Thread: Why only net taxpayers should have right to vote

Why only net taxpayers should have right to vote

Jan. 24, 2010
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

VIN SUPRYNOWICZ: If you pay taxes, you should pay more

In my Jan. 3 column, I projected that Barack Obama would probably not wake up one morning this year, slap his forehead and exclaim that allowing welfare recipients to vote is a blatant conflict of interest which is quickly turning this nation into a collectivist slave state.

On the Internet, one "patrick" responded: "Vin's 'point' is that ONLY people with money get to vote. Can you point out to me where the Constitution says that, cause I musta missed it. ... I (used to think) that Vin actually believed in the Constitution; not so much anymore. I realize that this guy is even more on the fringe than the 'normal' Review-Journal self-professed 'libertarian' (closet racist, uber-nationalist, goose stepping, tax dodging, parasite) ..."

The Constitution, of course, leaves voter qualification up to the states, many of which long required property ownership (not wealth, per se) as a qualification for the franchise.

Why? Our modern youth propaganda camps, if they teach this fact at all, doubtless dismiss it as some kind of heinous trick designed to keep blacks from voting. But since blacks were largely barred from voting before 1865 anyway, why was this requirement in place long before that?

In fact, the states long set such a requirement as a wise prophylactic against the famous dictum, attributed to Alexander Fraser Tytler, Lord Woodhouse, that, "A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury."

The original link was to property ownership because (before the income tax) the main source of tax revenue was the property tax (even for the central government, which if in need of "direct" tax revenues was supposed to assess the states, per capita). Thus, anyone who owned real property was a taxpayer, with an obvious vested interest in electing only delegates who would be frugal with the tax revenues.

At the risk of belaboring the obvious, the average modern voter is going to be far less concerned about cynically wasteful or frivolous spending if he or she considers those tax revenues to come "from someone else -- you know, 'the rich.' "

In that column I offered the refinement that in the early 21st century the franchise might be extended only to "net taxpayers," to achieve the same result in a world where plenty of people appear quite wealthy, own homes and so forth, but are actually living mainly on taxpayers' funds, looted under threat of force, removing said recipients from the group who have a vested interest in seeing government limited and tax revenues spent frugally.

At this point, though, let's thank "patrick" for clarifying something that's been bothering a lot of us.

Ever since candidate Barack Obama promised he would raise taxes "only on the rich," we've been endeavoring to get the socialists/collectivists to tell us how they define "the rich." They give us hints when they talk about raising taxes on "couples making $250,000 per year" and so forth, but up till now they've declined to answer the question directly.

Now, on their behalf, correspondent "patrick" appears to have finally spilled the beans.

I wrote, in essence, that only those who are net taxpayers should vote. Patrick replies by saying "Vin's 'point' is that ONLY people with money get to vote." Since by "people with money" it's clear he doesn't mean some panhandler who just made $100 standing at the freeway exit with a tin can, we can't avoid concluding that "patrick" has thus equated "the rich" ("people with money") with "net taxpayers."

If this is true, then we can conclude the Obamanoid statement "I will raise taxes only on the rich" has a meaning identical to "I will raise taxes only on those who are already net taxpayers" -- while highly paid government leeches and their dependent welfare drones will get a pass.

Posit a couple of retired federal workers, aged 57, living together in a modest $700,000 house in the Northern Virginia suburbs of Washington City and collecting dual federal pensions worth $250,000 per year. Living with them is a grown daughter -- an unmarried schoolmarm on the government payroll -- and a grandchild attending the public schools.

The value of their federal pensions, the teacher's tax-paid salary, and the welfare benefit accruing to them as the taxpayers fund their grandchild's education exceed anything this family pays in taxes.

Therefore this entire family are "net tax recipients," not "net taxpayers." Under my proposal, they would not be allowed to vote to bolster the ranks of the tax-and-spend crowd.

On the other hand, posit a struggling young couple living on a couple of acres of cold and rocky ground in Idaho, in a small shack with no central heating or indoor plumbing, growing potatoes and home-schooling their two kids. The property taxes, sales taxes and excise taxes they pay on their tires and gasoline do exceed any tax-funded "benefit" they receive from the government. Thus, this struggling couple are net taxpayers, and would be allowed to vote under my hypothetical proposal.

Yet according to "patrick," this struggling family of home-schooling potato farmers is "richer" than the retired government employees in the $700,000 house -- unlike the government retirees, they "have money." After all, the struggling potato farmers would be allowed to vote, and "patrick" informs us that under Vin's hypothetical plan "only those with money would be allowed to vote."

In "The God of the Machine," in her chapter on "The Fatal Amendments," Isabel Paterson explains:

"The component states ... must retain a legitimate control over admission to the state's body politic, to preserve their political entities. This is the power to admit to the franchise. Race, color, or previous condition of servitude are irrelevant. They ought not to be considered disqualifications. The correct qualifications lie in local residence and allegiance and real property. Only in these requirements can a moral principle be found. ... It must be attached to immovable local property. Liquid capital will not do."

(Ms. Paterson's footnote: "The ownership and residence in a slab shack with a potato patch is a sound qualification for the vote, while ownership of every share of stock in the Standard Oil Company is not." -- end footnote.)

"These qualifications are moral as well as material, being all within the competence of the individual; a responsible person can fulfill them by his own choice and efforts. ..."

http://www.lvrj.com/opinion/if-you-pay- ... 43607.html

I totally disagree with any condition that would link net taxes with voting rights. That's totally un-American and anti-liberty. That is the globalist-elite-aristocracy coming up with that crap.

Pass the FairTax. Then no one pays taxes on their essentials, except illegal aliens and non-resident aliens who are not eligible for the FairTax Rebate, and everyone pays taxes on consumption above their essentials at their will and whim, then everyone will want good jobs and have them, secure businesses and have them, low taxes and have them and low government spending and have it too.

Wake Up People. If you haven't studied the FairTax, then you MUST do so, because it helps solve many of our problems in one simple 30 page piece of tax legislation, HB 25 and SB 296.

www.fairtax.org