding fathers wrote the following very specific language into the Constitution ( Article 1, section 9 )

No Capitation, or other direct, Tax shall be laid, unless in Proportion to the Census or Enumeration herein before directed to be taken.

Their intent was clear: to distribute the required and necessary financial needs of government evenly amongst the states via their respective population. There was never a thought to taxing income, which mandates that the government will first attach your earnings and decide how much of what you have earned you may keep. This is not how the founders intended to fund the cost of democracy. In no way intended to be presented here as the definitive or thorough discussion on the arguments encountered during the debate on the Constitution, the following quote attributed to Thomas Jefferson nevertheless best encapsulates the founders’ firm belief on the nature of how their fledgling nation should be construed:

A wise and frugal government, which shall leave men free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned - this is the sum of good government.

In an act of legislative malfeasance which best exemplifies the dictum of unforeseen consequences, the Congress passed the sixteenth amendment which reads, in its entirety as thus:

The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several States, and without regard to any census or enumeration.

This completely reversed the intent of the framers of the Constitution. It has led to allowing the government to be first in line to take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned, and for generations to believe that such actions are a de facto part of American democracy.

This is not the American way.

There is no argument amongst the populace that there needs to be proper funding of the government, but an income tax is not the vehicle for that need.

The sixteenth amendment must be repealed.