“TAXATION IS THEFT.”
I can’t tell you how many MAGA folk online have regurgitated that right-wing talking point to me.
I would respond by reflexively arguing a detailed and complex truth, that someone has to pay taxes – to defend the nation at the very least, and how and why it should be those who have reaped the most rewards from our society who should be paying the most to defend it (and the assets they mostly now own.) Basically I would defend the lofty concept of progressive taxation.
But things are stark now and sometimes simplicity is right. Taxation of working Americans who aren’t getting ahead IS THEFT. We knew this in the 1950’s and 60’s – back when we understood an income tax to be a tax of disposable income, to the extent you were actually getting ahead, and not of gross revenue. We still tax corporations on their profits, their actual income – not their revenue – but the rest of us – we are today taxed on most of our revenue, even though the constitution quite clearly authorizes an income tax, NOT a revenue tax, and it definitely does not spell out two different meanings for the word “income” depending on if you’re a real person who needs to eat or a corporation that doesn’t.
So yes, I can and will gladly agree with my MAGA compatriots, TAXATION IS THEFT (for the vast majority of Americans.)
Biden’s 2020 and 2024 platforms were that he would not raise taxes (and try to ease the burden) on Americans making less than $400,000 per year. Now he need only tweak that – that he will instruct the IRS, congress, and declare for the nation at large that TAXATION IS THEFT on ANY AMERICAN earning less than $400,000 per year. And order that the IRS immediately cease collecting taxes from Americans with annual revenue below this threshold, and should also order that federal withholding immediately be ceased for all such individuals.
Not only is it a deeply ingrained MAGA talking point, “taxation is theft” – I think it is a truism, that the vast majority of Americans, conservative and liberal, don’t want government relief programs or tax credits so much as they want the ability to keep the money they earn. With this one “official” act, to declare for ourselves and the world the right of working Americans to keep their own earnings, I believe we can all be united again.
With one presidential signature, Biden can restore our American hope, unity, and optimism. When he signs this order he will essentially force the restoration of the progressive tax system that actually made America great in the 1950’s and 1960’s. Congress will have no choice but to address the immediate shortfall, but they will have to do it with a (lame duck) POTUS and an invigorated population now firm in the understanding of who is absolutely hands-off. Biden’s order will put the onus of taxation back on those who rightly can and should be paying all the taxes. And it will pull the rug out from under an incoming fascist regime that has and is plotting to further weaponize the power of taxation against the American people.
Such an order can even thwart Trump’s destructive tariffs; if federal taxation of anyone earning less than $ 400,000 is theft, then small company and individual importers should be exempt from the tariffs. Small businesses will once again thrive once the playing field will finally be tilted somewhat back in their favor. It could be the biggest resurgence in small businesses since the 1950’s.
And I believe that Biden is the president with the guts to do this. To reclaim and officially enshrine once again the rights of the American working and middle class. To publicly denounce our past victimhood. To publicly call out our victimizers, the 1%, and make it clear THEY are the ones who should be paying the taxes, and anything short of that is THEFT, and Americans don’t tolerate theft.
Biden’s order can and should clarify for all time the definition and distinction of “income” vs. “revenue.” In 1913, once the 16th Amendment to our constitution was ratified, congress passed the income tax, excluding an individual's first $3,000 right off the bat as a personal exemption. At the time, the median annual income was less than $ 800 per year. $3,000 was enough to buy an average house, and more than enough to buy a median priced home. The clear intent of the framers of the 16th amendment inarguably was to EXCLUDE virtually all working Americans from the income tax. Biden’s order will instantly restore the original intent and put an end to a gaslight that has been increasingly perpetrated against the American people for more than four decades.
It’s no secret that making America great really means helping workers and making the American middle class great again. And again, I believe Biden is the president to do this.
Biden’s order is an executive order, but it is much more. It is also a DECLARATION. Orders can be undone. Declarations can’t.
An American president standing with the American people and clearly laying out how their constitution protects them from unjust and unconstitutional taxation - That cannot be undone by any court. Or any congress. Or even a subsequent president.
Furthermore, money is power. Biden can and should do everything he can to put as much money and power back in the hands of the American people as he can. This order is doing the right thing, for the right reasons. And it will do it just in the nick of time.
And with little doubt that Trump will weaponize the IRS, Biden can effectively shield working Americans from Trump’s weaponization by declaring any back taxes as not just unjust and unconstitutional, but also officially settled, a kind of mass clemency. He can leave only the richest Americans open to be audited for prior years, and open to owing for future years. They are the ones who should have been paying taxes all along.
If Trump and his oligarchs still insist they want to continue to tax the American middle class into oblivion – let them try. I for one am looking forward to finally standing shoulder to shouldn’t with my MAGA brethren to actually, finally, really, make America great again.
