Constitutionalist: Dems’ New Tax Problems
With Democrats suddenly eyeing a “wealth tax” to fund their spending dreams, Ira Stoll objects at The New York Sun: “The constitutional challenges . . . are considerable.” The group of 600 or so billionaires Dems would target “is small enough that it could be subject to the Constitution’s prohibition, in Article I, against a bill of attainder.” And: “The 16th Amendment that gave Congress the power to tax income applies to income taxes, not wealth taxes.” Plus: “A wealth tax could also violate the Fifth Amendment takings clause, the 14th Amendment’s due process and equal protection clauses and the Article I prohibition against ex post facto law.” Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen says it won’t be a wealth tax, but Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced, “We will probably have a wealth tax.”
Libertarian: Bigger Gov’t, Like It or Not
Gallup recently reported that with COVID subsiding, Americans have shifted back to favoring a more hands off-approach for government — yet, cautions Reason’s J.D. Tuccille, history suggests they may not get that. Last year, a rare 54 percent wanted a more active role, but now a more typical 52 percent say the government is doing too much. Yet that “brief shift in sentiment allowed enough of an opening for the ratchet to click forward into a new position,” with the potential for permanently more active government. Historically, “the state gets larger during crises and never fully returns to its pre-crisis status.” The public may no longer want “bigger government, but we’re all likely to get a taste of it, anyway.”
Conservative: Biden’s No Pal to Working Class
“During the 2020 election, Joe Biden positioned himself as the Democrat who could win the working class from President Donald Trump,” notes Spectator World’s Amber Athey. “Joe from Scranton” was supposed to bring “normalcy back to the White House.” But 10 months in, his administration has proved “shockingly divorced from the lives of everyday Americans.” To “a massive breakdown in the global supply chain, leading to shortages of goods and increased prices for consumers,” the only White House response was to mock Americans about Santa. Treating the public “with such brazenness, particularly within an administration that claimed to be on the side of the working class,” shows “the White House is merely a reflection of Biden’s phoniness.”
Econ watch: Winter Recession Is Coming?
“Evidence pointing to a coming US recession is starting to pile up,” warns National Review’s Jim Geraghty. Economists expect Thursday’s gross-domestic-product numbers to show 2.8 percent third-quarter growth, “a significant drop from” the second quarter’s 6.7 percent, with some projecting gains as low as 0.5 percent. Even the higher number “would be pretty lousy for an economy that is supposed to be rebounding out of a pandemic,” but “expect worse in the fourth quarter that we’re currently in. Businesses can’t find workers — we have 10.4 million unfilled jobs” — and the Dec. 8 deadline for federal contractors to get vaxxed or be fired will further fuel staff shortages. Everything “seems to be getting more expensive, and the “supply-chain problems are just catastrophic.” So: “No, Jen Psaki, this isn’t just a matter of delayed treadmills.”
Trump veteran: Joe’s ‘Unilateral’ Green Panders
Unable to “achieve meaningful legislative victories” to “appease the environmental left,” Team Biden will now likely pursue “unilateral” executive and regulatory actions instead, predicts former Trump aide Boris Epshteyn at Newsweek. That includes new limits on methane emissions that will hurt small businesses while multinationals keep “making money hand over fist.” President Biden’s EPA seems to be relying on a “questionable” report from green group Ceres, which gets donations from giants like Shell. But the rules mean job losses for US energy workers. “The Democrats’ radical climate agenda will punish America, while giving the upper hand to less environmentally friendly competitors like China. America spent decades fighting for energy independence. Under President Trump, we finally achieved it. Now, Joe Biden wants to cede that independence back to other countries.”
— Compiled by The Post Editorial Board
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