Ed Huntress wrote:

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



You guys are so full of yourselves!

So SUV's are the problem now?

Not the way that cities are laid out with centralized shopping miles
from home?

Or poisoning the gas supply?


My Blazer USED to get 26 MPG on the highway.
But that was before king corn was legislated into the fuel supply.
It barely gets 24 now.

But I still love it - because I can get in and out without contortions.

(shaking head sadly)

"cavelamb" wrote in message
m...
Ed Huntress wrote:

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

You guys are so full of yourselves!

So SUV's are the problem now?

Yeah, they're a problem.


Not the way that cities are laid out with centralized shopping miles from
home?

Nope. That's a case of having your home in the wrong place. d8-)


Or poisoning the gas supply?

What the hell are you talking about, "poisoning"?



My Blazer USED to get 26 MPG on the highway.
But that was before king corn was legislated into the fuel supply.
It barely gets 24 now.

Oh, so they've poisoned the gas supply with ethanol. Hell, I drink it on
purpose. d8-)


But I still love it - because I can get in and out without contortions.

(shaking head sadly)

You've got yours, Richard -- all 5,000 pounds of it.

--
Ed Huntress

Ed Huntress wrote:
"cavelamb" wrote in message
m...
Ed Huntress wrote:
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
You guys are so full of yourselves!

So SUV's are the problem now?

Yeah, they're a problem.

Not the way that cities are laid out with centralized shopping miles from
home?

Nope. That's a case of having your home in the wrong place. d8-)

Or poisoning the gas supply?

What the hell are you talking about, "poisoning"?


My Blazer USED to get 26 MPG on the highway.
But that was before king corn was legislated into the fuel supply.
It barely gets 24 now.

Oh, so they've poisoned the gas supply with ethanol. Hell, I drink it on
purpose. d8-)

But I still love it - because I can get in and out without contortions.

(shaking head sadly)

You've got yours, Richard -- all 5,000 pounds of it.

--
Ed Huntress



3600 pounds, Ed.

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:

"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.

All very interesting, but let's get back to the original question: Is
the statement that the power to tax is the power to destroy true or not?

Daniel Webster was one of the greatest debaters of his day. Somehow, I
think he would make short work of this.


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?

Red herring. I wasn't proposing a tax on SUVs, I was supporting the
contention that the power to tax is indeed the power to destroy, by
giving an example.

Joe Gwinn

"Joseph Gwinn" wrote in message
...
In article ,

snip


All very interesting, but let's get back to the original question: Is
the statement that the power to tax is the power to destroy true or not?

If you followed what Wes and I were saying, you probably noted that we long
ago agreed on that. Here's what I said about it:

"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."

It's a silly and self-evident bromide.


Daniel Webster was one of the greatest debaters of his day. Somehow, I
think he would make short work of this.

Read the McCulluch case, and see what he was arguing for.



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?

Red herring. I wasn't proposing a tax on SUVs, I was supporting the
contention that the power to tax is indeed the power to destroy, by
giving an example.

That has nothing to do with what Webster was talking about. Read the case.

--
Ed Huntress

On Thu, 01 Jan 2009 13:24:37 -0500, Joseph Gwinn
wrote:

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.
-----------------
While the earlier cites appear to be correct, this also comes
from a anti child labor law where products produced by child
labor moving in interstate commerce were to be taxed at a
punative rate in order to drive the companies out of business, in
particular matches.
--------------
snip
The Keating-Owen Act of 1916 prohibited interstate commerce of
any merchandise that had been made by children under the age of
fourteen, or merchandise that had been made in factories where
children between the ages of 14 and 16 worked for more than eight
hours a day, worked overnight, or worked more than six days a
week.
snip
-----------
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hammer_v._Dagenhart

Many children were being seriously injured and maimed making
phosporous matches.
http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/j...TRY=1&SRETRY=0
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phossy_jaw


http://www.answers.com/topic/child-labor-tax-case
Chief Justice William Howard Taft held that the tax threatened
state sovereignty because it was for regulatory, not revenue,
purposes.

--------------
snip
Although the Keating-Owen Act was passed by Congress and signed
into law by President Woodrow Wilson, the Supreme Court ruled
that it was unconstitutional in Hammer v. Dagenhart 247 U.S. 251
(1918) because it overstepped the purpose of the government's
powers to regulate interstate commerce. In its opinion the Court
delineated between the Congress's power to regulate production
and commerce. A second child labor bill was passed in December
of 1918 as part of the Revenue Act of 1919 (also called the Child
Labor Tax Law). It also took an indirect route to regulate child
labor, this time by using the government's power to levy taxes.
snip
----------------

Congress made a second reun at the problem through taxes:

http://www.ourdocuments.gov/doc.php?flash=true&doc=59

For current [1918] NYT article see
http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive...9C946896D 6CF

"F. George McDuffee" wrote in message
...
On Thu, 01 Jan 2009 13:24:37 -0500, Joseph Gwinn
wrote:

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.
-----------------
While the earlier cites appear to be correct, this also comes
from a anti child labor law where products produced by child
labor moving in interstate commerce were to be taxed at a
punative rate in order to drive the companies out of business, in
particular matches.

The original quote comes from the McCulloch v. Maryland Supreme Court case,
1819. It started with Daniel Webster arguing the case for the federal
government's supremacy over the states. Justice Marshall picked it up in the
Court's decision.

The whole argument was NOT about taxes, but about the supremacy of the
federal government. Taxes came up as one of several "powers to destroy" the
institutions of the federal government, as listed by Marshall, that the
states might employ to undercut federal authority. But this was the bottom
line from Marshall. The "taxation" he's talking about is the taxation
Maryland wanted to impose upon the notes of the 2nd Bank of the United
States:

=====================================
"Taxation, it is said, does not necessarily and unavoidably destroy. To
carry it to the excess of destruction, would be an abuse, to presume which,
would banish that confidence which is essential to all government. But is
this a case of confidence? Would the people of any one state trust those of
another with a power to control the most insignificant operations of their
state government? We know they would not...

"If the states may tax one instrument, employed by the government in the
execution of its powers, they may tax any and every other instrument. They
may tax the mail; they may tax the mint; they may tax patent-rights; they
may tax the papers of the custom-house; they may tax judicial process; they
may tax all the means employed by the government, to an excess which would
defeat all the ends of government. This was not intended by the American
people. They did not design to make their government dependent on the
states...

"The question is, in truth, a question of supremacy; and if the right of the
states to tax the means employed by the general government be conceded, the
declaration that the constitution, and the laws made in pursuance thereof,
shall be the supreme law of the land, is empty and unmeaning declamation."

=====================================

To take that phrase out of context is to destroy the meaning and the
argument. Neither Webster nor Marshall argued for limits to taxation by the
federal government. The case was about the question of whether Maryland
could effectively destroy the 2nd Bank, which, Marshall concluded, had the
priviledge of the supremacy of the federal government over any individual
state.

Marshall said at least a couple of times in the Court's decision that the
government's limit to tax was based on judicious use of the taxing authority
by the legislatures. An abusive taxation by a state might be
unconstitutional; in Maryland's case, that's what the Court determined.

--
Ed Huntress