How 'bout it cowboys?
It's not fair to have to pay taxes without some say so in how it gets spent, right?
Even if you're a Democrat, right?
Monday, October 5, 2009
Attention Tea Bag militants! There is a real taxation atrocity going on right under your noses.
Maybe all DC residents should just move West (at least long enough to register to vote.) Talk about taxation without representation! The population of Washington DC is greater than the population of the entire state of Wyoming. Yet they have just one non-voting House member and NO (count 'em "zero") representatives in the US Senate.
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14 comments:
And a lot of their license plates say "Taxation without Representation" on them.
Bill, exactly.
All citizens should be represented.
Well, Mike, they're not. What to do?
And it's NOT just about taxes, it's about everything that being Governed Without Consent encompasses. Power exercised over people without giving them an opportunity to participate in the consensus is illegitimate and tyrannical. The power exercised by the Congress over DC, in the name of their countrymen and constituents, is, Constitutional "District Clause" or not, simply illegitimate and tyrannical, unless DC residents are allowed to participate in the consent-consensus process. It compare with the Declaratory Act of 1766 by the British Parliament, which similarly sought to arrogate to a national legislature an unlimited Absolute Power, "in all cases whatsoever", over an unrepresented minority(the colonists) of the national (British, in that case) population. A war was fought over that issue (the American Revolutionary War).
You all are not recognizing the fact that DC is not a state. The solution would be the federal government giving up ownership and returning DC to the state of Maryland.
Are the two Anonymouses the same person?
It would seem not. Would it kill you guys to make up a name? Out of courtesy for the other people trying to read and understand you? Please? Thanks.
Anon 1. I agree.
Anon 2. Either that or exempt them from paying taxes altogether. Or give them a Senate vote and a House vote.. The point is, you agree that it's a problem, right?
Sorry Bill, I accidently became Anon 2. The problem for you guys is the Constitution. It only allows states to have representatives. The real problem is federal ownership.
It's a problem. Making the district part of Maryland or Virginia (all non-federal government private property and foreign embassies) seems to make the most sense. But it wasn't a part of Maryland if memory serves, but a municipality within the Columbia Territory. Currently, I think it has about 600,000 residents.
There are 14 territories under U.S. Jurisdiction. All of these territories are another example of why negotiated settlements of war are a bad idea. Obama wishes to have the citizens of Puerto Rico covered by government healthcare, even though they do not pay federal income taxes. They do vote (and Puerto Rican Democrats voted for Obama over Clinton, who was less eager to include them as recipients of government-provided health care.)
It's all a nasty bit of business. Perhaps we should make DC a state in and of itself. Whatever the solution, it won't be easy.
Yes, exactly, Steve. The problem is the Constitution.
The same reason that a mere 17% of the US Population can control Congress. This was not what the Founders intended.
Bill,
I said the problem "for you guys" is the constitution. That is why you are not a true American.
Now we have Sabato trying to destroy the Constitution and the Natural Law foundation based on a letter from Jefferson that was intended to preserve Natural Rights.
Sabato is recommending an exercise that is fully detailed in Article V of the US Constitution, Steve, and his suggestions are in keeping with the Founders' wish that the Constitution be updated with each passing generation — as per discussions between Jefferson and Madison — a wish our country is sadly remiss in fulfilling to date.
This problem runs concurrent with federal ownership across the board: parks, grasslands, waterways etc. This should all be state owned property as our government should not be in the ownership business.
There are certain principles that under-gird the United States Constitution. (By the way, if we are not one of, or part of, the "United States", whose Constitution IS it, anyway? DC denizens have had no say in either laws or Constitution since 1801 -- that would be Amendments 12-27 of the Constitution). One of those principles is that just (ie legitimate) power flows from the Consent of the Governed. Constitutions which at odds with fundamental principles must eventually be reconciled to retain their legitimacy. Some earlier discrepancies have already been reconciled: Non-whites are now counted as whole persons and can vote, women can vote, and young adults can vote. It remains to the people in general of the United States to recognize and respect the fact that there are still some flaws that impede progress toward a More Perfect Union. Those excluded from participation in the consensus building process (like DC denizens) cannot correct this deficiency; it is the VOTING citizens who must convince their representatives to address and resolve the issue.
There is no question that DC denizens were, and are, the Posterity of the Founders, for whom they pledged their Lives, their Fortunes, and their Sacred Honor to secure Liberty. Whether or not residents of Puerto Rico, Guam, Samoa, etc. may be part of that posterity is perhaps open to discussion, but not DC.
Any changes (statutory or Constitutional) to rectify this exclusion must of necessity spring from the people of the fifty states themselves, since DC denizens are (catch 22) excluded from such decisions.
"Nor have We been wanting in Attentions to our British Brethren. We have warned them from Time to Time of Attempts by their Legislature to extend an unwarrantable Jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the Circumstances of our Emigration and Settlement here. We have appealed to their native Justice and Magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the Ties of our common Kindred to disavow these Usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our Connections and Correspondence. They too have been deaf to the Voice of Justice and of Consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the Necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of Mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace, Friends."
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