Apr23
Randy Barnett proposes a federalism amendment to the Constitution. We shouldn’t need one, but the courts have so misinterpreted the Commerce Clause that apparently we need to be very explicit. And repealing the sixteenth amendment would be a great idea as well.
I would prefer an amendment which nullifies both the
commerce clause and the necessary and proper clause. That would restore federalism better than a federalism amendment.
While we’re at it, I would repeal the 17th amendment as well. Senators paid closer attention to their governors and legislatures back when governors and legislatures did the picking.
My issue with a federal sales tax is that we live in a global economy where buying things online is as easy as buying them at a store, and online purchasing would be next to impossible to regulate with a sales tax.
Thus the incentive is for people to buy online rather than locally, potentially sending dollars overseas rather than having them stay locally, not because of free market forces but because the tax makes American goods uncompetitive.
Not sure how large the effect would be though.
if there was a Federal Sales tax as the
principal source of revenue would it include as
a sale “the sale of commodities, currency, stock,
bonds,derivatives, and financial instruments”?
And a “we really mean it” one for the Commerce Clause?
This is much better than Terry Savage’s proposal you linked to a few days ago. The Constitution is not the right place to enact specific policies. Its role is to specify the procedures by which the body politic decides, enacts and executes policies, and define the limits of government power. When things get out of balance (as they have) we need to look at procedural tweaks to the system that will restore that balance without enshrining specific policies that makes sense today but might not tomorrow.
Anytime I see a manager type waking around the office doing the micromanagement schtick I always have to question the legitimacy of their position. After all, if you got time to hover over someone’s shoulder than you got time to sit down with the rest of the plebs and put your nose to the grindstone like everyone else.
If the Federal gov’t has so much slack in their time and budget to worry about a specific bridge here and a out reach center there then that is every indication to the rest of us that they have grown well outside of their necessary and intended function.
Perhaps in the weeks leading up to my retirement (if that concept will even then exist) I will go up to one of those micro-managers, pull their power tie off their neck, and shove their ass down behind a desk in the hopes they might produce something tangible beyond power points and synergy meetings.
I don’t know the implications, but Randy Barnett I trust.
I’m all for it! But, then again, I have a problem with numbers and I don’t realize that only 0.2% of the U.S. turned out for the “parties” and that that’s a very small number. I also don’t realize that he’d be incredibly lucky to get 30 states to sign on when he needs 34 just to call the thing. Like the rest of those here, I take this proposal seriuosly and I don’t realize it’s just a waste of time and yet another illustration of just how incredibly dumb your leaders are.
I have a problem with numbers and I don’t realize that only 0.2% of the U.S. turned out for the “parties”
Really? I don’t buy that anyone has actually done a proper estimate, but if true, 0.2% of the US population is a lot of people. That would compare well to other protests.
The estimates I’ve seen are several hundred thousand across the country, up to a million or so. So that sounds about right.