Senator Flake expresses concern over deficit and tax reform
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See
4 Republican Senators in Private Talks That Could Kill Current Tax Reform Bill
”Arizona Sen. Jeff Flake and Oklahoma Sen. James Lankford are among the four — enough to stop a bill that can only spare two Republican defections — who have concerns about a tax reform bill that was estimated to hike the deficit by $1.5 trillion over 10 years. The other two senators have not publicly confirmed their concerns.”
Sen. Flake continued:
“I’ve been concerned for a long time on our debt and deficit — that’s what animates me,” “There are a couple other people who are concerned as well. We can do tax reform in ways that will grow the economy but we can’t just ignore the debt and deficit.”
If Senator Jeff Flake were sincerely concerned that the House Bill may raise the deficit by $1.5 Trillion over a ten year period, he would offer an amendment to the tax reform bill dealing with the alleged concern. In fact, he could offer an amendment that would require Congress to immediately extinguish year-end deficits, should they occur, as is found in the Fair Share Balanced Budget Amendment.
"SECTION 2. Congress ought not raise money by borrowing, but when the money arising from imposts duties and excise taxes are insufficient to meet the public exigencies, and Congress has raised money by borrowing during the course of a fiscal year, Congress shall then lay a direct tax at the beginning of the next fiscal year for an amount sufficient to extinguish the preceding fiscal year's deficit, and apply the revenue so raised to extinguishing said deficit."
NOTE: Congress is to raise its primary revenue from imposts and duties, [taxes at our water’s edge], and may also lay miscellaneous internal excise taxes on specifically chosen articles of consumption. But if Congress borrows and spends more than is brought in from imposts, duties and miscellaneous excise taxes during the course of a fiscal year, then, and only then, is the apportioned tax to be laid.
"SECTION 3. When Congress is required to lay a direct tax in accordance with Section 1 of this Article, the Secretary of the United States Treasury shall, in a timely manner, calculate each State's apportioned share of the total sum being raised by dividing its total population size by the total population of the united states and multiplying that figure by the total being raised by Congress, and then provide the various State Congressional Delegations with a Bill notifying their State’s Executive and Legislature of its share of the total tax being collected and a final date by which said tax shall be paid into the United States Treasury."
NOTE: our founder’s fair share formula to extinguish an annual deficit would be:
States’ population
---------------------------- X SUM TO BE RAISED = STATE’S FAIR SHARE
Total U.S. Population
The above formula, as intended by our founding fathers, is to insure that those states who contribute the lion’s share of the tax are guaranteed a representation in Congress proportionately equal to their contribution, i.e., representation with proportional financial obligation!
Note also that each State’s number or Representatives, under our Constitution is determined by the rule of apportionment:
State`s Pop.
------------------- X House size (435) = State`s No. of Representatives
U.S. Pop.
"SECTION 4. Each State shall be free to assume and pay its quota of the direct tax into the United States Treasury by a final date set by Congress, but if any State shall refuse or neglect to pay its quota, then Congress shall send forth its officers to assess and levy such State's proportion against the real property within the State with interest thereon at the rate of ((?)) per cent per annum, and against the individual owners of the taxable property. Provision shall be made for a 15% discount for those States paying their share by ((?))of the fiscal year in which the tax is laid, and a 10% discount for States paying by the final date set by Congress, such discount being to defray the States' cost of collection."
NOTE: This section respects the Tenth Amendment and allows each state to raise its share in its own chosen way in a time period set by Congress, but also allows the federal government to enter a state and collect the tax if a state is delinquent in meeting its obligation.
"SECTION 5. This Amendment to the Constitution, when ratified by the required number of States, shall take effect no later than (?) years after the required number of States have ratified it.
The bottom line is, Jeff Flake’s alleged concern can easily be addressed with a proposed amendment similar to the above wording which would deal with possible deficits on a yearly basis. And the proposed amendment would make each State’s Congressional Delegation immediately accountable should deficits occur by requiring them to bring home a bill to their own State’s Legislature and Governor who would be stuck with paying the Bill and depleting their own state treasury, or raising additional taxes within the state which then would have to be transferred into the United States Treasury. This method of dealing with deficits would certainly create a very real moment of accountability for every State’s Congressional Delegation, and would encourage each State’s Legislature and Governor to keep a jealous eye on their own State Delegations’ spending habits to avoid the apportioned direct tax.
JWK
“…..with all these blessings, what more is necessary to make us a happy and a prosperous people? Still one thing more, fellow-citizens—a wise and frugal Government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise 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, and this is necessary to close the circle of our felicities“. Thomas Jefferson, First Inaugural Address
media personalities silent on original tax plan and fair share BBA
What is troubling is, in recent times and to the best of my knowledge, not one of our tv/radio personalities have ever discussed the merits, brilliance and wisdom of our Founder's original tax plan.
Have you ever heard Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Laura Ingraham, Schnitt, Mark Levin, Dennis Prager, Bill O'rielly, Mike Gallagher, Doc Thompson, Lee Rodgers, Neal Boortz, Mike Huckabee, Tammy Bruce, Monica Crowley, Herman Cain. Eric Bolling, Kimberly Guilfoyle, Greg Gutfeld, Dana Perino, Juan Williams, Megyn Kelly, Neil Cavuto, John Stossel, Lou Dobbs, Charles Krauthammer, Tucker Carlson, Lisa Kennedy, or any media personality discuss our Constitution’s original tax plan or the Fair Share Balanced Budget Amendment?
Unfortunately, at least not one in ten thousand people in America understand how our Constitution's original tax plan was intended to work. I wonder what the American People would think of the plan if it was explained to them and they understood how it was intended to work, especially the rule of apportioning direct taxes, and extinguishing annual deficits using the apportioned tax.
Many of our Congress critters promote a fraudulent balanced budget amendment which, if adopted, would make it constitutional to not balance the annual budget. But not one has expressed a support for extinguishing annual deficits using the no-nonsense apportioned tax, which would require each state’s Congressional Delegation to return home with a bill for its State to pay an apportioned share of an annual deficit based upon its big mouth in Congress when spending federal revenue.
JWK
Are you really ok with 45 percent of our nation’s population who pay no taxes on incomes being allowed to vote for representatives who spend federal revenue which the remaining 55 percent of our nation’s hard working and productive population has contributed into our federal treasury via taxes on incomes when our Constitution requires “Representatives and direct taxes Shall be apportioned among the Several States”?
Unlike FoxNews, Washington Post explains apportionment of direct taxes
See: The Constitution’s financial terms, part IV: The apportionment rule
OCTOBER 23RD, 2015
”Behind the apportionment requirement was this unifying principle: At least in the lower legislative chamber, taxation should be coupled with representation. This principle had been a justification for the Revolution, and no one active in the debates over the Constitution seems to have overtly disagreed with it. The framers saw the practical application of this principle in an apportionment rule that tailored each state’s tax burden to its congressional representation.”
The article goes on to emphasize the rule of apportioning direct taxes was ”…designed to assure impartial federal treatment of the several states. Without the apportionment rule, a congressional majority from one group of states might vote to extract a disproportionate share of revenue from the rest.”
Today, our socialists, communists, liberals and progressives in Congress are using the power of direct taxation to enter each state and seek out the most productive hard working citizens and businesses in each state who are then taxed directly, and forced to contribute an unequal tax burden than a State’s lazy and unproductive citizens, even though our Constitution specifically requires any direct tax upon individuals, requires apportionment ___ a rule which works out to be an equal per capita tax.
Like I have been saying for over thirty years, real tax reform begins with the following 32 words which are found in the Fair Share Balanced Budget Amendment:
“SECTION 1. The Sixteenth Amendment is hereby repealed and Congress is henceforth forbidden to lay ``any`` tax or burden calculated from profits, gains, interest, salaries, wages, tips, inheritances or any other lawfully realized money.
Has anyone in this forum ever heard Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Laura Ingraham, Schnitt, Mark Levin, Dennis Prager, Bill O'rielly, Mike Gallagher, Doc Thompson, Lee Rodgers, Neal Boortz, Mike Huckabee, Tammy Bruce, Monica Crowley, Herman Cain. Eric Bolling, Kimberly Guilfoyle, Greg Gutfeld, Dana Perino, Juan Williams, Megyn Kelly, Neil Cavuto, John Stossel, Lou Dobbs, Charles Krauthammer, Tucker Carlson, Lisa Kennedy, or any media personality discuss our Constitution’s rule of apportioning direct taxes or the Fair Share Balanced Budget Amendment?
JWK
If, by calling a tax indirect when it is essentially direct, the rule of protection could be frittered away, one of the great landmarks defining the boundary between the nation and the states of which it is composed, would have disappeared, and with it one of the bulwarks of private rights and private property. POLLOCK v. FARMERS' LOAN & TRUST CO., 157 U.S. 429 [1895]
FoxNews needs to fact check before publishing fake assertions about apportionment
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See Our abominable income tax system
By Ken Hoagland Published April 15, 2015 Fox News
”Taxing income itself was originally specifically banned by the Founding Fathers as immoral. Only the ratification of the 16th amendment in February 1913 allowed our federal government to legally apportion direct taxes. The legislation itself began as a dare to Congressional Republicans, many of whom who voted for it believing states would never ratify such an expansion of federal powers.”
Contrary to the above mentioned article, our original Constitution actually required, and still requires to this very date that “direct taxes” are to be apportioned. See Article 1, Section 2, Clause 3. “Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States . . . “
The first apportioned direct tax was laid 1798, well before 1913. See, the Act of July 14, 1798, c. 75, 1 Stat. 53 which imposed an apportioned direct tax upon real estate and a capitation tax upon slaves.
It should also be emphasized that our Supreme Court has repeatedly confirmed that “direct taxes” are still, in spite of the 16th Amendment, still required to be apportioned!
In Eisner v. Macomber 252 U.S. 189, 206 (1920), which ruled on a tax asserted by Congress to be an income tax, the tax was struck down as being a direct tax and requiring an apportionment. The Court stated:
"Thus, from every point of view we are brought irresistibly to the conclusion that neither under the Sixteenth Amendment nor otherwise has Congress power to tax without apportionment a true stock dividend made lawfully and in good faith, or the accumulated profits behind it, as income of the stockholder. The Revenue Act of 1916, in so far as it imposes a tax upon the stockholder because of such dividend, contravenes the provisions of article 1, 2, cl. 3, and article 1, 9, cl. 4, of the Constitution, and to this extent is invalid, notwithstanding the Sixteenth Amendment."
And in BROMLEY VS MCCAUGHN, 280 U.S. 124 (1929), the Court found the tax there to be an "excise" tax. but emphatically stated “As the present tax is not apportioned, it is forbidden, if direct.”
And let us not forget what Justice Roberts stated in the Obamacare case dealing with what is called "The shared responsibility payment". He wrote: ”"The shared responsibility payment is thus not a direct tax that must be apportioned among the several States."
Perhaps someday FoxNews will have someone on to clear up many of the misconceptions and myths concerning the rule of apportionment, direct taxes, and explain why the Founders were united in requiring “Representatives and direct taxes shall be apportioned among the several States.”
JWK
