Michael Savage is promoting the idea for a new concept in the United States that “You should lose the right to vote unless you pay at least $1,000 in taxes”. My polls suggest many of you agree.
Let’s say you think that’s a good idea. What would it take to accomplish that?
1) Repeal of the Voting Rights Act. This law specifically excludes putting impediments in the way of voting like literacy tests or a requirement to pay a tax.
2) Repeal of the 24th amendment, which was specifically passed in 1964 to outlaw the “poll tax”
3) Repeal of the 15th amendment – while Savage’s plan doesn’t mention excluding people from voting based on race, the courts will see that as the intent given the history of “Jim Crow” laws in the past
4) Repeal of the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th amendment which guarantees that all people are to be treated equally under the law. Add in the 19th amendment as well, since women who choose to be wives and not do work that earns a cash income may lose the right to vote.
So what kind of populist uprising would it take to actually accomplish that? Congress cannot repeal an amendment by passing a law – you must pass a new Amendment to repeal the prior one (like was done with Prohibition). To pass a Constitutional Amendment, 2/3 of both houses of Congress must propose the change, and then 3/4 of the States must agree to it. (Note that the President doesn’t have a say in this process). Alternatively, 2/3 of the States can demand a constitutional convention, and 3/4 of those attending must agree to the changes.
Since the people you are attempting to disempower are going to oppose you taking their right to vote away, there is less than zero chance of ever doing this. The Courts would never allow such a change to to be implemented. If they did, it would ignite a second Civil War.
It’s just one small further step to suggest that only people who own real property should have the vote – this was called the “Landed Gentry”. After all, who wants people living in trailer parks to vote? People without a college education? People with an IQ under 120? People who don’t belong to a labor union? People who don’t believe in God?
Another of those little details of “The Founding Fathers” was the country they created based on “All men being created equal” denied the right to vote to people who did not own land. That did not change until the middle 1800s. Just how far back do we want to turn the clock?
Let this be a warning not to get your ideas about the future of America from the dreams of your poodle sleeping at your feet.
Or maybe read a similar idea from Walter E Williams. Shame on Mr Williams for “stealing” Savage’s ideas.
Conservative opposition to equal and universal suffrage has a long history. Just as one example, peruse this story from the NY Times discussing the issue of ending universal suffrage in Germany in February 1896 because it was an impediment to the functioning of the German nation.
Okay … okay … deep breath here. I rarely listen to Savage, as even when he’s right, he’s just too strident for me. And often enough he’s not right. But, frankly, I see some sense in the notion that if a voter is to have a say in how to spend tax dollars (largess scraped from the sweat of others, brows), then that voter should also be a tax payer. I don’t think the Founders had it mind that a whole class of people should be empowered to assign themselves public lucre at the expense of others.
For the Biblically-inclined, there is this admonishment from Second Thessalonians (Third chapter) that I’m sure the founders read from time to time:
“We were not idle when we were with you, nor did we eat anyone’s food without paying for it. On the contrary, we worked night and day, laboring and toiling so that we would not be a burden to any of you. We did this, not because we do not have the right to such help, but in order to make ourselves a model for you to follow. For even when we were with you, we gave you this rule: ‘If a man will not work, he shall not eat.’
“We hear that some among you are idle. They are not busy; they are busybodies. Such people we command and urge in the Lord Jesus Christ to settle down and earn the bread they eat.”
The nature of people is to take thing offered to them, especially money. Offer instead, opportunities, helping hands, actual food, even shelter, and when finally a productive citizen, a voter registration card.
This is Attila, signing off in search of a village to burn.
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I have some incomplete thoughts along the lines of what Savage is thinking. I’m going to ramble a bit.
I’m basically a libertarian – but the problem is you can’t really mix being a libertarian and still have a “safety net”. If your premise is “I can do anything I want with my body (or otherwise)”, then you can’t expect other people to scrape your butt off the highway when you crash your motorcycle, fund research to cure the diseases you cause, or provide you with a free education.
Assuming a person goes to public school, by the time they finish high school, “society” has expended around $100,000 to fund that education. If you then kill yourself wrapping your car around a lamp pole driving at 120 mph, you just threw awaay our “collective” investment in you. You want free stuff, that means strings. You want no strings, that means no safety net. Freedom of action and socialization of the consequences is a formula for collective bankruptcy. So here we are. The libertarian extreme could be “If you don’t have the money, you die from your bad decisions”. The Socialist extreme is “We’re paying for your bad decisions, so we have a right to make all your choices – no fatty foods for you”.
I’m okay with the general idea that the “death tax” could be recast as a repayment of society’s expenditures during your lifetime. Keep a running tab (with interest) of the cost of your education, your reduced cost mortgages, your FDIC bailouts, excess Social Security and Medicare beyond what you paid in taxes, unemployment checks, food stamps, Medicaid, etc… Think of it like a reverse mortgage on your life. You don’t have to pay it back until you’re dead, but the taxpayers get repaid before the children get any money.
Problems I see with my plan (there would be many)
– a large swath of people will never develop enough income in their lifetime to cover the bill due – there is no pleasant answer to that – do the children inherit the debt? You can’t have your own children until you pay off your parent’s debt?
– people will try to evade the process by giving away assets prior to death (like how people try to get Medicaid to pay for their nursing home even though they had assets to cover the costs)
– how do you treat immigrants? Should the money go back to the country that provided the education?
Michael Savage is a bit too strident for my delicate and refined tastes, but, frankly, I indeed WOULD require persons wanting to have a say in spending the public weal (sweat scraped if not gouged from the brows of productive citizens) to be contributors. No one should be empowered to vote themselves money and property earned by another citizen. That is a form of robbery. That is a tyranny that punishes ambition and industry and that enables sloth.
This Attila, signing off in search of villages to sack.
I don’t think you should ever have to pay a fee (or a tax) to vote. As you point out that would create all kinds of Constitutional problems and ultimately result in a return to feudalism (powerful landed gentry).
I guess what I would like to see is some reasonable “civic penalty” for intentionally arranging your life or career such that other citizens are forced to pay for your sustenance and upkeep. Federal employees should not be allowed to vote in Federal elections: State employees should not be able to vote in state elections. And so on… But if you’re NOT living off someone else’s taxes you should be allowed to vote regardless of whether you pay taxes yourself.
Samuel Clemens wrote “there is no distinctively native American criminal class except Congress.” I propose we treat Congress the same as other felons and remove their right to vote!
As to how to implement it? A Constitutional Convention is the only way. The Federal government would never voluntarily give away that much political power.
In an “Alice in Wonderland” governement where reducing the amount of money people pay in taxes is called “spending money”, I really don’t think we want a system that penalizes “parasites”, where the definition is made by the government.
You’re right. The government would just make a mess of it and create even more parasites.
We need PROFESSIONAL pest control experts. Where’s Stalin, Mao, and Andrew Jackson when you really need them? :-)
I tell people that when Joe Punchclock and Sally Housecoat start speaking of the need for a Constitutional Convention, it’s time to start stocking up. I don’t say that to demean, but when the average folk who can usually be counted on to talk about American Idol and sports begin to speak of radical alterations to the Constitution, we’re in trouble.
I have no doubt that changes would be made that would lead to an even faster erosion of civil liberties than the erosion that is taking place in the form of creeping incrementalism (tip of the hat to Jerry Doyle).
Who turned out in the voting booths in 2012? People who were easily hoodwinked (lacking common sense) and people who are of less-than-mean intellect (dumbed-down/book stupid). Both categories are the end result of 4 decades of watered-down curricula both in public schools and universities. This government, regardless of party affiliation, enjoys a numbed constituency. Such a constituency votes for socialists and, one day, will tell you about how a Constitutional Convention is needed to get the country back on track. Seriously, who was surprised to see POTUS redistributing wealth? He spoke about it on the campaign trail, and the press belittled a plumber who dared to ask him ‘why.’ Elections have consequences.
I heard Savage say (some weeks ago) the taxes-paid amount required to vote should be $10,000. Does anyone else recall that show?
Perhaps he realized that a $10,000 minimum (if it just income tax) would exclude most of the middle class