| TheRealMafoo said:
LOL, again... WHERE HAVE I SAID ANYTHING ABOUT A PROGRESSIVE TAX!?!?!?!?! My god people. For college folk, you sure have poor comprehension :p I am actually OK with a progressive tax, if done right (and the US does it right). The progressive tax in this country only changes the tax rate on the additional money earned. So if I make 200K and someone else makes 40K, I pay the same tax on the first 40K as they pay. We both pay the same tax rate on the additional 160K, theirs is just calculated against zero dollars :p. Nothing wrong with that. What I have a problem with is, for example, the government saying I am going to pay taxes on a healthcare system that I am not qualified to take advantage of. Taking my money, and giving me NOTHING in return for it, is unconstitutional. You can disagree with me if you like, but you would be wrong. |
Your whole basis for your argument is that this is somehow unconstitutional. The Constitution says you can't be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law (5th amendment) and the Declaration of Independence says you are entitled to the pursuit of life, liberty, and happiness.
This is the preamble to the Constitution:
We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility,defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
And Congress reserves the right to:
The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;
Right there, you see those bolded words. That is a broad swath of power the Founding Fathers intended to give Congress because the Articles of Confederation were horribly limited and were an absolute failure. Congress could use the money it raises from taxes however it sees fit, and the public has a check on how they use that money because everyone in the House of Representatives is elected every two years, and conversely can be ousted every two years. New taxes can only originate from the House.
There is nothing in the Constitution that says it is outside Congress's constitutional power to take your money and use it for the general welfare, such as universal healthcare or whatever else. The Founding Fathers left a lot of freedom in there. But the power you have over Congress is you can vote for who you want to be in office.
So really everything you are claiming is based off your flawed interpretation of the Constitution. Congress can take your money and use it for whatever they see fit to promote the general welfare, and in return you can either elect them back into office if you like what they are doing or elect someone else if you don't.
We had two bags of grass, seventy-five pellets of mescaline, five sheets of high-powered blotter acid, a salt shaker half full of cocaine, a whole galaxy of multi-colored uppers, downers, screamers, laughers…Also a quart of tequila, a quart of rum, a case of beer, a pint of raw ether and two dozen amyls. The only thing that really worried me was the ether. There is nothing in the world more helpless and irresponsible and depraved than a man in the depths of an ether binge. –Raoul Duke
It is hard to shed anything but crocodile tears over White House speechwriter Patrick Buchanan's tragic analysis of the Nixon debacle. "It's like Sisyphus," he said. "We rolled the rock all the way up the mountain...and it rolled right back down on us...." Neither Sisyphus nor the commander of the Light Brigade nor Pat Buchanan had the time or any real inclination to question what they were doing...a martyr, to the bitter end, to a "flawed" cause and a narrow, atavistic concept of conservative politics that has done more damage to itself and the country in less than six years than its liberal enemies could have done in two or three decades. -Hunter S. Thompson
