"Joseph Gwinn" wrote in message
...
In article ,
"Ed Huntress" wrote:

"Joseph Gwinn" wrote in message
...
In article ,
"Ed Huntress" wrote:

"Joseph Gwinn" wrote in message
...
In article ,
"Ed Huntress" wrote:

"Wes" wrote in message
...
"Ed Huntress" wrote:


[snip]

I'm a fan of less engineering. The power to tax is the power
destroy.

I don't know where you got that aphorism, but it's a silly one. Of
course
it
can provide the power do destroy. But without it, there would be
nothing
worth destroying.

Daniel Webster and John Marshall.

Google is your friend: http://www.bartleby.com/73/1798.html

Joe Gwinn

Except that's not what Webster was arguing. He was arguing FOR federal
taxation power over the *states*, in McCullouch v. Maryland. He wasn't
talking about the value of taxation in general. Nor was Marshall, who
essentially quoted Webster.

The irony here is that the example you're citing is the origin of the
jurisprudence concerning the Necessary and Proper clause of the
Constitution, which says that the federal government can override any
state
law that interferes with federal power.

As I said, of course it can provide the power to destroy, if that's
how
it's used. Without it, used properly, there's nothing left to destroy.
By
taking a quote out of context Wes has flipped its meaning on its back.

Ed, you asked where the "silly aphorism" came from. Now you know.

Right. Thanks for the silly aphorism reference, Joe. g

The funny thing is that I remember McCulloch very well, but not that
quote.
The case was about federal supremacy -- which was affirmed by Marshall's
decision. I think the aphorism has taken on a life of its own, stripped
of
context, and that people who quote it would be nonplussed to learn what
Webster was talking about: the authority of the federal government to set
tax and banking policy, over the heads of the states.

I don't know that Webster would agree with you here. I think that while
there was a specific case then at hand, the statement was general. It's
clearly true.

As Justice Holmes said, "hard cases make bad law." McCulloch was a hard
case -- one of the series of cases that attempted to sort out the relations
of the states to the federal government, with absolutely no Constitutional
guidance to go by.

Generalizing the specific arguments used in hard cases leads to absurd
conclusions. Of course the power, as Webster said, "an unlimited power to
tax involves, necessarily, a power to destroy," is a great power that has to
be used judiciously. But Webster argued several cases affirming the federal
power over the states. What he was talking about was the danger of
destroying federal power by unlimited power of the states to tax. That's the
irony here, which is lost on the small-government conservatives,
particularly those who rail against the federal government.

Let's say that by some mistake a SUV-hater is anointed
King, and immediately imposes a very large annual tax on SUVs. How long
will SUVs survive?

Hopefully, not for long. d8-)

There are two ways SUVs can die out. One is by driving us all into penury by
driving ever deeper the hook that the Arab states have in our throats. The
other is by shifting the supply/demand curve by making them very expensive,
hopefully by means of a gas tax that will help us get off our dependency.

Which do you prefer? Do you like sending $700 billion/year to Middle Eastern
countries that want to destroy us? Is that your idea of the benefit of
letting the market determine the outcome?

--
Ed Huntress