Wingnut Idea Of the Day – Congressloon Steve King, January 4, 2012
Michael Matthew Bloomer, January 6, 2012
This is the first of a ocassional feature, Wingnut Idea of the Day.
GOP Congressloon Steve King of Iowa is well-known as a Tea Party favorite, and a man untethered to reality. Not the way most Tea Partiers are untethered, but over and above that standard, Mr. King soars.1
Reduction of taxes ranks among the primary Tea Party goals, perhaps its first priority. Our history is rife with arguments about income taxes, and nowadays it defines the GOP as never before. Mr. King has decided to take the discussion of tax rates, loopholes, tax expenditures, and all the rest to a higher level, indeed to the highest level available. On Friday, January 4, he introduced H.J. Res. 4, Proposing an amendment to the Constitution of the United States to repeal the sixteenth article of amendment, i.e. the entire income tax regimen that funds the federal government:
“The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several States, and without regard to any census or enumeration.”
He’s joined by Georgia’s Rob Woodall, a so-called “fair tax” nut who endorses a new tax national consumption tax regime which would throw out the principle of progressive taxation.
So, while we do need a restructuring of the tax code, and a shift to more progressivity, repealing the 16th Amendment is today’s Wingnut Idea.
113th CONGRESS
1st Session
JOINT RESOLUTION
Proposing an amendment to the Constitution of the United States to repeal the sixteenth article of amendment.
Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled (two-thirds of each House concurring therein),
- That the following article is proposed as an amendment to the Constitution of the United States, which shall be valid to all intents and purposes as part of the Constitution when ratified by the legislatures of three-fourths of the several States within seven years after the date of its submission for ratification:
`Article–
- `The sixteenth article of amendment to the Constitution of the United States is hereby repealed’.
- For just one of many examples: Congressman Steve King Objects To Barack Obama’s Middle Name, But What About His Own?, Michael Matthew Bloomer, They Will Say ANYTHING!, January 9, 2009; Steve King Quotes, Political Ruminations, Aug. 12, 2012 ↩
