used to say<\/a> that on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, physicists thought of the electron as a wave, and on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays, as a particle.<\/p>\nThe Obama Administration, and their Democrat counterparts here in the state, have adopted a similar theory of taxation.\u00a0 First, it was the state Democrats insisting that a fee wasn’t a tax, except when it was.\u00a0 Now, the Obama Administration, in response to Virginia’s lawsuit against Obamacare, has changed its tune about the penalty you will soon pay for not carrying health insurance.<\/p>\n
Initially, they claimed it wasn’t a tax, in order to avoid rhetorically breaking the President’s promise not to raise taxes on anyone making less than $250,000 a year.\u00a0 Now, in response to the lawsuit, which claims that the government can’t impose a penalty for not<\/em> engaging in commerce, and that the IRS can’t be used to collect penalties unrelated to taxation, the Administration has decided that it’s a tax, after all.<\/p>\nWhich will create difficulties of its own.\u00a0 The Constitution limits the direct taxation authority of Congress pretty severely.\u00a0 While the 16th Amendment permits income taxes, this isn’t an income tax.\u00a0 And while it permits capitation taxes, those taxes have to be in proportion to a state’s population, which this also isn’t.<\/p>\n
So we’re left with a situation where something is a tax on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, a fee on Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday, and a penalty on Sunday.<\/p>\n
The resolution to the quantum paradox, most agree, is that the electron and other particles\u00a0aren’t really particles or waves at all, but something else entirely that has features of each.\u00a0 I think it’s pretty clear what’s what in this case, but no doubt the Democrats will soon be arguing that it’s neither a penalty nor a fee nor a tax, but something else altogether.<\/p>\n
The one common denominator to all these definitions is that it means more money for them, and less for you.
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