Taxmageddon -- It's Time to Act

The Foundation

"An unlimited power to tax involves, necessarily, a power to destroy; because there is a limit beyond which no institution and no property can bear taxation." --John Marshall

Government

"[Friday's] jobs report is a broken record, with the unemployment rate stuck at 8.2 percent. The Department of Labor reports that only 80,000 jobs were added in June -- consistent with other data revealing the economy has downshifted from slow to slower. ... In 2009, the President promised that his 'recovery plan' composed almost entirely of government spending was the only way to stave off rising unemployment. The White House even drafted a chart showing projected unemployment with the economic stimulus plan and without it -- to scare lawmakers into voting for it. According to their projections, by now, unemployment should be at 5.5 percent. ... [E]mployers aren't hiring because they are suffering from prolonged uncertainty, as economists readily admit. ... That uncertainty ... stems primarily from America's date with Taxmageddon on January 1, 2013. The largest tax increase in U.S. history -- $494 billion in one year -- will hit on that day, as a host of tax cuts expire and new tax hikes (including some of Obamacare's new taxes) take effect. Taxmageddon falls primarily on middle- and low-income Americans. Heritage research shows that families will see an average tax increase of $4,138. Visit the new Taxmageddon page to see the impact of these tax hikes on individuals. ... The President should be leading the country in the opposite direction -- giving employers and individuals the assurance that these tax hikes will be prevented. Instead, in his 2013 budget submission, the President called for $2 trillion in tax increases, and he has showed no signs of saving Americans from Taxmageddon. ... The longer Congress waits to prevent Taxmageddon, the more uncertainty there will be for workers and businesses. This is an element of the economy that is actually in the complete control of American policymakers. They should act quickly to increase certainty and stability at a time when the economy greatly needs it." --Heritage Foundation's Amy Payne

For the Record

"At the federal level the [Obamacare] mandate was adjudged to have been an Unconstitutional expansion of the Commerce Clause on the part of the Congress, but fell within the Congress' taxing powers. So, at the federal level the mandate is a tax. But, in states -- of which the Commonwealth of Massachusetts is one -- there is no such thing as a 'Commerce Clause' because states have no power to impose trade restrictions on one another. Thus there can be no Unconstitutional expansion of Massachusetts' Commerce Clause because it doesn't exist. So, at the state level the mandate can be a penalty. ... For a man or woman trying to decide whether to expand their small business and add a few employees in suburban Omaha, or rural Ohio, whether the mandate is a tax or a penalty is of absolutely no moment. How much Obamacare will cost them -- something they're probably still trying to determine -- is all that matters. An engineering shop in Omaha and a small manufacturer in Ohio will not alter the unemployment figures. But 10,000 small businesses deciding to hire two or three people will. And they're not going to do it because in small towns not hiring someone you're not certain you can keep on the payroll is far less painful than having to lay someone off after a few months." --columnist Rich Galen

Opinion in Brief

"Betrayal is hard to take, whether in our personal lives or in the political life of the nation. Yet there are people in Washington -- too often, Republicans -- who start living in the Beltway atmosphere, and start forgetting those hundreds of millions of Americans beyond the Beltway who trusted them to do right by them, to use their wisdom instead of their cleverness. ... The Chief Justice probably made as good a case as could be made for upholding the constitutionality of ObamaCare by defining one of its key features as a 'tax.' The legislation didn't call it a tax and Chief Justice Roberts admitted that this might not be the most 'natural' reading of the law. But he fell back on the long-standing principle of judicial interpretation that the courts should not declare a law unconstitutional if it can be reasonably read in a way that would make it constitutional, out of 'deference' to the legislative branch of government. But this question, like so many questions in life, is a matter of degree. How far do you bend over backwards to avoid the obvious, that ObamaCare was an unprecedented extension of federal power over the lives of 300 million Americans today and of generations yet unborn? ... There are many speculations as to why Chief Justice Roberts did what he did.... But all of that is ultimately irrelevant. What he did was betray his oath to be faithful to the Constitution of the United States." --economist Thomas Sowell

Essential Liberty

"Justice Roberts apparently forgot that his first duty is not to protect the 'image' of the court but to protect the Constitution, of which the court is the primary steward. Whether or not he intended to, Justice Roberts breathed new life, for now, into the Great Destroyer, making November that much more important. If the tea party was taking a brief nap -- as some have suggested (but I don't believe) -- the federal government has awoken it with an ear-piercing alarm that will not quit ringing before Election Day. ... [L]et's truly reflect on America's Constitution and its liberty and redouble our resolve and commitment to recapturing both." --columnist David Limbaugh

The Gipper

"The Founding Fathers established a system which meant a radical break from that which preceded it. A written constitution would provide a permanent form of government, limited in scope, but effective in providing both liberty and order. Government was not to be a matter of self-appointed rulers, governing by whim or harsh ideology. It was not to be government by the strongest or for the few. Our principles were revolutionary." --Ronald Reagan

Insight

"Whenever the power that is put in any hands for the government of the people, and the protection of our properties, is applied to other ends, and made use of to impoverish, harass or subdue them to the arbitrary and irregular commands of those that have it; there it presently becomes tyranny, whether those that thus use it are one or many." --English philosopher and physician John Locke (1632-1704)

Re: The Left

"Given how many more Americans define themselves as conservative rather than as liberal, let alone than as left, how does one explain the success of left-wing policies? One answer is the appeal of entitlements and a desire to be taken care of. It takes a strong-willed citizen to vote against receiving free benefits. But an even greater explanation is the saturation of Western society by left-wing hate directed at the right. The left's demonization, personal vilification, and mockery of its opponents have been the most powerful tools in the left-wing arsenal for a century. Since Stalin labeled Leon Trotsky -- the man who was the father of Russian Bolshevism! -- a 'fascist,' the Left has labeled its ideological opponents evil. And when you control nearly all of the news media and schools, that labeling works. The liberal media even succeeded in blaming the right wing for the assassination of President John F. Kennedy even though his assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald, was a pro-Soviet, pro-Castro communist. Similarly, just one day after a deranged man, Jared Loughner, attempted to kill Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords and murdered six people in the process, The New York Times columnist Paul Krugman wrote that it was right-wing hate that had provoked Loughner.... Krugman made it all up. But what matters to most of those who speak for the left is not truth. It is destroying the good name of its opponents. That is the modus operandi of the left. It works." --radio talk-show host Dennis Prager

Political Futures

"With Barack Obama at the helm, and David Axelrod charting the course against Mitt Romney, this nation is about to set sail into a poisonous sea of class envy and hatred. 'Bain' Capital will be 'Bane' Capital, as in evil. 'Venture capital' will be 'vulture capital.' This November's election might boil down to a fundamental debate between the merits of markets vs. central planning and wealth redistribution; at the least, that's where the rhetoric is taking us. If I were advising Mitt Romney, I'd tell him to bone up not only on the good he did at Bain Capital ... but on Hayek, Friedman, Hazlitt, Mises, Laffer, and, most of all, Marx. He might Google the word 'agitprop,' since he will be precisely such a target. And if Romney does this right, he has [the] chance not only to win Americans' vote but to educate them about the wondrous free-market system that has made their nation the greatest marvel in human history -- and which they won't learn about from Obama and Axelrod." --columnist Paul Kengor

Faith and Family

"The abstinent minority has now become the majority. Over the last two decades, teens have become more likely to remain sexually abstinent. According to the 2011 National Youth Risk Behavior Survey, 53 percent of high school students have remained abstinent, an increase of 15 percent, and two in three are currently abstinent. ... Largely misrepresented, SRA [Sexual Risk Avoidance] education is more than just about saying 'no.' Abstinence-centered and holistic, the SRA strategy offers skill-building topics such as goal setting and future orientation, healthy decision making, building assets, avoiding negative peer pressure, and human development. ... Despite the research and parental and teen support for SRA approaches, the Obama Administration has nearly eliminated all federal funding of SRA education; instead, it has created additional programs for contraceptive-centered education, according to the NAEA [National Abstinence Education Association] report, while nearly eliminating support for risk avoidance. ... When it comes to sex education, the debate is ostensibly fought on the grounds of empirical evidence, but it is ultimately one of values." --Heritage Foundation's Christine Kim

Culture

"[D]oes anyone doubt that there's something about the legal regime in this country that's creating a headwind against basic human decency? And I'm not just talking about trial lawyers and the politicians who love them. Last year, in Alameda, Calif., a man walked into the chilly -- but not exactly freezing -- waters of the Bay Area to commit suicide. It was a slow affair. The police and firefighters got there in plenty of time. But, due to union-backed rules, they simply declined to save the man's life. They just stood on the beach and watched. Fire Chief Ricci Zombeck was asked what he would have done if it were a child, rather than a suicidal adult, slowly drowning out there. He responded that if he were on duty he'd have let the kid drown, but if he was off duty he would have saved him. These are the symptoms of a sick culture." --columnist Jonah Goldberg

Reader Comments

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The Last Word

"Good news: The Waldo Canyon fire, which forced 32,000 residents (including our family) to flee, claimed two lives and destroyed 347 homes, is now 100 percent contained. Bad news: Radical environmentalists won't stop blowing hot air about this year's infernal season across the West. Al Gore slithered out of the political morgue to bemoan nationwide heat records and pimp his new 'Climate Reality Project,' which blames global warming for the wildfire outbreak. NBC meteorologist Doug Kammerer asserted: 'If we did not have global warming, we wouldn't see this.' Agriculture Department Undersecretary Harris Sherman, who oversees the Forest Service, claimed to the Washington Post: 'The climate is changing, and these fires are a very strong indicator of that.' And the Associated Press (or rather, the Activist Press) lit the fear-mongering torch with an eco-propaganda piece titled 'U.S. summer is what "global warming will look like."' ... Radical green efforts to block logging and timber sales in national forests since the 1990s are the real culprits. Wildlife mitigation experts point to incompetent forest management and militant opposition to thinning the timber fuel supply. Another symptom of green obstructionism: widespread bark beetle infestations. ... Local, state and federal officials offered effusive praise for my fellow Colorado Springs residents who engaged in preventive mitigation efforts in their neighborhoods. The government flacks said it made a life-and-death difference. Yet, litigious environmental groups have sabotaged such mitigation efforts at the national level -- in effect, creating an explosive tinderbox out of the West. Stoking global warming alarms may make for titillating headlines and posh Al Gore confabs. But it's a human blame avoidance strategy rooted in ideological extremism and flaming idiocy." --columnist Michelle Malkin

Semper Vigilo, Fortis, Paratus et Fidelis!
Nate Jackson for The Patriot Post Editorial Team