First of all, the US Mint prints money, not the Federal Reserve. Second, even if the Fed did print money, what does this have to do with whether income tax is legal or not?
Actually, the Bureau of Engraving and Printing, not the US Mint (which makes coins).
Because they’re prophets of a new religion!
This is the last Ed Brown thread.
Mr. Brown appears to maintain the Feds have no jurisdiction in New Hampshire, either.
Or to put my argument another way. The Soviet Union had a very nice constitution. That constitution guaranteed freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and so forth. Except if the KGB arrested you and you tried to show them the constitution of the USSR they would have laughed at you.
Your contention is that we are living in a similar situation, except you somehow seem to think that showing the KGB the constitution will force them to let you go. You believe a contradiction: on the one hand the cops and courts ignore the law, on the other hand if you just tell them they ignore the law they will be forced to follow the law. Except if they ignore the law, why should they follow the law just because you tell them they are ignoring the law? By your first premise, they will ignore that!
I have heard the argument that The Fed was created by act of Congress and It is at least quasi governmental. Then I would like to know who has ’shares’ in the Fed, and who is making dividends, because they don’t print money for free, and they don’t print money out of the goodness of their hearts. You can’t claim that the Fed is ’quasi governmental’ and then allow the bank to operate in secrecy. I want a list of stockholders in the Fed. I want to know who is making interest off the printing of money. I want names.
Maybe this will get you started:
But what does the Federal Reserve have to do with income taxes?
Aha! You’ve seen this film:
The Fed does not print money. You can’t even find an accurate premise for your belief. Why should we listen to what you have to say?
Article 1, Section 8 says Congress shall have the power: “To coin money, regulate the value thereof, and of foreign coin, and fix the standard of weights and measures;”. Since this power is only given to the Congress, they were never explicitly given the ability to designate this responsibility to another entity. Thus, any fiat currency printed by the federal reserve is neither legal tender for debts, nor can be considered income as defined by the 16th amendment. Therefore since we neither owe or possess any legal currency, we have no taxable income as defined by the 16th amendment.
What do you barter for your groceries?
This is absurd. Do you seriously believe my elected represetative must split his time between voting on the floor of Congress, and personally striking coins down at the Mint? Of course they can designate another entity to print money.
Art I Sec 8 also says that Congress shall not only define, but also punish, piracy and felonies on the high seas and offenses against the law of nations.
By the OP’s reasoning, it must be unconstitutional to allow the Executive and Judicial branches the ability to punish those accused of terrorism. Apparently there has to be trials conducted by Congress so that bad guys may be sentenced to prison terms in institutions run by the legislative branch. Someone get on the horn to Guantanamo, quickly, and have the Navy deliver the accused terrorists to Capitol Hill, post haste!!
Read it all, it’s a ton of fun.
Short answer: Brown is a racist/libertarian/militiaman asshole. OK, maybe he’s not a racist as such, but there’s a lot of practical overlap between those movements. Just ask Tim McVeigh, if you have a ouija board.
So what?
And;
- Collect taxes.
- Establish post offices and post roads.
- Raise and support armies.
- Provide and maintain a navy.
So really, before Congress even get to coining all that currency, they first have to finish their duties captaining a naval vessel they have built (without a crew, of course) to defeat pirates (and the occasional dictator), before getting home to erect buldings and roads, and stopping every now and then to visit each of their constituents to collect their taxes and ask them to enlist. And all that stuff about making laws, I guess.
Curses! This “doesn’t explicitly say they can do it” subject is a mite tricky. If only there were some section of the U.S. Constitution setting out the “limits” of Congress, so we’d know explicitly what they can’t do. Darn. If only the founders had thought to add such a section, perhaps in close proximity to the powers one, we would know for certain.
Quick summary here:
Guest: Nobody can point to a law that says you have to pay taxes
Members: Here it is, right here, in the 16th amendment.
Guest: But the Fed prints money.
Members: No it doesn’t.
Guest: None of our money is legal anyway, because only congress can print money, and they’re not allowed to give the duty to anyone else.
Me: The Bureau of Engraving and Printing is part of the Department of the Treasury, which was created by an act of congress for the purpose of managing the country’s currency. I’d say that’s about as much of a congressional mandate as you can possibly get, right?
Unless you’re arguing that only congressmen have the right to operate the machines that print money because the article doesn’t allow hourly laborers to do it, you don’t have a leg to stand on. If that IS your argument, then I don’t know what to tell you.
Congress has the right to print and coin money, so they created an agency to print money.
By the way, pay your taxes, you damned cheapskate.
Moderator’s Warning: Let’s keep the personal digs out of Great Debates, please.
It was supposed to be a joke, but I’m not very funny. Care to edit it out for me?