Illinois Tax Day Tea Party

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Comment by Pamela Smith on November 16, 2009 at 7:39am

Chicago End The Fed:

Come prepared for a little rain as is common this time of year. :)

We’ll gather at Heald Square, which is on the south side of the Chicago River and north of Wacker Drive, between State and Wabash.

Assemble between noon and 1:00pm. If you get close it should be easy to spot -- there’s a statue of George Washington and a couple other financiers of the Revolutionary War (see http://chicago-outdoor-sculptures.blogspot.com/2007/11/heald-square-monument.html). For those into GPS, the specific coordinates are lat. 41.887216 long. -87.626878.

We have a route planned that will take us past the major media outlets and the most popular downtown shopping areas. Our route will take us into Millennium Park probably around 2

Comment by Cyrus J. Mallinson on November 12, 2009 at 6:19pm

November 12, 2009



Dear Fellow Tea Party & Townhall Patriots, Ladies & Gentlemen:

As of the close of Veterans Day 2009 there were 2,274 people listed as members on the Tax Day Tea Party website. Over the next month it is my goal to send this comment/e-mail to all 2,274. If you receive this you are a member of an elite, but not elitist-minded group of Americans.

What a pleasure it is to see so many Americans join together. Unfortunately, our "joining" is necessitated by the sad fact that our national leadership is failing our country.

Our Love-of-Country connection impels me to say what I am going to say next. I'm afraid all of our Tea Party/Townhall efforts might end up being all-for-naught. But this "all-for-naught" outcome doesn't have to happen.

The reason our efforts might die is that we are not addressing the key element that enables the "evermore-spending crowd" in Washington, D.C. to continue to increase its massive overspending.

That key element is the Federal Income Tax. We need to repeal the 16th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution that instituted the Income Tax. The replacement will be the CONSTITUTIONAL SUPPORT TAX (the CST) explained in the "Op Ed" below.

The Income Tax enables the Federal Government to pull money out of our pockets directly and continually, no matter how poorly it spends the money. This is true with any tax, but is doubly damaging with a behemoth level of government like the Federal Government.

The CST will reinstitute the States as a protective buffer between the pocketbooks of Americans and the Federal Government as was the case before passage of the 16th. See Article 1, Section 9, Paragraph 4 (1-9-4) of the Constitution. 1-9-4 enabled the States to serve as protective buffers before it was put into a state of suspended animation by the 16th. Please read both 1-9-4 and the 16th from your copy of the Constitution.

Why is the Federal Income Tax the key element? Think about it this way. Let's say a very wealth couple (worth several billion dollars) has an out-of-control 15 year-old son. If Dad and Mom always run in and pay for the damage he does, will he ever learn personal responsibility? Of course not.

Unfortunately, the Federal Government is our "national" 15 year-old son. We are constantly paying for the damages (i.e., enormous spending) because of the ironclad income tax lock on our pocketbooks.

Please read the following two explanations of the CST. The first is in a short "Letter to the Editor" newspaper format. The second is the longer, more detailed "Op Ed" format. If you like what you see, feel free to submit either or both to newspapers in your area. Also, please share it with other Tax Tea Party/Townhall people. Please contact me if you would like more information.

Thank you for your time and consideration for our Country.

Sincerely,

Cy Mallinson 1311 Manor St. Kalamazoo, MI 49006-2143 1-269-342-0410 cmallinson@aol.com

Letter to the Editor version

Dear Editor:

The passage of the 16th Amendment to the Constitution authorized the Federal Income Tax. The 16th also created an ever-being-replenished pool of tax dollars. Every payday withholding tax goes into this pool.

This money has created a deeply entrenched spending industry in Washington, D.C.

Citizen protests of increased Federal spending are essentially worthless. Look at spending since September 2008 despite many reasonable protests. What can be done? Repeal the 16th Amendment. The replacement will be the CONSTITUTIONAL SUPPORT TAX (the CST).

Under the CST the Federal Budget will be divided among the States by a fair-to-all-States formula. This "1040 formula" will be based upon income totals taken from GREATLY simplified tax returns from all income earners. No Federal bureaucracy will create the formula.

Each State's citizens will decide how to tax themselves to pay their State's share of the Budget.

The CST will have multiple constraints on Federal spending. The key constraint is that whatever Budget Congress sets will need to be “sold” to the States. Congress will need a concise regard for what the Constitution allows as Federal spending.

Until the Income Tax is replaced by the CST, controlling Federal spending will be a pipe dream.

Sincerely,

Cy Mallinson 1311 Manor St. Kalamazoo, MI 49006-2143 1-269-342-0410


The Op Ed version from follows:

The purpose of this article is to introduce the CONSTITUTIONAL SUPPORT TAX (the CST) as a replacement for the Federal Income Tax. But before doing so, a brief history would be in order.

In the United States, the Constitution as originally written, plus Amendments, was for the first hundred years of our nation the defining framework of our national thinking. It was a national linchpin.

However, starting in the late 1800s, the idea of the Constitution as a "living, breathing document" gained a foothold in the ongoing evolution of national political thought. The long established belief that amending the Constitution to institute change was now superseded by a notion that "implied powers" existed within it. Implied powers meant that virtually anything could be done by legislation without the formal amending process outlined in Article five of the Constitution.

The so-called "Progressive" thinking of this era (which helped develop the implied powers "doctrine") did lead in 1913 to passage of the 16th Amendment. The 16th, or Income Tax Amendment, did much more, however, than just institute the Federal Income Tax.

Prior to the 16th, Article 1, Section 9, Paragraph 4 (1-9-4), of the Constitution governed the power of the Federal Government to impose any "direct" tax on the people. According to 1-9-4, a direct tax could not be imposed unless in "Proportion to the Census or Enumeration herein before directed to be taken."

The term direct tax was never defined at the Constitutional Convention in 1787. James Madison, later the 4th President of the United States, maintained a journal of the convention proceedings. According to Madison's journal on August 20, 1787, Rufus King, a delegate from Massachusetts posed a question regarding "the precise meaning of direct taxation?" The journal notes that "No one answered."

What 1-9-4 meant is that the States served as a protective buffer between the pocketbooks of the citizens and the Federal Government. A Civil War income tax Abraham Lincoln pushed and later attempts at imposing income taxes died, or were ruled unconstitutional, because of 1-9-4.

The 16th Amendment not only authorized the income tax. It also put into a state of suspended animation the Census or Enumeration requirement of 1-9-4. Please read 1-9-4 and the 16th to confirm this for yourself.

By suspending the Census or Enumeration requirement, the fundamental relationship between the American People and the Federal Government was redefined. The Federal Government could now reach directly into the pocketbooks of the citizens. The States lost their protective buffer function. The Federal Income Tax became a new linchpin underlying and funding a whole new range of spending initiatives that are of questionable Constitutionality.

For the past 96 years an inevitable expansion of the Federal Government has taken place. With the power to reach directly into the citizens pockets an ever-growing, ever-being-replenished pool of tax dollars was created. This available pool of dollars has resulted in a now deeply entrenched spending industry in Washington, DC. The power to reach directly into the pockets of an essentially defenseless people is the "linchpin" that keeps this spending industry in place. This Federal Income Tax linchpin that holds together the spending industry and encourages evermore spending needs to be removed and replaced with a new system that contains multiple constraints on Federal spending. The understandable Tax Day Tea Party and Townhall protests against ever-growing government will likely be all for naught if the Federal Income Tax linchpin is not removed.

The Federal Government and Congress cannot be trusted with direct access to America's pocketbook. Just look at what has happened since "Bailout America" came on the scene in Fall 2008.

The CONSTITUTIONAL SUPPORT TAX (CST) is the new system that contains constraints on, rather than encouragements to, more Federal spending. Points 15 through 20 below itemize a few of these constraints.

1. Here is how the CST will work (Point 3 is the "theme" point.):

(The numbering of the paragraphs is to make it easier for a reader to identify the place where there is a question. The numbers are not intended as a formal or informal outline.)

2. The CONSTITUTIONAL SUPPORT TAX (CST) is an integrated budgeting/spending/taxation system that will end Federal direct taxation on the American people and businesses by repealing the 16th Amendment with a 28th Amendment. A 29th Amendment will then be added to the Constitution to implement the CST. Under the 29th Amendment, direct Federal taxes of any form on people or businesses, whether income, cap-and-trade, social security, Medicare, capital gain, estate, gross receipt or franchise taxes on corporations or anything else that might be attempted in the future will be prohibited. Permanently.

2A. Once the CST receives sufficient public attention and support, it will be necessary to draft 28th and 29th Amendment language. To do this a three-man team consisting of Jay Sekulow, Chief Counsel of the American Center for Law and Justice, Judge Andrew Napolitano of the FOX News Channel, and Dr. Walter E. Williams of the George Mason University Economics Department will be asked to head up a team of legal and Constitutional scholars and/or attorneys they select to draft the needed language.

3. Under the CST the GENERAL BUDGET EXPENDITURES (GBEs) of the Federal government (explained below, point 12) will be divided among the States by a statistically sound formula, the "1040 formula," that will give a fair-to-all-States apportionment of those GBEs. It will then be up to the people of each State to decide how they will tax themselves to pay their ratable share of the GBEs.

4. Here is a step-by-step on how the 1040 formula will be developed. Please remember that the new 1040 will not be used to calculate each taxpayer(s) taxable income because all direct Federal taxes under the 29th Amendment will have been abolished. Rather the 1040s will develop a national formula for dividing the GBEs among the States.

5. Each individual (or married couple), will need to prepare for their own records a GREATLY REDUCED Form 1040. This 1040 will end at the TOTAL INCOME line (Line 22 on the 2008 1040.) Even people with high incomes and complicated personal finances will have much simpler tax returns.

6. The taxpayer(s) will file two secured postcards reporting the Line 22 income. One with the revenue department of their state of residence. The second with the IRS. (The Internal Revenue Code as we know it will have disappeared with the repeal of the 16th. The IRS will be a far different agency. A replacement Federal Revenue Code of no more than a hundred pages or so will be needed to detail the workings of the CST. Duties, Imposts and Excises of Article 8, Section 1 of the Constitution will be unchanged by the CST.)

7. It will be the responsibility of the revenue departments and the IRS to total the amounts and compare the names on the secured postcards each receives to determine a TOTAL STATE INCOME for each State. In the end the TOTAL STATE INCOME amounts determined by the States and the IRS should be equal.

8. The IRS will total the 51 TOTAL STATE INCOME amounts. (For purposes of the CST, the District of Columbia will be considered a State, hence 51.) This will give a TOTAL NATIONAL INCOME amount.

9. The percentage that the TOTAL STATE INCOME of each State contributes to TOTAL NATIONAL INCOME (100%) will then be calculated to 7 or 8 decimal places. The percentages will be applied to the total GENERAL BUDGET EXPENDITURES (point 12 below) to determine how much each State must pay. Again, the citizens of each State, by whatever method they choose, will determine how to tax themselves to pay their share of the GBEs.

10. The focus of attention now shifts to the yearly development of the Federal budget by Congress.

11. The expenditures in the budget will be divided into two categories. First, DEDICATED EXPENDITURES. These expenditures will be funded by user fees. For example, charges to ranchers for grazing cattle on Federal land. Charges to forest products companies to cut timber on Federal land. Gasoline taxes for use in highway construction and maintenance. User fee charges will be for covering the expenses associated with activities of the dedicated purpose. User fees will be used for their dedicated purposes only. No borrowing for other purposes.
12. The second category will be GENERAL BUDGET EXPENDITURES. Essentially these will be all nondedicated expenditures currently in the Federal Budget, including Social Security and Medicare. The dollar spending for any one year will be determined by the same budgeting process the Congress and Executive departments use today.

13. The percentage that each State's TOTAL STATE INCOME contributes to the TOTAL NATIONAL INCOME as computed in step 9 will then come back into the picture. The percentage will be applied to the GBEs to determine the dollar amount of tax each State must pay for the next upcoming fiscal year.

14. With the CST there are going to be multiple constraints on Federal spending growth. A few of them are:

15. The first constraint will be the fact that the Federal Government will need to look to the States to obtain funds to operate. When the Congress goes through the budgeting process, it will be forced to remember that whatever dollar total it decides upon will need to be "sold" to the States. The "protective buffer" wall provided to the States by Article 1 Section 9, paragraph 4 of the Constitution will be pulled out of the state of suspended animation into which the 16th Amendment placed it.

16. Constraint two. In relatively short order the thousands of State and local officials across the country will become an unofficial fraternal organization to "keep the money at home", rather than send it to Washington DC. Even the most far left, big spending State Governors and legislatures will have an eye to keep the money at home. These thousands of state and local officials will serve as a counterweight offset to the multifaceted body of Federal officials and money seekers now picking the taxpayers pockets.

17. Constraint three. There will be much more public attention to the Federal Budgeting process. People in every State will want to know the percentage that their STATE TOTAL INCOME will be contributing to the TOTAL NATIONAL INCOME. From there they will want to know the number of dollars of the GBEs they will be required to pay. With Federal spending as it is now, at a conservative estimate, Michigan would need to pay over $100 billion dollars of GBEs. For New York it would be about $200 billion. When the word gets out among the citizens of every State that their total tax burden will be in the tens of billions, or even hundreds of billions of dollars, heavy pressure will be imposed on Congress to cut spending.

18. Constraint four. According to the Preamble of the U.S. Constitution, the only thing that the Federal Government is to PROVIDE (pay) for is "common defence." The people running our current Federal Government (that is far beyond it Constitutional bounds) will undoubtedly try to continue making it grow in areas that have nothing to do with "common defence." With broad public attention in the future on the budget development/spending/taxation process a new sense of the Constitutional limitations on the Federal Government should arise in citizen thinking. A broad public reeducation on the Constitution will come into the public debate. Even, perhaps, into school classrooms across our land.

19. Constraint five. Many commentators have said "follow the money" when watching the actions of people. At this point, with one monopolistic nationwide system of coming up with tax money to pay for Federal spending, we have a concentration of power in Federal government about which the Founding Fathers and others have issued numerous warnings. With each State determining how it will raise money to pay for its GBEs, there will be a substantial transfer and diffusion of power out of Washington DC to the State capitols and localities. This diffusion of money and power will be a fifth constraint.

20. Constraint Six. There will no longer be any Federal Deficit each year because all GBEs will be totally funded by the States. This will further pressure Congress to keep spending down. Congress will have a hard time convincing the States to cover spending that is now the sum total of what is collected in Income Tax dollars plus borrowed in Deficit dollars. This should soon eliminate the need for the Federal Reserve and Treasury Department to flood the banking system with money to monetize a growing National Debt. With no more deficit spending, the 29th Amendment adding the CST to the Constitution might need to address Congressional power "To borrow money on the credit of the United States." (Article 1, Section 8, Paragraph 2.) Other parts of the Constitution might need to be reviewed as well in implementing the CST.

21. Under a best-case scenario, since the States will have the power of the purse strings, eventually the State powers that have been usurped by the Federal Government might be "carved out" and taken back by the States.

Thank you for publishing this article.

Sincerely,

Comment by carol ann paris on November 12, 2009 at 4:00pm

8th District to Flip Queen Bean ....... Candidate Debate
What: 8th Congressional District Candidate’s Debate

When: Friday, November 20th.
Time: 6:30 PM Registration – 7:00 PM Event begins
Where: McHenry County College Conference Center (Building B)
Campus Map: www.mchenry.edu/Maps/index.asp
8900 Route 14 (NW Hwy) Crystal Lake, IL. 60012
Driving directions: http://www.mchenry.edu/Maps/MapToMCC.asp
Cost: $5/per person to offset venue rental

Comment by Chris Arndt on November 12, 2009 at 3:50pm

A Candidate Forum for the 11th Congressional District will be held on Dec 15 in Princeton, Il from 6-9:30 pm. It is located at 837 Park Ave West, Princeton, Il. I can be reached at carndt13@yahoo.com.

Comment by William M Finley on November 11, 2009 at 3:33pm

That is A good idea, keep up the good work and the rest of us need to jump on the band wagon, and fight this fight .

Comment by Betty Hamilton on November 10, 2009 at 8:05pm

Encourage people to put your Senators and Representatives in your cell phones and call every day. I called today and got through immediately. We need to clog the lines. We need to make our voices heard.

Comment by Chris Arndt on November 10, 2009 at 5:51pm

I need help out here in Princeton, Il. We need to oust Deb Halverson from the 11th Congressional District. Some of us are going to her Peru, Il office(1901 4th Str) Saturday from 3-5pm. We were informed by her DC office that she would be there. Join us! The more the merrier.
Also, I have received responses from Dave White and Henry Meers that they would come for a forum. Awaiting response from David McAloon. Adam Kinzinger's rep response was to contact the GOP for forum events. I guess the GOP is the voice of the people????

Comment by Jeremy Segal on November 4, 2009 at 5:02pm

I wish I could go to D.C. tomorrow, but can't, but am planning on going to Quigley's office on Irving Park.

Comment by Beth on November 2, 2009 at 8:17pm

Is anyone in IL going to DC on November 5th? Does anyone know of any buses going there?

Comment by Jeremy Segal on November 2, 2009 at 12:54pm

Hope you enjoy these photos I took at the 4/15/09 Tax Day Tea Party.

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