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When framing our Constitution our wise founding fathers intentionally commanded that “All Bills for raising Revenue shall originate in the House of Representatives. . .” and “The House of Representatives shall be composed of Members chosen every second Year by the People of the several States…”, making House Members accountable to the people on a short and regular basis.
Our wise founding fathers also provided a specific way to extinguish annual deficits should imposts, duties and excise taxes be found insufficient to meet Congress’ expenditures. That chosen method is the laying and collecting of a direct tax apportioned among the states which equals an annual deficit.
So, will the twenty holdouts who now refuse to support McCarthy as Speaker, allegedly because they want and end to reckless spending and borrowing and fidelity to our Constitution, ask for McCarthy’s written assurance to allow an introduction of a balanced budget amendment, and specifically, the Fair Share Balanced Budget Amendment, which reads and is explained as follows?
The Fair Share Balanced Budget Amendment
“SECTION 1. The Sixteenth Amendment is hereby repealed and Congress is henceforth forbidden to lay any tax or burden calculated from sales, profits, gains, interest, salaries, wages, tips, inheritances or any other lawfully realized money.
NOTE: these words would return us to our founding father’s original tax plan as they intended it to operate! They would also end the experiment with allowing Congress to lay and collect taxes calculated from lawfully earned “incomes” which now oppresses America‘s economic engine and robs the bread which working people have earned when selling the property each has in their own labor, not to mention they would end federal taxation being used as a political weapon to harass and attack political opponents!
“SECTION 2. Congress ought not raise money by borrowing, but when the money arising from imposts duties and excise taxes are insufficient to meet the public exigencies, and Congress has raised money by borrowing during the course of a fiscal year, Congress shall then lay a direct tax at the beginning of the next fiscal year for an amount sufficient to extinguish the preceding fiscal year’s deficit, and apply the revenue so raised to extinguishing said deficit.”
NOTE: Congress is to raise its primary revenue from imposts and duties, [taxes at our water’s edge], and may also lay miscellaneous internal excise taxes on specifically chosen articles of consumption. But if Congress borrows and spends more than is brought in from imposts, duties and miscellaneous excise taxes during the course of a fiscal year, then, and only then, is the direct apportioned tax to be laid in order to balance the budget on an annual basis.
“SECTION 3. When Congress is required to lay a direct tax in accordance with Section 1 of this Article, the Secretary of the United States Treasury shall, in a timely manner, calculate each State’s apportioned share of the total sum being raised by dividing its total population size by the total population of the united states and multiplying that figure by the total being raised by Congress, and then provide the various State Congressional Delegations with a Bill notifying their State’s Executive and Legislature of its share of the total tax being collected and a final date by which said tax shall be paid into the United States Treasury.”
In reference to the above Section see: FIRST DIRECT TAX LAID BY CONGRESS, 1798
NOTE: our founder’s fair share formula to extinguish an annual deficit would be:
States’ population
---------------------------- X SUM TO BE RAISED = STATE’S FAIR SHARE
Total U.S. Population
The above formula, as intended by our founding fathers, is to ensure that each state’s share towards extinguishing an annual deficit is proportionately equal to its representation in Congress, i.e., representation with a proportional financial obligation! And if the tax is laid directly upon the people by Congress, then everybody taxpayer across the United States pays the exact same amount!
Note also that each State’s number or Representatives, under our Constitution is determined by the rule of apportionment:
State`s Pop.
------------------- X House size (435) = State`s No. of Representatives
U.S. Pop.
“SECTION 4. Each State shall be free to assume and pay its quota of the direct tax into the United States Treasury by a final date set by Congress, but if any State shall refuse or neglect to pay its quota, then Congress shall send forth its officers to assess and levy such State’s proportion against the real property within the State with interest thereon at the rate of ((?)) per cent per annum, and against the individual owners of the taxable property. Provision shall be made for a 15% discount for those States paying their share by ((?))of the fiscal year in which the tax is laid, and a 10% discount for States paying by the final date set by Congress, such discount being to defray the States’ cost of collection.”
NOTE: This section respects the Tenth Amendment and allows each state to raise its share of a direct tax in its own chosen way in a time period set by Congress, but also allows the federal government to enter a state and collect the tax if a state is delinquent in meeting its obligation.
"SECTION 5. This Amendment to the Constitution, when ratified by the required number of States, shall take effect no later than (?) years after the required number of States have ratified it.
What are some of the advantages of the Fair Share Balanced Budget Amendment?
First of all, the Fair Share Balanced Budget Amendment (FSBBA) would actually accomplish what the ringleaders of the fairtax suggest their tax would accomplish but doesn’t.
The FSBBA would actually end every tax calculated from legally realized sales, gains, profits, income, etc., and thus puts an end to the countless miseries inflicted upon American citizens by the IRS, including the IRS being used as a political weapon.
The FSBBA also provides a method to extinguish an annual deficit should Congress spend more than is brought in from imposts, duties and excise taxes during the course of a fiscal year.
The FSBBA also puts an end to unequal taxation when and if the federal government decides to tax the people directly.
Keep in mind that internal taxes are mainly limited to excise taxes on consumption [preferably article of luxury] and since each article is to be specifically chosen with a specific amount of tax being placed on each article chosen it makes taxing consumption self-regulating, i.e., tax any article to high and it reduces the sale of the article and thus reduces tax revenue. As Hamilton pointed out with regard to this type of tax:
“There is no method of steering clear of this inconvenience, but by authorizing the national government to raise its own revenues in its own way. Imposts, excises, and, in general, all duties upon articles of consumption, may be compared to a fluid, which will, in time, find its level with the means of paying them. The amount to be contributed by each citizen will in a degree be at his own option, and can be regulated by an attention to his resources. The rich may be extravagant, the poor can be frugal; and private oppression may always be avoided by a judicious selection of objects proper for such impositions. If inequalities should arise in some States from duties on particular objects, these will, in all probability, be counter balanced by proportional inequalities in other States, from the duties on other objects. In the course of time and things, an equilibrium, as far as it is attainable in so complicated a subject, will be established everywhere. Or, if inequalities should still exist, they would neither be so great in their degree, so uniform in their operation, nor so odious in their appearance, as those which would necessarily spring from quotas, upon any scale that can possibly be devised.
It is a signal advantage of taxes on articles of consumption that they contain in their own nature a security against excess. They prescribe their own limit; which cannot be exceeded without defeating the end proposed, that is, an extension of the revenue. When applied to this object, the saying is as just as it is witty, that, "in political arithmetic, two and two do not always make four .‘’ If duties are too high, they lessen the consumption; the collection is eluded; and the product to the treasury is not so great as when they are confined within proper and moderate bounds. This forms a complete barrier against any material oppression of the citizens by taxes of this class, and is itself a natural limitation of the power of imposing them.” FEDERALIST NO. 21
So, the question is, will the 20 holdouts who claim they want to end reckless spending and borrowing, use this opportunity to get a real balanced budget amendment up for debate?
JWK
If, by calling a tax indirect when it is essentially direct, the rule of protection [apportionment] could be frittered away, one of the great landmarks defining the boundary between the nation and the states of which it is composed, would have disappeared, and with it one of the bulwarks of private rights and private property. POLLOCK v. FARMERS’ LOAN & TRUST CO., 157 U.S. 429 (1895) JUSTICE FULLER
