Thursday, January 19, 2012
Legislature State House Votes to Ban Income Tax, Tells Poor to Fend for Themselves
Posted by Jeff Woods on Thu, Jan 19, 2012 at 10:44 AM
Democrats made all the usual compelling arguments against this amendment (it kills any future attempt at tax reform, screwing the poor forever and saddling us with a regressive, consumption-based system in an uncertain, changing economy) but who cares about any of that? Talk radio rules!
The vote was 73-17. Republicans cheered as Rep. Glen Casada called for letting the downtrodden fend for themselves.
“You raise yourself out of poverty and you don’t depend upon government to do it for you,” Casada declared. “It’s not government’s role to take care of those who are down and out.”
The Senate adopted the resolution last year. Now, it needs to pass the next General Assembly by a two-thirds vote—a sure bet—and it will go on the ballot for voter approval in the 2014 election.
The state Supreme Court has ruled three times — most recently in 1964 — that the constitution already prohibits an income tax. But the state attorney general issued an opinion in 1999 saying the tax was permissible. Republicans say a constitutional amendment is needed to resolve the issue.
“I’ve got my state constitution out and, even though it clearly says there’s not to be a state income tax in Tennessee, we know we don’t have to go very far to find a judge who will say it doesn’t say what it says. That’s what has happened before,” House GOP leader Gerald McCormick said.
McCormick noted acidly that the last income tax debate—which attracted a talk radio-incited mob to the Capitol—is “a good part of the reason we have 64 seats in the Tennessee House right now.”
Rep. Charles Curtiss, D-Sparta, warned Republicans the state might wind up without any means of financing core services unless Congress starts letting states tax Internet sales. That’s already knocking an ever-growing hole in Tennessee’s finances.
“I’m standing before you today telling you that if they do not do this in just a very short period of time probably in the next decade we’re going to have smaller government, alright, because we won’t have enough money to run this government.”
Update: State GOP chairman Chris Devaney attacks Democrats for voting against the resolution.
Comments (23)
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Casada to poor: Not only are we not going to help you in any way, we're going to skew the system even further against you and make it MORE difficult to raise yourself out of poverty. It's good for your character.
pack-rat---If they want to get out of poverty tell them to go to craigs list,I looked today, there are a bunch of job listings.Some might not pay alot to start but it pays better than whining and crying and living in tents on the plaza.
Just to be clear here, I'm not part of Occupy Anything, but I do know some of the people at Occupy Nashville and guess what, a lot of them have really good jobs that they go to every day after spending the night in their tents. They are probably more hard working than you Mr. Paredes because not only do they add to our society by working every day they also do their duty as Americans and stand up to what they see as injustices in our economic system.
As far as the subject of an income tax, the last time this came up in our state there was overwhelming evidence that the proposed income tax would save a large majority of Tennesseans money every year and yet the people who would be saving money railed against it and wound up breaking windows at the Capitol Building. We obviously have a large intellectual deficit in this state when it is so easy to rile people up into committing vandalism in opposition to something that would help them. So we will just keep moving forward until Tennessee becomes a third world nation right here within the US. We will have plenty of jobs though, as soon as our legislature figures out a way to make it legal for us to get paid $2 a day and have 10 year olds work in factories. This isn't about allowing poor people to get out of poverty, this is about keeping as many people as possible in poverty. Desperate people will work for less and therefore increase profits. They aren't trying to end poverty, they want to create more of it.
So its not the role of the People to help the People? That makes no sense.
“It’s not government’s role to take care of those who are down and out.”
What an asshole. And what a slap in the face of common decency. And what an affront to the founding idea of to "promote the general welfare." Casada might pretend not to believe in biological Darwinism, but he clearly believes it on an economic front.
Well, if you believe that if people are poor, it's their own fault. If you believe there is no obligation for us as a society (through our only universal societal mechanism, our government), ethical or otherwise, to help people less fortunate than ourselves. If you believe that the possession of money, and its pursuit, is rally the only value that matters... well, if you believe these things, then Casada and his ilk are for you.
If you have a shred of human decency about you, however, then you should reject Casada's mean-spirited, unfeeling, and immoral world view. I think he is dead wrong. And America long ago rejected his ideas.
“You raise yourself out of poverty and you don’t depend upon government to do it for you,” Casada declared. “It’s not government’s role to take care of those who are down and out.”
So says the man who's wife is employed by the government of Williamson County!
who the hell check on craig list to get a job? only prostitutes, ex cons, convicts, and scammers...
Since when did a "moral worldview" become "insist that the poor pull themselves up by their own bootstraps"? If Christian morality is to be as much of an ideal model as they say it is, then methinks many conservatives haven't read Luke 14:12-14 or Matthew 19:20-24 in quite a while.
Ok, now I gotta know: seriously, Tony, are you for real? Or are you some sort of crazy Mr. Pink sockpuppet? Because I'm rolling in the aisles over here.
"And what an affront to the founding idea of to "promote the general welfare."
Welfare programs for individuals don't have anything whatsoever to do with any founding idea of "general welfare".
Was Hamilton not one of the founding fathers? 'Cause he said that it did -- advocated for use of Federal monies in support of any effort that strengthened the national position, from agriculture to a doctor's care. And Hamilton's view of the clause persisted as the dominant political philosophy through the presidencies of Washington and Adams -- both of whom supported this "broad constructionist" view of the document they helped create.
James Madision was the father of the Constitution and he was (and is) the ultimate authority on the meaning of every word contained therein forever and forever amen.
Furthermore, Hamilton never created any individual welfare programs.
And of course, it is physically and economically impossible for the "general welfare" to ever be improved by forcibly transfering wealth from one individual to another. Transfers net to zero. The detriment to the transferor completely offsets the benefit to the transferee.
Gilbert, yes, the transfer of wealth from one individual to another CAN be a net zero. For example, if you took money from one Wal-mart employee who makes $7 an hour and gave it to another Wal-mart employee who also makes $7 an hour the transfer is a net zero. They both would have spent the money, they both would have used it to purchase things and added to the level of demand in our economy. HOWEVER, if you take wealth from an individual, or corporation, that has enough wealth to just sit on their money so that their cash has been effectively taken out of circulation and give it to someone who will spend it you in fact have a net gain as you are creating additional economic activity and demand that wouldn't have existed if the individual or corporation had kept the money out of circulation.
Furthermore, why is it that people seem to want to worship the Constitution as if it was a document revealed by God? The Constitution was a required replacement of the failed Articles of Confederation (which of course failed because they gave too much power to the states) and so the Constitution only exists to take power away from the states and put it into the hands of the Federal Government, something most Constitutional worshipers seem opposed to. Plus the framers of the Constitution never expected us to use the document strictly as they intended it to be used. They new that times change and that the government needed the flexibility to change with the times. Want proof? Look no further than the fact that they included in the Constitution a process for changing the Constitution. If we were suppose to always interpret the Constitution by the Framers intent then why did they create a way to make changes to it?
"the transfer of wealth from one individual to another CAN be a net zero."
It cannot be anything other than that. No one has ever proven the case to be otherwise.
"If we were suppose to always interpret the Constitution by the Framers intent then why did they create a way to make changes to it?"
The amendment process is precisely the way to allow the federal government to do something that isn't in line with the framers intent. In fact it is the only legitimate way.
But Gilbert, no one has proven your point either. You see economics isn't an exact science, much of what is accepted as fact by the right and by the left has never been proven.
The simple fact remains you didn't address my point. If you move wealth from an individual who is just sitting on it to an individual who will spend it and put it back into the economy you allow for economic growth. I know you probably disagree with this, and I would be interested in hearing a detailed explanation of why you disagree with it. Not on moral grounds but on economic grounds.
"But Gilbert, no one has proven your point either. You see economics isn't an exact science, much of what is accepted as fact by the right and by the left has never been proven"
The burden of proof always lies on those claiming the affirmative condition. No one is required to prove a negative. And those claiming that affirmative condition have to prove it with unequivocal and absolute definitiveness or they've proven absolutely nothing.
And that puts liberals on the wrong side of the rules of evidence regarding economics and virturally everything else, since they're the one's who are always claiming some government intervention produces a superior outcome than doing nothing. None of them are ever capable of proving any of it with absolute definitiveness and therefore it's not proven at all.
As for your remarks about people "sitting" on their wealth - unless it's literally stuffed in a mattress or buried in the back yard - it's not out of circulation. Money deposited in a bank is in curculation Money invested in stocks is in circulation. It is invested in the economy.
It is Keynsean nonsense that government can somehow be a wiser allocator of capital than the private sector and that the economy is improved be enabling increased consumption by those who haven't produced anything to earn the wealth to increase their consumption.
Increases in productivity are the real source of long run economic prosperity and subsidizing consumption by non-producers does nothing to advance that.
Keynes reportedly once said that it would be worthwhile to pay people to dig holes and fill them back up again to generate economic activity. That was, and is, patenly absurd.
Gilbert, this isn't a court of law, this is a comment section of a newspaper website. I am simply asking that you explain why it is that you believe that the transfer of wealth from one individual to another is ALWAYS a net zero. I'm not asking you to prove a negative, I am asking you to prove why something is true, not why it isn't. I don't even need 100% solid proof, just give me some good strong evidence.
Furthermore why are you even talking about transferring wealth from one individual to another? The government doesn't do that. We recently found out that Newt Gingrich paid almost 1 million dollars in taxes last year, but the government didn't take his million dollars and give it to some lazy bum they found walking down the street turning him or her into a millionaire. That would be a ridiculous thing to do and that's why our government never does that. You may want to try and spin the discussion to make it sound like that's what is happening, but it simply isn't true. The government redistributes wealth by taking tax money and giving it to our society as a whole. It gets sent out for road repair and school up keep and to fund medical research and to fund our military and it covers the slack when the government gives people a tax deduction for donating to their church but doesn't tax the church and it covers welfare programs and it covers NASA. But since it is never a transfer from one individual to another how can you assert that such a transfer is ALWAYS a zero game?
You can't be a capitalist if you are alone on a deserted island. It takes a society for capitalism to exist. It takes a society for an individual to accumulate wealth. If you want to get rich the best place to start is by making sure you live in a stable and prosperous society. Redistribution of wealth helps us maintain a stable and prosperous society. It doesn't prevent you from getting wealthy, it makes it possible for you to get wealthy. It doesn't encourage people to be laxy it makes it worth while for all of us to work hard.
I want you to prove your argument in hopes that I can figure out why you are making it in the first place, so come on Gilbert, play along, either that or get off the field.
Gilbert, read this and it might help you understand how things actually work instead of just how the anti-tax forces in our country want to spin them. http://gaypunkblog.blogspot.com/2012/01/my…
