The plaintiffs’ arguments in Moore v. United States have little basis in law — unless you think that a list of long-ago-discarded laissez-faire decisions from the early 20th century remain good law. And a decision favoring these plaintiffs could blow a huge hole in the federal budget. While no Warren-style wealth tax is on the books, the Moore plaintiffs do challenge an existing tax that is expected to raise $340 billion over the course of a decade.
But Republicans also hold six seats on the nation’s highest Court, so there is some risk that a majority of the justices will accept the plaintiffs’ dubious legal arguments. And if they do so, they could do considerable damage to the government’s ability to fund itself.
there’s literally a constitutional amendment saying congress can issue taxes however they want. The supreme court is so full of its own shit they think they can rewrite every law they don’t like.
That’s why they’ve been stacking the courts with conservative activists for so long, so they could get a majority that would go along with these paper-thin justifications for completely changing our society from the top down.
Well said.
The stated goal of “originalism” is to read the Constitution without interpretation.
Which would be bad enough, since it was written by a bunch of slavers without any input from women whatsoever.
But in reality it is impossible to read something (especially law) without interpretation; they simply start with the desired conclusion and look for any historical justification no matter how implausible.
But in reality it is impossible to read something (especially law) without interpretation
Some people might see that as a challenge, so I’d state it even more bluntly: reading is interpretation. Reading without interpretation is not just impossible; it’s an oxymoron.
I would hope every single high school graduate could remember the simple pictograph of how communication works:
- Person A has an idea -
- Person A encodes the idea and transmits it -
- Person B receives the transmission and decodes it -
- Person B has the idea-
- Reverse the process for feedback and confirmation of idea -
That encoding bit is pretty important…
So cool, because this is also how tcp/ip works.
What amendment is that? Because the 16A doesn’t say that - and neither does the core document, which is why we needed the 16A.
Which amendment is that? Because the sixteenth amendment very specifically mentions taxes on income, not wealth.
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.
Article 1, section 8:
The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises […]
Given that the 16th Amendment exists expressly in order to establish a federal income tax, it’s probably safe to say that this has not been understood as an unlimited power of taxation.
Pollock v. Farmers’ Loan & Trust Company is the relevant SCOTUS case, if you’re curious. The tl;dr is that 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.
states that revenues raised by a “direct tax”, which includes income taxes, from a given state must be proportional to that state’s population relative to the rest of the country. Income isn’t evenly distributed among the states, so income taxes violate this provision. That’s why the 16th amendment specifically exempts income taxes from that requirement:
The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on income, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several States, and without regard to any census or enumeration.
The basic idea was that, if Congress needed to raise a bunch of money for some large project, they can’t go targeting specific states for it.
The Supreme Court in Stanton v. Baltic Mining Co. added that the “Sixteenth Amendment conferred no new power of taxation but simply prohibited the previous complete and plenary power of income taxation possessed by Congress from the beginning from being taken out of the category of indirect taxation to which it inherently belonged.” 240 U.S. 112 (1916).[30]
That effect was reaffirmed in Bowers v. Kerbaugh-Empire Co., 271 U.S. 170 (1926), in which the Supreme Court reviewed Pollock, the Corporation Excise Tax Act of 1909, and the Sixteenth Amendment. The Court concluded, “It was not the purpose or effect of that amendment to bring any new subject within the taxing power. Congress already had power to tax all incomes.”
The Sixteenth Amendment exists not because of the limitations imposed by Pollock v. Farmers, but because Congress was concerned that the Supreme Court might strike down further income tax laws even though they were within the powers conferred by Article 1. Congress thought the Supreme Court had gone too far (and they likely did) and wasn’t sure how far they would go so they took it out of the Supreme Court’s hands.
Funnily enough you’re talking about circular logic. One is saying congress has the expressed right to tax and cannot be limited by the Supreme Court. Now you’re saying the Supreme Court has already limited congresses power to tax…
Er, no?
I’m saying that the Constitution, Article I Section 9, imposes a limit on Congress’s ability to issue taxes. The Sixteenth Amendment was passed to specifically exempt income taxes from that limit, which is what authorized the federal income tax. There is a very real legal argument that a wealth tax, which is a fundamentally different kind of tax, does not fall under the Sixteenth Amendment exemption and thus is constitutionally restricted.
I might not have explained that super clearly, so genuinely, feel free to ask if I was confusing at all.
Not an amendment.
Yeah, because before we only had wealth taxes. We had to add income.
This is also false. A quick glance at Wikipedia suggests that tariffs were a prime revenue source for the federal government.
…How do you obtain wealth without income?
I assume that’s kindof the issue here. The wealth can’t of come from nowhere. It’s just 2nd grader loopholes.
There’s a very meaningful difference. Wealth is a function of the value of your stuff, which is determined by other people at large, not you, while $20 is $20, always.
A family who bought a rundown brownstone building in Brooklyn back in the 70s is now extremely wealthy, completely independent of income. Wealth can be obtained by other people simply deciding that your stuff is now more valuable than it was before, whether that be property, art, company shares, resources, or anything else. Money obtained by selling stuff generally is treated very differently than income, usually under capital gains taxes.
They not even hiding it now. They control the court, so they control the law.
This is one issue where I get angry with the democrats. They could have stacked the courts a long ass time ago and prevented shit like this.
This is one issue where I get angry with the democrats. They could have stacked the courts a long ass time ago and prevented shit like this.
When? They pushed through candidates when they could, but they had to change the Senate rules during the Obama administration just to end Republican filibusters on non-controversial nominees. The news was all over both the backlog of empty seats and the need for Democrats to change the rules just to get what nominees they could past Republicans.
And of course, that ended once Republicans took the Senate.
Bad idea but fun to fantasize about: use some of those patriot act powers I assume exist to drag Republican Congress people off to detention centers because they’re enemy combatants. Suddenly Democratic super majority, fewer traitors in government, and an unbearably bad precedent set for the next time Republicans have power.
On the other hand, trump is probably going to try that kind of thing anyway.
On the other hand, trump is probably going to try that kind of thing anyway.
Correct. According to Project 2025, they’ll use an old provision in the Constitution to justify using the military to round up anyone who they deem a dissenter. I think there’s a later law that prohibits the deployment of troops on American soil, but they’re confident they’ll have the courts on their side.
Deploying the military on home soil isn’t new
They did it for the Rodney King riots
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posse_Comitatus_Act
It’s one thing to deploy it as a response to an emergency. It’s another to plan ahead of time to use it to stage a coup.
Staging an emergency isn’t that hard, and the courts are on their side
That’s why they’re planning it. There’s plenty of law and precedent against it, but they know all they need is the thinnest veneer of an excuse to get their partisan justices to rule in their favor.
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They tried changing the rules, but were blocked by Manchin and Sinema. Were you asleep at the time?
oh right I keep forgetting about that part
The Democratic Party’s ability to legislate wass brought to its knees by an administrative staffer (the parliamentarian) and enshrined themselves to be hamstrung by the filibuster.
Republicans fired the last parliamentarian that threw up a roadblock and they threw out the filibuster just for themselves to install the SCOTUS that exists now.
The rules could have always been changed and power could always have been leveraged and exercised. It is a conscious choice not to.
You really super duper don’t want to get rid of the filibuster because it’s the only thing preventing Republicans from ranking through all kinds of crazy shit
They currently control the house, and while they’ll probably lose it in '24, they will absolutely control it (and almost certainly the Senate) again some day.
If they keep the fillibuster, they should make it so you have to keep talking. Actually get up there and talk for 20 hours if you hate the bill so much.
I’d absolutely love that, personally.
The GOP will dumpster the filibuster, like they have, the moment they have the votes. The remaining effect being it only serves as a self imposed limitation by the Democratic Party.
The GOPs lack of a majority is what prevents them from passing crazy shit. The Democrats not passing anything when they have the votes, the power, or the chance is one of the largest factors in enabling the GOP into the majority.
The GOP will dumpster the filibuster, like they have, the moment they have the votes
They’ve never done this
The Democrats not passing anything when they have the votes, the power, or the chance is one of the largest factors in enabling the GOP into the majority.
This flies in the face of concurrent years of dem wins in the house/senate.
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Yup. Same question.
I don’t really expect an answer.
Do any of these fucken galaxy brains stop for a second to think what reality would be like the minute the government can’t fund itself? Because, I do, and I’m targeting their houses first.
“My goal is to cut government in half in twenty-five years, to get it down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub.” - Grover Norquist, Republican lobbyist
That sounds like some shit a dude with the name Grover would say. Is he also the monster at the end of this book?
If the book is titled “Imagine What America Would Look Like if a Single Shitbag Convinced Republicans to Vote Against Every Tax Increase for Thirty Years”, then yes, yes he is.
We are long overdue to cut out these middlemen in our representation. Not saying I know how, but it seems like even a small amount of power corrupts absolutely.
Step 1. Reallocate our Netflix subscriptions to lobby congress for free Netflix.
Step 2. With free Netflix and a new lobbying powers get other shit done.
Yes. That’s why they’re doing it. They want to destroy the government so they can convince us to replace it with the feudal society they have in mind. They think they have enough control over sufficient resources that they’ll be safe from any violence you might offer thanks to their private armies.
Strange, considering they have no skills and their money will become useless. How do they keep their guards from becoming warlords when the only thing between them and that title is an unworked body?
Control over food, housing, entertainment, and other non-monetary valuables. Then they can start printing their own script to pay their mercenary forces.
You do have a point, I guess it really depends on the damage done from the fallout. A government crashing, and a nation dissolving is sure to cause a ruckus. If modern commodities are gone and we’re banished back to primitives, the billionaires will have a rough time holding modern survivors. What are you lording over? My xbox is dead and I can set my tent up 49 yards to the west. Food supplies and clean drinking water would probably become the highest factors of control. I just don’t see any of these “elite” piss babies actually being hard enough to survive in a world where you have to shit on the street and bury it. Hell, if they got what they wanted and our government did dissolve, I promise other nations will be swooping in to grab land and this conversation would have to take a new form.
They’re living in gated communities with tall walls and private police forces. As long as they promise their mercenary armies a cut of the spoils, they’re not worried about continuing to control resources. They don’t need to be physically hard, they’re sociopathic enough to justify any cruelty to anyone they want in order to get their way. They’re all sure they’ll become royalty in the new order, if not the king/queen of their domain.
They have a plan, and they’ve gathered the means to accomplish their goals. What remains to be seen is how well their defenses will stand up in the ensuing chaos.
That is probably my point. The upheaval would be of biblical proportions. They are not ready to weather the storm. No one is. You saw what happened to supplies when Covid lockdowns were announced here. Imagine if the end of society was announced.
They think they’re ready. That’s why they’re pulling the trigger on this, and damn the consequences.
Also, it wouldn’t just be the end of US society. Remember how much stuff is tacked to the US dollar, how much trade and business is reliant on US industries. If the government suddenly collapsed entirely, taking the entire economy with it pretty much, it’d start a HUGE chain of dominoes. I feel like several countries could become the new superpower, but until that settles out, the entire WORLD would start falling apart in quick order.
The Masque of the Red Death by Edgar Allen Poe was a feel-good story about this very phenomenon.
I actually wrote a poem for a writing prompt on bad site that was really just this. Instead of the Red Death, Governor Goodwill was suprisingly confronted by the survivors of the society he helped overthrow.
That’s a great, basic-level takedown of why OPs conspiracy theory is so exceedingly dumb.
There’s a lot more depth to it but you don’t need the depth when even a single glance shows how stupid it is.
These people, by definition, have wealth and power. Why would they want to change that?
Why do you think it’s a conspiracy theory when it’s pretty thoroughly documented?
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12115-011-9498-4
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neo-feudalism
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/01/30/doomsday-prep-for-the-super-rich
https://www.cnbc.com/2017/01/25/the-super-rich-are-preparing-for-the-end-of-the-world.html
https://www.thenation.com/article/society/billionaire-preppers-strangelove-sbf/
Lol your own links are about these being conspiracy theories atop conspiracy theories
In the year 2020, head of the World Economic Forum, Klaus Schwab published a book titled COVID-19: The Great Reset.[33] Some right wing conspiracies on websites such as 4chan and the Daily Stormer (among other right wing websites)[34][35] claim the book argues that the COVID-19 pandemic is an opportunity for politicians and governments to change the world’s economies, societies and structures of government, by introducing a system of “Stakeholder Capitalism”, doing so via the guidelines of a plan known as ‘The Great Reset’[citation needed]. Schwab also refers to his goals as “The Fourth Industrial Revolution”.[36] Other authors have criticized The Great Reset as being a form of Neo-Feudalism.[37][38][39]
Tried to find fun quotes from your other links, but they’re all too good.
Imagine thinking rich people falling for prepper bullshit means they’re all cooperating on a secret plan to have vastly worse lives than they do today lol
They assume I guess that China and Russia and rest of the world will just not do shit when we have no government ie no armies to defend us with?
They are so fucking stupid.
Killbots and nuclear dead man’s switches. Ruling from secret locations. Playing subordinates off each other. Offering them another faction to fight but tying their arm behind their back so they can’t ever win that fight. Putting someone no one wants to follow next in line of succession. Living in a fortress where someone in a security room can lock the whole place down to prevent any coup from establishing their power. Setting fake honeypot assassinations as traps so that no one is willing to risk not reporting real ones because anyone who hears about one and doesn’t report it gets executed. Threatening families and other loved ones if anyone steps out of line. Only trusting people that they have significant dirt on that will be released on the leader’s death so that people in positions to take him down know they’ll go down with him, so instead protect him from any who decide they are willing to go down.
Though the position will be tenuous, even with all of that.
IT people will be in the security people’s position for the killbots and dead man’s switches. Enemies can work together to take down a common enemy. Someone who suggests not tying their arms behind their back vs enemy faction could seize power. A coup could take out any in the line of succession they don’t like. Buddy in the security room would gain the power of IT/security people, or they could send in other assassins. The fake honeypot assassinations could serve as cover for a real one (if they report it, good job you passed the test! If they don’t and instead succeed in assassinating, good job, you got him!). Relying too much on threats to loved ones can leave you vulnerable to psychopaths that don’t care about anyone else, or those who don’t have anyone (not to mention group punishments tend to create more enemies). And relying on compromat might be risky in the age of fake news and deep fake videos.
So I dug in on this and the batshit thing here is they have a strong enough case to absolutely win with the current court. “Strong” here meaning “believable enough for this court to bullshit.”
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.
That’s the 16th amendment, with the relevant part bolded. The argument is that wealth is not income, and thus this falls back on Article 1 section 9 which states
No Capitation, or other direct, Tax shall be laid, unless in Proportion to the Census or enumeration herein before directed to be taken.
Effectively they’re claiming that wealth taxes are direct taxes (this is another shaky part, legally, and the part referenced in Moore).
Pollock v. Farmers’ Loan & Trust Co. Found that a tax on income which was derived from property (rent, dividends, interest, etc.) was effectively a tax on the property, and so was a direct tax.
This was the case that set up for the passing of the 16th amendment, hence the shaky ground.
Wealth is property, holdings, capital, and money - thus by a… Let’s call is “selective” view of cases like Pollock, the SCOTUS has reasonable plausibility in saying that this tax is direct, non-enumerated, and not income, and thus not protected.
It’s a ridiculous decision that they could plausibly make, but they’ve shown they don’t care if it’s ridiculous, only plausible.
Edit: and of course, this was all planned.
The Trump tax bill largely gave up on taxing US companies’ foreign assets in the future — corporate money kept overseas is now generally immune from taxation, even if it is brought into the United States.
Also
When Congress passed the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act in 2017, it used a process that imposed a $1 trillion cap on how much the bill could add to the budget deficit over the next decade. So there’s a decent argument that, if Congress had known that the bill would increase the deficit by an additional $340 billion, it would have chosen not to enact any tax law at all.
Lmao at “cutting taxes raises revenue” being a thing Republicans run on
“Pollock v. Farmers’ Loan & Trust Co. Found that a tax on income which was derived from property (rent, dividends, interest, etc.) was effectively a tax on the property, and so was a direct tax.”
Ayyyy there it is, another argument for more benefits for the owners! Us schmucks should pay all the bills taken from our income and they get to laugh all the way to the bank sitting on their expensive properties they generate wealth from simply by existing. Fair and Balanced System™©®
I know it’s old, but what a gross read. My income generated by my actual fucking labor should be taken, but your leech money is safe because you own a thing and do literally 0 work.
I’m glad there’s no Justices on the Supreme Court taking lavish vacations, homes, RVs, bribes, jobs and planes from wealthy people who are arguing that wealthy people should pay no tax while receiving only bailouts!
Hmm. Maybe we shouldn’t ask wealthy people who take money from even wealthier “donors” to make decisions about how much we tax wealthy people.
how dare you be anti free speech - - court who is enjoying that money
Didn’t Teddy Roosevelt implement wealth taxes via the Estate Tax and Capital Gains Tax?
These aren’t exactly new ideas. We’ve just slowly dismantled them over the past decades.
No, because taxes aren’t levied until after estates are transferred or dividends are paid. Yes, the idea has been out there for a while and there are very good economic and social reasons to impose wealth taxes that other nations have already figured out and implemented, but we’re…exceptional. So exceptional that we’ll let our exceptionalism drive us into the ground.
This tax would aliviate the tax evasion problem Trump has been always talking of. Why do this article then fear republicans could be against the proposal?
Before you crucify me: I know Trump is amongst the tax evaders, but at least he talks openly about the issue.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
The specific details of this very complicated change to the US tax code are not especially important — although, for reasons discussed below, they could matter a great deal if the Moore plaintiffs prevail.
These three cases arguably mark the dawn of the Lochner era, which is named for a 1905 Supreme Court decision that imposed strict limits on both the federal government and the states’ power to enact laws seeking to improve workplace conditions for workers.
The plaintiffs in Moore are represented by Andrew Grossman, an adjunct scholar at the right-libertarian Cato Institute, and David Rivkin, a Republican lawyer known for defending torture during the George W. Bush administration, and for filing one of the first lawsuits claiming that Obamacare is unconstitutional.
Macomber, a 5-4 decision mostly joined by pro-Lochner justices, said that “enrichment through increase in value of capital investment is not income in any proper meaning of the term.” That conclusion closely tracks the reasoning of Pollock, which was supposed to have been overruled by the 16th Amendment.
The Moore plaintiffs’ approach will be familiar to anyone who has studied the Lochner era, the age when the Court routinely struck down laws, not because they violated the Constitution, but because five justices deemed them “unwise, improvident, or out of harmony with a particular school of thought.”
When Congress passed the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act in 2017, it used a process that imposed a $1 trillion cap on how much the bill could add to the budget deficit over the next decade.
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