Mitt’s Olympics Ad Annoys Obama Team

 

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Mitt Romney, an ad ran yesterday on the super PAC Restore Our Future website, a new ad entitled, “Olympics.”  We’ve got the ad.  And in the ad, gold medal figure skater Kristi Yamaguchi, the 2002 Olympic games chief operating officer, Fraser Bullock, gold medal skeleton racer, Jimmy Shea, speed skater, Derek Parra, and an unidentified announcer.  This is the ad, it’s pretty good.

KRISTI YAMAGUCHI: As an athlete, you’re training your whole life for that one moment at the Olympics.

ANNOUNCER: But America’s winter Olympics were mired in scandal and deficits. They turned to Mitt Romney.

FRASER BULLOCK: He faced a $400 million budget deficit and turned that around to a $100 million surplus.

ANNOUNCER: And after September 11th, Romney delivered the Olympics safe and secure.

JIMMY SHEA: Mitt gets things done. He changed my life.

KRISTI YAMAGUCHI: Mitt Romney brought a huge sense of hope.

DEREK PARRA: Mitt allowed athletes like myself to be able to realize our dreams. 

RUSH:  That’s an ad that’s pretty effective. It’s running during the Olympics.  It’s got the Obama people all ticked off.  The only linkage Obama has to the Olympics is losing them for Chicago.  You remember shortly after he was immaculated, he triumphantly — this is after he’d been given the Nobel Peace Prize on the come.  Never before had they given a peace prize to somebody that hadn’t done anything.  Well, that’s not true.  Practically every recent winner hasn’t done anything for peace, but they gave it to Obama, he’d been in office a month or so.  He gets on a plane, goes over to wherever it was, I don’t know, Geneva, wherever the IOC was meeting to award the Olympics, and it was just assumed Obama would show up, oh, man, automatic, Chicago.  He was out of there in five minutes.  Chicago didn’t get it. I think Rio de Janeiro did.  The IOC said crime is the same in both places, so where would we rather go?  And they decided they’d go to South America. 

END TRANSCRIPT

Milton Friedman Schools Phil Donahue (and Barack Obama) on Capitalism and Greed

 

RUSH: Milton Friedman should be the Bible for young people, or anybody, trying to understand capitalism and free markets.

Romney’s Trip Has Been So Successful Mahmoud Ahmadinejad Endorsed Obama

 

 

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: So a bunch of reporters start shouting questions at Mitt Romney in Poland.  We have the audio this coming up in due course.  A bunch of reporters start shouting at Romney.  He’s very, very close to their Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.  And one of Romney’s press people starts shouting at the reporters. (imitation) “Shut up!  This is a holy site for the Polish people.  Kiss my butt.”  He told the reporters to shove it.  So now they’re all over this guy.  He eventually called and apologized.  Now, it wasn’t long ago that this guy, Neil Munro, was at the White House. Obama’s out there delivering some sort of statement. When he thinks Obama’s finished, he asks a question. The reporters get so mad at the disrespect shown Obama, they chase this guy, this reporter down to the Washington Monument. 

But now the reporters are harassing Romney.  They’re trying to create gaffes.  They’re working on behalf of Barack Obama.  They are attempting to carry forth the meme that Romney’s foreign trip is a disaster, that it’s one gaffe after another.  They’re trying to do this in the mainstream.  And the fact of the matter is Romney is having a home run of a trip.  He is having a grand slam. He is doing such a good job that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad actually came out, and for all intents and purposes, endorsed Obama yesterday.  Romney’s over in Israel and he makes an obvious truthful statement.  He’s been doing that a lot on this trip.  Talked about the Palestinians versus the Israelis.  Palestinian economy, Israeli economy. (paraphrasing) “Well, there’s a cultural difference here.  There’s a clear reason why the Israeli economy is vastly superior.  It’s cultural.” 

All hell broke loose.  A spokesman for the Palestinians: “That’s racism.  That is out and out racism.” Mahmoud Ahmadinejad joins in, criticizing Romney.  Didn’t mention his name, but there was nobody else he could have been talking about.  So effectively, the grand pooh-bah of Iran, working with the permission of the mullahs, has come out against Obama’s opponent, Mitt Romney.  So effectively a Barack Obama endorsement, which is nothing new.  This all happened during 2008, all these foreign dictators supporting Obama, ripping into McCain and so forth.  I mean, you couldn’t tell the difference. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad would criticize America. You listened to a Democrat criticize America. It sounded the same, word-for-word. 

END TRANSCRIPT

Fast and Furious debacle

Congressional report blames five ATF employees for Fast and Furious debacle

Published July 31, 2012

FoxNews.com

WASHINGTON –  Congressional Republican investigators have singled out five employees in the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives to blame for the botched anti-gunrunning operation known as Fast and Furious, in a report on the scandal obtained by Fox News.

The report, the first of three to be issued from the congressional investigation, concludes that the five employees were responsible for an operation “marred by missteps, poor judgments and inherently reckless strategy.” All five have since been reassigned but remain employed in the agency.

The findings put additional pressure on the Obama administration in an ongoing battle over what higher-level officials knew, if anything, about the ATF operation.

For more than a year, Republicans have been leading an investigation into Fast and Furious, which was launched in Arizona in late 2009 by ATF, with help from the U.S. attorney’s office there. The operation’s targets bought nearly 2,000 weapons over several months. But for reasons that are still in dispute, most of the weapons sold were never followed, and high-powered weapons tied to the investigation ended up at crime scenes in Mexico and the United States, including the December 2010 murder of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry.

The Republican-led House voted late in June to hold Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt, but Justice officials since then essentially have said the ball is still in Republicans’ court, if they intend to follow through with vows to file a civil lawsuit seeking the remaining documents.

The congressional investigative report, to be issued Tuesday, specifically faults Acting Director Kenneth Melson; Deputy Director William Hoover; William Newell, special agent in charge of the Phoenix Field Division; William McMahon, deputy assistant director for field operations, and Mark Chait, assistant director for field operations.

Melson told investigators he felt the Justice Department was making him a scapegoat for the operation’s failure.

“I think they were doing more damage control than anything,” he testified, as quoted in the investigative report. “My view is that the whole matter of the department’s response in this case was a disaster.”

The congressional investigators noted that Melson “was concerned that Fast and Furious did not end sooner”, but they also faulted him for never ordering it to be shut down.

The report faults Hoover for knowing Newell had employed “risky tactics” but allowing them to continue. Chait, for his part “paid a surprisingly passive role during the operation,” while McMahon seemed to be nothing more than a “rubber stamp” for field operations, the report concludes.

Newell attorney Paul Pelletier blasted House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa in a statement overnight, saying Issa “has consistently shown that he won’t let the truth get in the way of his quixotic political witch hunt.” 

The two other reports being prepared for release will focus more on the Justice Department’s oversight role in the operation and its dealings with congressional investigators. Republicans have suggested Justice officials have resorted to political stonewalling in an attempt to cover up the truth, while administration officials have described the Republican investigation as a witch hunt.

But several Democrats joined House Republicans in voting for the contempt resolutions after Holder failed to give congressional investigators documents in response to a subpoena last year. Meetings in the run-up to the vote failed to reach a compromise, after President Obama asserted executive privilege over the documents.

Specifically, the documents at issue are mostly composed of internal Justice Department emails after Feb. 4, 2011, when department officials realized they would have to retract a letter to Congress that denied Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives agents ever let guns fall into the hands of suspected criminals.

In one email from early 2011, described to Fox News, Holder told subordinates: “We need answers on this. Not defensive BS. Real answers.” The email was among several shown in two separate meetings with House Republicans and Democrats last week.

Issa, R-Calif., has said it is “critically important” to obtain the post-Feb. 4, 2011, documents at issue because, among other things, they could show whether top officials were “surprised or were already aware” about so-called “gunwalking” in Fast and Furious when confronted with new information. In essence, Republicans say the documents could show whether the false letter was part of a “cover-up.”

In a hearing before the contempt votes, Issa insisted Holder offered “to provide subpoenaed documents only if the committee agrees in advance to close the investigation,” adding, “No investigator would ever agree to that.”

But Justice Department officials have disputed that account. A Justice Department official insisted last month the documents at issue “show no intention or attempt to conceal information or mislead (Congress).”

Nevertheless, Boehner has said that a civil lawsuit to obtain the documents would be pursued.

Fox News’ William LaJeunesse and Laura Prabucki contributed to this report.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/07/30/republicans-to-issue-report-blaming-five-atf-employees-for-fast-and-furious/#ixzz22Dm5BioR

New study shows half of the global warming in the USA is artificial

PRESS RELEASE – U.S. Temperature trends show a spurious doubling due to NOAA station siting problems and post measurement adjustments.

Chico, CA July 29th, 2012 – 12

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

A comparison and summary of trends is shown from the paper. Acceptably placed thermometers away from common urban influences read much cooler nationwide:

A reanalysis of U.S. surface station temperatures has been performed using the recently WMO-approved Siting Classification System devised by METEO-France’s Michel Leroy. The new siting classification more accurately characterizes the quality of the location in terms of monitoring long-term spatially representative surface temperature trends. The new analysis demonstrates that reported 1979-2008 U.S. temperature trends are spuriously doubled, with 92% of that over-estimation resulting from erroneous NOAA adjustments of well-sited stations upward. The paper is the first to use the updated siting system which addresses USHCN siting issues and data adjustments.

The new improved assessment, for the years 1979 to 2008, yields a trend of +0.155C per decade from the high quality sites, a +0.248 C per decade trend for poorly sited locations, and a trend of +0.309 C per decade after NOAA adjusts the data. This issue of station siting quality is expected to be an issue with respect to the monitoring of land surface temperature throughout the Global Historical Climate Network and in the BEST network.

Today, a new paper has been released that is the culmination of knowledge gleaned from five years of work by Anthony Watts and the many volunteers and contributors to the SurfaceStations project started in 2007.

Continue reading →

 

Pathetic: Congressman Says He’ll Deal With ForgeryGate After Election

Friends and Patriots,

ALL RINO’s MUST BE REMOVED FROM OFFICE.

Pathetic: Congressman Says He’ll Deal With ForgeryGate After Election

July 31, 2012
By   
 
 

Shame on Congressman Steve King of Iowa. He is a coward just like the rest of the s0-called “constitutional conservatives” in Washington, DC.

Baby Formula Now On The Banned Wagon

 

Tuesday, July 31st  

Nanny City

Background Info: Bloomberg to New Mothers: You Really Should Be Breastfeeding, You Know – Katie Pavlich (Townhall.com).

Don’t you all feel safer knowing that a politician is making your decisions for you?  He must be a modern day superman to be able to know so much about everyone’s well being.  Well, maybe just another Barney Fife, but with lots of money.

Cross-posted: TobyToons.com

Elizabeth Warren Ad: I Will Do for You What the Communists Have Done for China

 
Friends and Patriots,

In the article below we see the true ideology of the progressive democrats.
John Kennedy must be rolling in his grave.

 

 

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT
RUSH:  It’s from the New York Sun.  Massachusetts residents that tuned into the Olympics opening ceremony saw a new 30-second campaign commercial from Elizabeth Warren that said America should be more like communist China.  She is running for the United States Senate and is saying that to help herself win!  She said, “We’ve got bridges and roads in need of repair and thousands of people in need of work. Why aren’t we rebuilding America?  Our competitors are putting people to work, building a future. China invests 9% of its GDP in infrastructure. America? We’re at just 2.4%. We can do better.”

They are building roads and bridges like crazy in North Dakota.  They’re building housing like crazy in North Dakota.  They’re going absolutely nuts in North Dakota because there is an oil boom in North Dakota.  But, no, no.  Can’t mention that.  No.  She’s running for the Senate in Massachusetts, and she’s telling people she wants to vote for her they have to be more like the ChiComs.  They gotta be more like communist China.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: I want to play the Elizabeth Warren ad.  We got time to squeeze this in.  Here it is.

WARREN:  We’ve got bridges and roads in need of repair, and thousands of people in need of work.  Why aren’t we rebuilding America?  Our competitors are putting people to work building a future.  China invests 9% of its GDP in infrastructure.  America?  We’re just 2.4%.  We can do better.  We can build a foundation for a strong, new economy and get people in Massachusetts to work right now.  I’m Elizabeth Warren and I approved this message.  Let’s go to work.

RUSH:  Yeah, be like China.  That’s Elizabeth Warren.  That’s the ad she’s running to get elected to the Senate, asking people in Massachusetts, look, I’ll do for you what the Chinese communists have done.  It’s just unbelievable.

END TRANSCRIPT

Does Barack Obama Expect The Upcoming Election To Spark Rampant Civil Unrest?

Friends and Patriots,

The answer to the question is yes even if he has to creat the unrest so he can stay in power. I don’t doubt that he and his handlers will try anything to achieve their goal.

 

What is Barack Obama preparing for?  What does Barack Obama actually expect to happen in November?  Does he believe that the upcoming election could actually spark rampant civil unrest inside the United States?  The conditions are certainly ripe for civil unrest in this country.  A multitude of recent polls and surveys have shown that Americans are angrier and more frustrated than ever.  Sadly, we are taking a lot of that anger and frustration out on each other.  America is more divided today than at any other time since the Civil War era.  The left absolutely hates Mitt Romney the Republicans, and the right absolutely hates Barack Obama and the Democrats.  If you doubt this, just surf political blogs for a few hours and read the comments that people leave.  This country is a boiling cauldron of hatred and anger and all it is going to take is just the right “spark” to cause all of this hatred and anger to absolutely explode.  This upcoming election season is likely to be one of the most heated and divisive election seasons in U.S. history, and if there is not a clear winner on election night there is the potential that chaos could be unleashed that would be far, far worse than anything we saw during the Bush/Gore debacle of 2000.

Right now, the polls tell us that this is likely to be a very, very tight election.  If you doubt this, just check out the daily Gallup tracking poll.

As I write this, Obama and Romney are tied at 46 percent.

In 2008, a wave of positive emotion helped Obama secure a solid victory on election night where there was no doubt about the outcome.

But this time there is not going to be the same wave of positive emotion behind Obama, and that means that the election is likely to be much, much closer.

One thing that set off alarm bells for me is when various news stories starting discussing the “legion of lawyers” that Barack Obama was recruiting for this election.  The following is from a recent article in the Huffington Post….

President Barack Obama’s campaign has recruited a legion of lawyers to be on standby for this year’s election as legal disputes surrounding the voting process escalate. Thousands of attorneys and support staffers have agreed to aid in the effort, providing a mass of legal support that appears to be unrivaled by Republicans or precedent.

Did you catch that?

Obama’s “unprecedented” legion of lawyers is definitely getting prepared for something.

In a tightly contested race, would Obama use every legal angle that he possibly could to take the election away from Mitt Romney?

Would Mitt Romney potentially do the same to Obama?

How would the rest of America respond to another huge legal struggle over the presidency?

Let us hope that we never find out the answers to any of those questions.

But fighting in court is not the only avenue that Barack Obama could potentially use to keep his spot in the White House.

There is also the possibility that Barack Obama could use his executive powers to influence the outcome of the election.

This year, Obama has issued a whole series of very strange executive orders.

Many have been wondering what the true purpose of these executive orders really is.

For example, EO 13603 enables Barack Obama to take total control over all food, all energy, all health resources and all transportation resources with the stroke of a pen.

The following is from an article about this executive order by Jim Garrison in the Huffington Post….

President Obama’s National Defense Resources Preparedness Executive Order of March 16 does to the country as a whole what the 2012 National Defense Authorization Act did to the Constitution in particular — completely eviscerates any due process or judicial oversight for any action by the Government deemed in the interest of “national security.” Like the NDAA, the new Executive Order puts the government completely above the law, which, in a democracy, is never supposed to happen.

Later in that same article, he detailed some of the extraordinary powers that the executive branch would be given if Barack Obama decided that “national security” required it….

• The Secretary of Defense has power over all water resources;
• The Secretary of Commerce has power over all material services and facilities, including construction materials;
• The Secretary of Transportation has power over all forms of civilian transportation;
• The Secretary of Agriculture has power over food resources and facilities, livestock plant health resources, and the domestic distribution of farm equipment;
• The Secretary of Health and Human Services has power over all health resources;
• The Secretary of Energy has power over all forms of energy.

According to this executive order, a “national emergency” is not even required to activate these powers.  If Barack Obama decides that there is a threat to “national security” (or to his job security) he could activate these powers at any time.

Another executive order, EO 13618, would potentially give Obama power over all communication resources in the United States.

So does that mean that Obama could potentially pull the plug on the Internet during a crisis?

That is a very good question.

Overall, Obama has issued more than 900 executive orders during his time as president.  The amount of power that he now claims to possess is absolutely mind blowing.

So will he ever actually attempt to use the powers that he has granted himself under these executive orders?

Let’s hope not.

In addition, it appears that the Department of Homeland Security is gearing up for something.

An article posted on RT the other day entitled “DHS gears up for civil unrest prior to presidential elections” detailed some of the purchases that the Department of Homeland Security is looking to make….

The DHS submitted a rushed solicitation to the Federal Business Opportunities site on Wednesday, which is a portal for Federal government procurement requisitions over $25,000. The request gave the potential suppliers only one day to submit their proposals and a 15-day delivery requirement to Alexandria, Virginia.

As the brief explains, “the objective of this effort is to procure riot gear to prepare for the 2012 Democratic and Republican National Conventions, the 2013 Presidential Inauguration and other future similar activities.”

The total amount ordered is about 150 sets of riot helmets, thigh and groin protectors, hard-shell shin guards and other riot gear.

Specifically, DHS is looking to obtain:

- “147 riot helmets” with “adjustable tactical face shield with liquid seal”

- “147 sets of upper body and shoulder protection”

- “152 sets of thigh and groin protection”

- “147 hard-shell shin guards” with “substantial protection from flying debris, non-ballistic weapons, and blows to the leg” and “optimized protective design for severe riot control or tactical situations.”

- “156 forearm protectors”

- “147 pairs of tactical gloves”

The riot gear will be worn by Federal Protective Service agents who are tasked with protecting property, grounds and buildings owned by the federal government.

You can find the DHS solicitation right here.

Also, as I have written about previously, earlier this month FEMA posted a solicitation for a large number of pre-packaged meals.  According to the solicitation, the maximum number of meals that would be provided to FEMA under the contract would be 17.5 million meals.  The following is from the FEMA solicitation document….

As referred to in paragraph (b) of FAR Clause 52.216-22, “Indefinite Quantity” of this contract, the guaranteed contract minimum is 21,000 packaged meals to include the base and option periods.  The contract ceiling amount shall not exceed 17,500,000 packaged meals.

So do those solicitations mean anything special or are they just part of normal government operations?

That is a good question.

But what we do know is that U.S. military personnel are going to be deployed at the Democratic and Republican national conventions in support of U.S. Secret Service personnel.  The following is from a recent Stars and Stripes article….

“During the Democratic/Republican National Conventions, Department of Defense personnel will support the U.S. Secret Service,” a Northern Command spokesman said in an email.

“For operational security reasons we do not discuss the numbers of military personnel and resources that are involved,” U.S. Navy Lt. Cdr. William G. Lewis said. “Additionally, we do not share our operational plans.”

Could the same forces be deployed to quell civil unrest sparked by a controversial election result in November?

Let us hope that this upcoming election season is not as bitter and divisive as many are projecting and let us hope that there is a clear winner in November.

The conditions are definitely right for America to be absolutely torn apart if the “perfect controversy” comes rolling along.

At this moment, Americans are incredibly frustrated.  Our economy has been in the dumps for quite a few years, and now it look like another recession is starting.  The patience of the American people is running out.

Over much of the western United States things are so hot and dry right now that just a single spark is often enough to set off a forest fire that can burn for weeks.  Well, the same thing can be said for the political climate in the United States right now.

The American people are so hot and so angry that it would not take much to set off a raging political fire.

Let us hope that cooler heads prevail, because a single spark could set this country ablaze.

A Short History of Congress’s Power to Tax

The Supreme Court has long distinguished the regulatory from the taxing power.

By PAUL MORENO

In 1935, Secretary of Labor Frances Perkins was fretting about finding a constitutional basis for the Social Security Act. Supreme Court Justice Harlan Fiske Stone advised her, “The taxing power, my dear, the taxing power. You can do anything under the taxing power.”

Last week, in his ObamaCare opinion, NFIB v. Sebelius, Chief Justice John Roberts gave Congress the same advice—just enact regulatory legislation and tack on a financial penalty, as in failure to comply with the individual insurance mandate. So how did the power to tax under the Constitution become unbounded?

The first enumerated power that the Constitution grants to Congress is the “power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts, and excises, to pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States.” The text indicates that the taxing power is not plenary, but can be used only for defined ends and objects—since a comma, not a semicolon, separated the clauses on means (taxes) and ends (debts, defense, welfare).

 

Editorial board member Joe Rago on how Chief Justice John Roberts’s rewrite of ObamaCare weakens the Constitution’s federalist structure. Photo: Associated Press

 

This punctuation was no small matter. In 1798, Pennsylvania Rep. Albert Gallatin said that fellow Pennsylvania Rep. Gouverneur Morris, chairman of the Committee on Style at the Constitutional Convention, had smuggled in the semicolon in order to make Congress’s taxing power limitless, but that the alert Roger Sherman had the comma restored. The altered punctuation, Gallatin said, would have turned “words [that] had originally been inserted in the Constitution as a limitation to the power of levying taxes” into “a distinct power.” Thirty years later, Virginia Rep. Mark Alexander accused Secretary of State John Quincy Adams of doing the same thing after Congress instructed the administration to print copies of the Constitution.

The punctuation debate simply reinforced James Madison’s point in Federalist No. 41 that Congress could tax and spend only for those objects enumerated, primarily in Article I, Section 8.

Congress enacted very few taxes up to the end of the Civil War, and none that was a pretext for regulating things that the Constitution gave it no power to regulate. True, the purpose of tariffs was to protect domestic industry from foreign competition, not raise revenue. But the Constitution grants Congress a plenary power to regulate commerce with other nations.

Congress also enacted a tax to destroy state bank notes in 1866, but this could be seen as a “necessary and proper” means to stop the states from usurping Congress’s monetary or currency power. It was upheld in Veazie Bank v. Fenno (1869).

The first unabashed use of the taxing power for regulatory purposes came when Congress enacted a tax on “oleomargarine” in 1886. Dairy farmers tried to drive this cheaper butter substitute from the market but could only get Congress to adopt a mild tax, based on the claim that margarine was often artificially colored and fraudulently sold as butter. President Grover Cleveland reluctantly signed the bill, saying that if he were convinced the revenue aspect was simply a pretext “to destroy . . . one industry of our people for the protection and benefit of another,” he would have vetoed it.

Congress imposed another tax on margarine in 1902, which the Supreme Court upheld (U.S. v. McCray, 1904). Three justices dissented, but without writing an opinion.

Then, in 1914, Congress imposed taxes on druggists’ sales of opiates as a way to regulate their use. Five years later, in U.S. v. Doremus , the Supreme Court upheld the levy under Congress’s express power to impose excise taxes.

Then, in 1922, the court rejected Congress’s attempt to prohibit child labor by imposing a tax on companies that employed children. An earlier attempt to accomplish this, by prohibiting the interstate shipment of goods made by child labor, was struck down as unconstitutional—since it was understood since the earliest days of the republic that Congress had the power to regulate commerce but not manufacturing. “A Court must be blind not to see that the so-called tax is imposed to stop the employment of children within the age limits prescribed,” Chief Justice William Howard Taft wrote in Bailey v. Drexel Furniture Co. “Its prohibitory and regulatory effect and purpose are palpable.” Even liberal justices Oliver Wendell Holmes and Louis D. Brandeis concurred in Taft’s opinion.

Things came to a head in the New Deal, when Congress imposed a tax on food and fiber processors and used those tax dollars to provide benefits to farmers. Though in U.S. v. Butler (1936) the court adopted a more expansive view of the taxing power—allowing Congress to tax and spend for the “general welfare” beyond the powers specifically enumerated in the Constitution—it still held the ends had to be “general” and not transfer payments from one group to another. After President Franklin D. Roosevelt threatened to “pack” the Supreme Court in 1937, it accepted such transfer payments in Mulford v. Smith (1939), so long as the taxes were paid into the general treasury and not earmarked for farmers.

And now, in 2012, Justice Roberts has confirmed that there are no limits to regulatory taxation as long as the revenue is deposited in the U.S. Treasury.

Are there any other limits? Article I, Section 2 says that “direct taxes shall be apportioned among the states” according to population. This is repeated in Article I, Section 9, which says that “no capitation, or other direct tax, shall be laid,” unless apportioned.

 
image

Getty ImagesCongress convening at the U.S. Capitol

The Supreme Court struck down income taxes in 1895 (Pollock v. Farmers’ Loan & Trust Co.), on the ground that they were “direct” taxes but not apportioned by population. Apportioning an income tax would defeat the purpose of the relatively poorer Southern and Western states, who wanted the relatively richer states of the Northeast to pay the bulk of the tax. The 16th Amendment gave Congress the power to tax incomes without apportionment.

Other direct taxes should presumably have to be apportioned according to the Constitution. Justice Roberts quickly dismissed the notion that the individual mandate penalty-tax is not a direct tax “under this Court’s precedents.” To any sentient adult, it looks like a “capitation” or head tax, imposed upon individuals directly. Unfortunately, having plenty of other reasons to object to ObamaCare, the four dissenting justices in NFIB v. Sebelius did not explore this point.

Some conservatives have cheered that part of Justice Roberts’s decision that limits Congress’s Commerce Clause power. But an unlimited taxing power is equally dangerous to constitutional government.

Mr. Moreno is a professor of history at Hillsdale College and the author of “The American State from the Civil War to the New Deal,” forthcoming from Cambridge University Press.

A version of this article appeared July 7, 2012, on page A13 in the U.S. edition of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: A Short History of Congress’s Power to Tax.