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No, a wealth tax is not unconstitutional

In response to a discussion about Elizabeth Warren’s so-called “wealth tax,” I recently had someone ask “How exactly does a wealth tax (which is not income) conform to the sixteenth amendment?”  (“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.”)

Well, first let’s discuss the 16th and why it was passed. I will quote from this wonderful new book called “How to Argue the Constitution with a Conservative”:

You’d think it would be obvious that a country can ask its citizens for an income tax, right? Well, the United States had an income tax, too, ever since the Civil War. But when Congress tried to tax income from rental properties, well, that was the last straw. The 1% flew into a rage and a majority of the Supreme Court agreed that some income wasn’t really income. (It’s actually a lot more complicated than that, but let’s not write an essay here.) The only way to overturn a Supreme Court decision is to amend the Constitution, so that’s what we did, while pointing to the 1% and giving a Nelson laugh.

Chico: Taxes? I got an uncle living in Taxes.
Groucho: No, taxes … money, dollars …
Chico: That’s where he lives! Dollars, Taxes

The passage of the 16th amendment doesn’t mean all other forms of taxes are unconstitutional. After all, there are tariffs and capital gains taxes and inheritance taxes and property taxes and so on, and there were before and after the 16th amendment.
We have a wealth tax now — it’s called “property tax.” All Warren is proposing is that we start including other things into that tax besides your house, such as your yacht and private plane and your various investments — things that will not affect 99% of Americans in the slightest.

When you look at it that way, a wealth tax is an income tax, which is perfectly constitutional under the 16th amendment. It just means that the progressive tax we now have (where the % you pay goes up the more you have) gets to be like it was back when Eisenhower was President.

One problem is that many people don’t understand is how progressive tax works. When you hear that the top tax rate under Eisenhower was 94% you think, “Wow! Millionaires only got to keep 6% of their income?”

But that’s not how it works. You pay a certain percentage up to a specific amount. For instance, our current tax rates look something like this:

10% on taxable income from $0 to $8,700, plus
15% on taxable income over $8,700 to $35,350, plus
25% on taxable income over $35,350 to $85,650, plus
28% on taxable income over $85,650 to $178,650, plus
33% on taxable income over $178,650 to $388,350, plus
35% on taxable income over $388,350, plus
40% on taxable income over $400,000

If you earn more than $400,000, it doesn’t mean the government gets 40% of your $400,000. It means they get 10% of your income under $8,700 and then 15% on your income between $8,700 and $35,350, and so on. The highest rate is only for whatever income you have over $400,000. That’s how we were able to have tax rates in the 90% range on the very very wealthy without bankrupting them (while at the same time providing for budget surpluses). It’s also how we were able to have a balanced budget, pay for infrastructure like highways and roads, have very cheap public colleges, and otherwise do the sorts of things that make America great.

 

 

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A Veterans Day Reminder

Just a reminder to all my veteran friends that the $2 million fine Trump had to pay last week was because he had stolen the money from a veteran’s benefit.

Happy Veterans Day!

 

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The hospitality business

hospitality

Chris Britt

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Pennsylvania: Vote no on question 5 (victim rights)

Look, we’re all in favor of victim rights — District Attorneys now do what the can to help victims, and there are already laws that protect victims in many ways.

Marsy’s Law is on the ballot as a Constitutional amendment here in Pennsylvania on Tuesday, and everyone should vote “no.”  Voting “no” doesn’t mean you’re against victim rights; it means you’re against bad law.  And especially bad law that shouldn’t be in the Constitution in the first place.

The ACLU has stated its reasons for opposing this law and just won an injunction against it (which they filed along with the League of Women Voters). An injunction means that even if it passes, it will not go into effect until there is a hearing on its constitutionality. The reason the injunction was granted is because Pennsylvania requires that any addition to the constitution must have only one provision, and this has many parts. We are supposed to vote for each part individually.

But let me explain in simpler language why this is a bad idea, and why even the District Attorneys and judges I know are against it:

This would give victims rights equal to if not greater than the rights we give defendants in criminal cases. Victims, of course, do not face the entire power of the government against them like defendants do and victims have no chance of going to jail. There is a reason we give defendants many rights. This amendment would give victims the right to refuse to present evidence prior to a trial, to refuse to attend a deposition, to demand that trials not be continued, and to basically dictate to the District Attorney how to proceed in the case.

In other words, it takes the discretion away from the prosecutor to decide how — and even if — to proceed in a case.

It’s not often you get defense attorneys and prosecutors agreeing, but this time, they pretty much do.

Here’s the thing: I’ve dealt with victims, and the DAs and judges have dealt with victims and — stay with me here — sometimes the victim is wrong. Sometimes the victim is even lying.

Sometimes victims are like “My neighbor’s dog keeps crapping on my lawn, and you won’t arrest him and throw him in jail!” Sometimes they’re angry wives and husbands who exaggerate fights and even lie to get even with someone they’re mad at. Sometimes they’re crazy.

Thanks to this new law, these victims can demand that the DA take action, taking away the DA’s power to decide which cases to prosecute. This amendment apparently allows them to demand that a case be heard quickly when sometimes that is not the way to achieve justice, especially if there are preliminary motions that must be filed and investigations that have to be completed.

Should victims be heard? Absolutely. Should they dictate to everyone else how the system of justice should operate? Of course not.

Vote no.justice

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Obama and the 57 States

Recently, one of those crazy Trump supporters tried to defend Trump’s many gaffes by saying, “Oh yeah? Well, Obama once said there were 57 states!”

All you have to do is watch the video of Obama saying “I’ve been to 50 …” and then there’s one of those long Obama pauses, and then he realizes that he had only been to 47 states, and then he says “…7 states” because he had a brain fart like all of us have and forgot he had said 50 and thought he had said 40.

Does anyone really think a professor of Constitutional Law and United States Senator who graduated from Columbia and Harvard doesn’t know how many states we have?

I’ll bet if people followed you around all day for years and recorded everything you said, you’d have a few examples as well.

And seriously, if that is the only example you can find of Obama misspeaking — compared to the daily ones Trump has — you’re really showing your bias here.

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Moral Bankruptcy

bankruptcy

Nick Anderson

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Democrats: Stop trying to appeal to people who will never vote for you

Look.

There’s like 33% of the population who will never vote for Democrats no matter what (as we have seen, based on those who are supporting Trump no matter what). These are almost all the same people who also think gay marriage should be illegal and blacks should know their place and women should be subservient and Christians should run everything.

So Democrats: Stop trying to appeal to them. Stop being afraid to standing up for what is right. It’s not going to work. All it does is discourage the majority of Americans from supporting you, because they don’t think you actually believe in anything.

Elizabeth Warren was recently asked a question about how she would respond to an “old-fashioned” supporter who believes marriage is between one man and one woman.warren
“I’m going to assume it is a guy who said that,” Warren replied, “And I’m going to say, ‘Well, then just marry one woman. Assuming you can find one.”

Ooh, snap. Some people loved it and some Democrats sweated buckets and said, “Oh, goodness gracious! She’s going to alienate some voters with that!”

Well, no, she isn’t. The kind of person who would be insulted by a comment like that would never consider voting for her in the first place.

Republicans know this. They don’t care a bit about trying to appeal to a “middle.” They say what they think. Of course, they are more confident of winning because they cheat (through gerrymandering, voter suppression, voter purges, voting machines that don’t leave paper trails and their buddy the Electoral College, but that’s a separate topic).

Democrats are always advised to “reach for the middle” and that makes them afraid to say anything that may alienate a pretend group that would consider voting for them “if only.” That group does not exist. We are the majority. We are the mainstream.

And we should act like it.

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Talking about the Constitution

Here’s my radio interview about my latest book “How to Argue the Constitution with a Conservative” with Vincent Ford on Gynesis Radio. Check it out!

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Warren the Cougar

So a bunch of right-wing trolls decided they’d hold a press release so some young guy could claim he had an affair with Elizabeth Warrren. No one believed him, especially after it came out that he is a convicted felon who had lied about his military experience and responded to the question “Are you on any kind of medication?” with “That’s a violation of the privacy laws concerning medical records” (which is totally what people who are not on medication say).

Bette Midler had a great response:
midler

But then Elizabeth Warren came out and admitted that yes, she is a Cougar:
cougarThis is how you deal with trolls like these: laugh at them.

Of course, that doesn’t stop these idiots who somehow think they’re making some grand point or are pulling a fast one. Take this Trump-supporting girl who showed up at an Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez meeting, pretending to be a supporter, who made a ‘modest proposal’ that we all needed to save the planet by eating babies. It wasn’t long before Trump tweeted “Seems like a normal AOC supporter to me.”

AOC responded like a human being does, saying “This person may have been suffering from a mental condition and it’s not okay that the right-wing is mocking her and potentially make her condition or crisis worse. Be a decent human being and knock it off.”

Of course, it didn’t take long for people to discover that this was just another stupid troll from the right.

That, of course, won’t stop AOC’s detractors from sharing the video and trying to claim this person is one of ours. After all, they have demonstrated many times that facts don’t matter.

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Excuses, excuses

I’m sorry I haven’t updated the blog in a while; I’ve been (a) busy promoting my new book “How to Argue the Constitution with a Conservative” and (b) going on a long-needed vacation to Universal Orlando.  And then, of course, when I return, my desk at the law office is covered with files and messages I have to take care of…

So forgive me for just sharing some pictures today of my vacation!  🙂