Constitutional Taxation and General Welfare

This article is lifted from a thread in Usenet sensationalizing the recent stupidity of one or two very ignorant Democrats on the subject of "nationalizing" the oil companies. It took on the characteristics of a disagreement over taxation and Constitutionality. The righties love to lean on the Constitution when squawking about any sort of tax on the oil companies (or any other corporate tax for that matter).

But look a little deeper and you find that the gummint can do just about whatever the people tell it to do.

The 16th amendment allows taxation of income from any source.  There is
also the absolute right of excise taxation written right into the
constitution. There is also a general welfare clause and the centralized
right to coin money.

The ignoramus grandstanders in our current suck the corporate ass congress
are liable to do about anything as individuals.  There are, fortunately, a
few rational people in there too.

Who actually suffers from a tax, who actually bears the burden, is
determined not by where the tax is collected, but by where the money is
spent.

I think the Carter version of a Windfall Profits Tax may have been
unconstitutional in that it was specifically applied to oil companies.
And if it was not unconstitutional then it must have been seen as an
excise tax on oil.

Now back to the use of the proceeds from a tax on oil or oil companies:

If all of the proceeds of the tax (which will be very high if
nationalization of the OIL ITSELF is the objective) are simply
redistributed to all tax payers using the same guidelines as the recent
"stimulus" package, then the oil companies will bear the burden of the
tax.  Everyone else gets an instant income that will offset the ECONOMIC
RENT being paid to the oil companies.

Case closed.

The progressive characteristic of such a redistribution is the boost in
competitiveness given other energy sources.  The WPT as conceptualized
herein above is the best thing to do for right now and probably for some
time to come. The so called "free market" needs a little help from time
to time. It certainly has not been aided by the rent seeking Republicans.
Natural resource rents belong to all people of the sovereignty equally.

For a poor but serviceable definition of economic rent:

http://en.wikipedia.org/...