Taxation without Representation

Article 1 of the US Constitution, first half of the third paragraph of section 2:

Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons [Modified by Amendment XIV].

---

If you will notice, the US Constitution ties representation and taxes pretty tightly together. Theses links here and here will take you to a couple of sites that explain the working of our Constitutional government in plain, easy to understand language. The problem we have right now is we do not have a government that wishes to abide by the Constitution. Typically, after a measure passes in the House, it goes to the Senate for consideration. A bill must pass both bodies in the same form before it can be presented to the President for signature into law. This rule is not spelled out in a single brief clause, but in a series of constitutional rules that in the past were considered inviolate, that is until the progressives began whittling away at what our founding fathers built with their own blood. Speaker Nancy Pelosi is moving to merely "deem" that the House has passed the Senate health-care bill and then send it to President Obama to sign anyway. Louise Slaughter, A New York Democrat and chair of the House Rules Committee, under orders from the Speaker, is working on crafting a "self-executing rule," also known as a "hereby rule." This rule will side step the constitution and allow the House to vote only once on the reconciliation corrections, but not on the actual Senate bill. Here is where it gets sticky, constitutionally speaking, if the reconciliation corrections pass, the Slaughter rule would call the Senate bill presumptively approved by the House. There would be no up or down vote by the House, not even debate on the Senate bill. The President would be sent a bill to sign into law that did not pass both houses in direct violation of the US Constitution. If you will remember, back when the Democrats were looking at becoming the majority party after their “8 years of hell” under George Bush Jr., Pelosi promised to “drain the swamp” and create the most ethical Congress in US history. When he was a senator, Joe Biden is quoted as saying the Democrats would not “abuse power” if they become the majority as the Republicans had done. You can even find then Senator Barrack Hussein Obama claiming that his party would be so much more transparent than the GOP. So what happened? They lied. “No Taxation without Representation”, the phrase was coined by Reverend Jonathan Mayhew in a sermon in Boston in 1750, but it is found nowhere in the US Constitution, even though the concept is there in general. Some exceptions do exist, such as certain voting rights no being extended to convicts and immigrants. For most of its existence, Washington DC had no representation until the 23rd amendment came along. So what do we do about this? It is obvious to anyone except the mushy-brained that the Obama administration is fully intent on turning the United States into a version of its preferred society, the old Soviet Union. Any who doubt that assertion should take a closer look at what Obama’s assorted “reforms” would do. The Education Reform language inserted into the Healthcare Bill would make it illegal for an education to be privately funded. In the Healthcare Bill proper is language that would imprison a citizen daring to opt out of buying into ObamaCare. Actually the prison time is for not paying the massive fines attached to acting as a free person, but you’ll be behind bars just the same. What really is happening is an assault on the very fabric of American Culture. If you boil down every complaint the left has against this country, it comes down to one essential phrase, and that phrase is this, “Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness”. The liberal left cannot stand the fact of true individual freedom. They cannot handle the idea of a man or a woman being able to pursue the career of their choice. They cannot stomach the idea of you being able to express your opinion without fear of retribution. Remember what Hillary Clinton said about the nuclear family? “It Takes a Village” was a call to replace that mother and father with the Nanny State. Nancy Pelosi told Congress that they had to vote for the Healthcare bill so they could find out what was in it, while at the same time the DNC is running television commercials claiming that the bill will provide an assortment of freedoms. If we tried to do that with Congress we would be indicted for contempt. The Life portion of our declaration will be deleted in the Healthcare bill through the formation of the so-called death panels, the Independent Medicare Advisory Boards called for in section 3403 of HR3200. The text of that section can be found here. Those who claim that the “cost saving” decisions made by these boards would not make them death panels need to look at the new mammography guidelines called for by the government. If every American woman waits until she turns fifty before getting a check up, a good many of them will have already contracted inoperable cancer. The end result? Death…and a significant cost savings for Obama and the lefties. My wife’s mother could be one of them and a close friend of hers, another. The Liberty portion has already gone, by the way, but not enough for the Democrats. Measures are already being discussed at the Reid and Pelosi level to make opposition to the government illegal. This type of legislation has been tried before, first with John Adams and the Sedition Act of 1798. Under the Obama form, it has been suggested that any opposition to the current administration be a punishable offense. The Pursuit of Happiness would be eliminated by Cap and Trade. If passed, this would dictate what type of income you will be allowed to make and, in the dreams of the mushy-brained, the sort of career. Try to be the kind of entrepreneur that made this country great and you’ll be locked away. What do we do? We have to make our representatives in both the Congress and Senate understand without any doubt that if they do not protect our rights and restore the freedoms the progressives have taken away… They will be replaced.