A Liberal Crisis?
Schmoliticians, I'm having a bit of a crisis of conviction. Specifically, my liberal tax-and-spend conviction. Yeah, I know. Shit's gotten pretty serious here at Chez Schmolitics when Sean is torn up about conservatism and liberalism.
You see, travelers and wanderers, I'm struggling with special income taxes passed by California -- 1% on individuals earning more than $1,000,000 as I understand it -- that have been levied in order to provide additional/new social services to mentally-ill citizens who aren't otherwise receiving assistance. My quandry (if I can call it that) doesn't revolve around whether the "state" should be able to levy taxes, or determine what tax revenues are to spent on. Those things I don't fight. I'm struggling with the state being able to enumerate/identify a specific population segment to be taxed (you know they're mainly white, and men) and a specific population segment to benefit (the mentally ill, who are likely to be poor, black, and men).
And, before this become misconstrued, it has nothing to do with holding a grudge against the mentally ill, nothing to do with race. It has nothing to do with feeling unduly protective of rich people -- they seem to do pretty well for themselves without any help from me. In fact, we could replace the tax payers and the tax revenue beneficiaries in this equation and arrive at my same general discomfort.
So what's the problem? For those of you that understand these things in a way that I, as a poor unfrozen caveman lawyer, will never understand... does this tax violate the spirit of the law -- if not the letter of the law -- insofar as it violates the equal protection clause of the 14th amendment? Aren't rich people being unduly and unfairly singled out for taxation?
Now, as a liberal and a pragmatist, I don't take much exception with the underlying public policy motivation -- especially since I know the bulk of these individuals will find a way around paying this tax, and I know how underserved the mentally ill are. As a political observer, however, it makes me a bit squeamish in a way I've not previously experienced.
Any thoughts, Team Schmolitics? Is my liberalism at risk?
posted by Sean @ 11/21/2005 06:52:00 PM
1 comments
1 Comments:
Geez, are you going red state on us or what, Sean?
Personally, I don't see how this is any different than the reshuffling of the income tax code the federal government foists on us every few years. They are constantly reshaping/redrawing income brackets and tax burdens. And that is not considered a violation of the 14th Amendment. To me, it's as if you added an extra percent to the state income tax for your higher earnings brackets. Singling out the beneficiaries of this new revenue is a little unusual, I'll grant you. But, again, it seems to me that there is precedent for this in other areas of state/federal tax administration (i.e. special taxes levied to help pay for particular projects, services, etc.) The IRS and state tax services don't always draw such a clear line between tax revenue and expenditures, but I think, in this case, it was intended to put a happy face on the whole proposition.
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