Pocahontas wants to tax 1st Amendment / people lose their minds
Posted: October 2nd, 2019, 5:28 pm
And as well they should. It's wrong on so many levels.
But here's the fly in the ointment;...they set the precedent with the NFA!
Either onerous and intentionally oppressive taxation for purposes beyond mere revenue is unconstitutional for ALL the Bill of Rights, or its constitutional for the 1st Amendment as well.
Stick that in your McCain hole and twist it!
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opin ... ent-rights
Warren on Wednesday unveiled a plan she claimed would end excessive lobbying by imposing a tax on companies' lobbying expenditures. The way the tax would work is that "companies that spend between $500,000 and $1 million per year on lobbying, calculated on a quarterly basis, will pay a 35% tax on those expenditures. For every dollar above $1 million spent on lobbying, the rate will increase to 60% – and for every dollar above $5 million, it will increase to 75%."
The problem with the proposal is that it runs smack up against the First Amendment, which states that, "Congress shall make no law ... abridging ... the right of the people ... to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."
Given that businesses have the constitutional right to lobby, Congress cannot pass a law explicitly aimed at curbing their ability to exercise that right by way of a punitive tax.
If that were the case, a federal government frustrated with media coverage could levy special taxes on publishing or could crack down on protesters by imposing a punitive tax on protesting.
As lawyer Ted Frank put it, "There’s a legal reason Republicans haven’t tried to curb abortion by taxing it, and it’s not just because they don’t like taxes."
This proposal is just your regular reminder that Warren is a policy fraud. She churns out proposals that generate oohs and aahs from the media, yet they barely stand up to the most basic scrutiny. The crowning achievement of her career — the establishment of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau — itself was ruled structurally unconstitutional in federal court.
Curbing lobbying is a worthy goal. But the way to curb lobbying is to shrink the power of the federal government over the economy, so that changes to taxes, spending, and regulations in Washington do not have such a dramatic influence on the fortunes of corporations.
But here's the fly in the ointment;...they set the precedent with the NFA!
Either onerous and intentionally oppressive taxation for purposes beyond mere revenue is unconstitutional for ALL the Bill of Rights, or its constitutional for the 1st Amendment as well.
Stick that in your McCain hole and twist it!
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opin ... ent-rights
Warren on Wednesday unveiled a plan she claimed would end excessive lobbying by imposing a tax on companies' lobbying expenditures. The way the tax would work is that "companies that spend between $500,000 and $1 million per year on lobbying, calculated on a quarterly basis, will pay a 35% tax on those expenditures. For every dollar above $1 million spent on lobbying, the rate will increase to 60% – and for every dollar above $5 million, it will increase to 75%."
The problem with the proposal is that it runs smack up against the First Amendment, which states that, "Congress shall make no law ... abridging ... the right of the people ... to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."
Given that businesses have the constitutional right to lobby, Congress cannot pass a law explicitly aimed at curbing their ability to exercise that right by way of a punitive tax.
If that were the case, a federal government frustrated with media coverage could levy special taxes on publishing or could crack down on protesters by imposing a punitive tax on protesting.
As lawyer Ted Frank put it, "There’s a legal reason Republicans haven’t tried to curb abortion by taxing it, and it’s not just because they don’t like taxes."
This proposal is just your regular reminder that Warren is a policy fraud. She churns out proposals that generate oohs and aahs from the media, yet they barely stand up to the most basic scrutiny. The crowning achievement of her career — the establishment of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau — itself was ruled structurally unconstitutional in federal court.
Curbing lobbying is a worthy goal. But the way to curb lobbying is to shrink the power of the federal government over the economy, so that changes to taxes, spending, and regulations in Washington do not have such a dramatic influence on the fortunes of corporations.