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Events in Making the Constitution
Nationalizing the Bill of Rights
Contact
President Bush -- <president@whitehouse.gov>
White House switchboard: (202) 456-1414
Contact your Senator --
http://www.senate.gov/senators/senator_by_state.cfm
Contact your Representative --
http://www.house.gov/house/MemberWWW.html
House and Senate switchboard: (202) 224-3121
Links to Central Government Agencies --
http://www.firstgov.gov/
Top
50% of Wage Earners Pay 96.03% of Income Taxes
The share of total income taxes paid by the top 1% fell to
33.89% from 37.42% in 2000. This is mainly because their income share (not just
wages) fell from 20.81% to 17.53%. However, their average tax rate actually rose
slightly from 27.45% to 27.50%.
*Data
covers calendar year 2001 and includes all income, not
just wages, excluding Social Security
This
proves that it was not the tax cut that caused revenues from the rich to fall,
but the recession and the stock market crash. If you are going to benefit from the rich paying
more taxes, due to the progressive nature of our tax system, on the upside, you
are going to lose more revenue from these people on the downside. This is a good
argument for making taxes less progressive.
Taxpayers in the bottom 50% of wage earners pay less than four dollars out of
every $100 paid in income taxes in the United States. People in the top half are
rarely millionaires. The top 50% are those individuals or couples
filing jointly who earned $26,000 and up in 1999. (The top 1% earned
$293,000-plus.)
Here
are the wage earners in each category and the percentages they pay:
Top 5% pay 53.25% of all income taxes (Down from 2000 figure: 56.47%).
The
top 10% pay 64.89% (Down from 2000 figure: 67.33%).
The top 25% pay 82.9% (Down from 2000 figure: 84.01%).
The top 50% pay 96.03% (Down from 2000 figure: 96.09%).
The bottom 50%? They pay a paltry 3.97% of all income taxes.
The
top 1% is paying more than ten times the federal income taxes than the bottom
50%!
The
top 1% earns 17.53 (2000: 20.81%) of all income.
The top 5% earns 31.99 (2000: 35.30%).
The top 10% earns 43.11% (2000: 46.01%)
The top 25% earns 65.23% (2000: 67.15%)
The top 50% earns 86.19% (2000: 87.01%) of all the income.
The
bottom 50% is paying a tiny bit of the taxes, so you can't give them much of a
tax cut by definition. Yet these are the people to whom some politicians want to
give tax cuts. The so-called rich are about the only ones
paying taxes anymore.
You may be unaware of the Alternative Minimum Tax, which now ensures that
everyone pays some taxes. AP reports that the AMT, "designed in 1969 to
ensure 155 wealthy people paid some tax," will hit "about 2.6 million
of us this year and 36 million by 2010." That's because the tax isn't
indexed for inflation! If your salary today would've made you mega-rich in '69,
that's how you're taxed.
Franklin Roosevelt, a Democrat, introduced the Social Security (FICA) Program. He promised:
That participation in the Program would be completely voluntary.
That participants would only have to pay 1% of the first $1,400 of their annual incomes into the Program or whatever amount that participants elected to put into the program
That the money from participants would be put into an independent "Trust Fund" rather than into the General operating fund
That the money would only be used to fund the Social Security Retirement Program, and no other Government program
That the annuity payments to the retirees would never be taxed as income.
Today retirees are taxed on 85% of their money paid to them in Social
Security payments.
Q: Who took Social Security from the independent "Trust" fund and put it into the General fund so that Congress could spend it?
A: Lyndon Johnson (Democratic Party controlled both House & Senate)
Q: Who eliminated the income tax deduction for Social Security (FICA) withholding making it all taxable?
A: Democratic Party controlled both House and Senate.
Q: Who started taxing Social Security annuities?
A: Al Gore cast the "tie-breaking" vote as President of the Senate, while he was Vice President of the
US (both Houses and Senate controlled by Democratic Party)
Q: Who decided to start giving annuity payments to immigrants?
A: Jimmy Carter (Democratic Party controlled both Houses)
Immigrants move into this country, and at age 65, receive Social Security payments, even if they have never paid anything into Social Security!
How
the Electoral College works
The 2000
election was the fourth time the Electoral College selected a candidate
other than the one who won the popular vote.
So do we the
people really elect the president and vice president? Technically, we
don't. Presidents are elected by the states and the District of Columbia,
not by a national tally of voters. When you vote, you cast your ballot for
electors who will vote for a candidate they are politically aligned with.
Most of the
time that means the candidate who wins the popular vote also wins the
Electoral College vote.
There are 538
Electoral College voters, one per senator and representative from each
state. The District of Columbia, which has no congressional
representation, has three votes - the minimum.
California has
55 votes, while Texas (34) and New York (31) have the second and third
most, respectively. Besides D.C., seven states have three votes.
The colleges
of electors from each state meet on the same date - this year, December 13
- and vote for a president and vice president. There is no central
location that the voters meet - in this case, college refers to a body of
electors, not a building. Most of the 51 slates of electors meet at their
respective state capitols.
There are
measures to replace an original elector who cannot make it to the vote.
On January 6,
the new Congress will meet in joint session to tally and announce the
vote. If no candidate has a majority of the electoral votes, the House of
Representatives picks the president and the Senate chooses the vice
president.
The House of
Representatives has not voted on a president since 1824, when Andrew
Jackson won a plurality - but not majority - in the Electoral College. The
House voted for John Quincy Adams, who became the sixth president.
Generally
speaking, a candidate who has the most popular votes in a state also
receives all of its electoral votes. Two states, however, can split their
electoral college. Maine and Nebraska apportion their votes between
congressional district and two at-large votes. Yet neither state has ever
split its electoral vote.
Changes
to the 2004 Electoral College
Because the
apportionment of Electoral College voters is based indirectly on the
Census, several states have gained or lost votes for the 2004 and 2008
elections. Florida, a key state in 2000, cast 25 electoral votes that
year; this year it will have 27.
Other states
with more votes: Arizona (+2), California (+1), Colorado (+1), Florida
(+2), Georgia (+2), Nevada (+1), North Carolina (+1) and Texas (+2).
States with
fewer votes: Connecticut (-1), Illinois (-1), Indiana (-1), Michigan (-1),
Mississippi (-1), New York (-2), Ohio (-1), Oklahoma (-1), Pennsylvania
(-2) and Wisconsin (-1).
On Election
Day, Coloradoans will vote on whether to change immediately the
winner-takes-all-votes approach to one tied to the state's overall popular
vote. Colorado has nine electoral votes.
In 2000,
President Bush won the state; under the proposed format, he would have won
only five of its electoral votes and would have lost the election.
When
and why the college was created
The Electoral
College was established in 1787. The men who drafted the Constitution
debated several formats for electing the president and vice president --
having Congress vote, having the state legislatures choose, using a direct
popular vote -- before deciding on the Electoral College format.
In the
Federalist Papers, Alexander Hamilton wrote: "A small number of
persons, selected by their fellow citizens from the general mass, will be
most likely to possess the information and discernment requisite to such
complicated investigations."
Under the
initial system, each elector had two votes. The candidate with the most
votes was elected president; whoever won the second-highest number of
votes was elected vice president. That was changed by the 12th Amendment,
ratified in 1804.
Several early
elections had problems, primarily because of the number of political
parties in the new country and the difficulty of winning a majority of
votes. After the contentious election of 1824, there were a few problems
with the vote-counting process, but not with the Electoral College
process.
What
if things go wrong?
The magic
number of Electoral College votes is 270. If none of the presidential
candidates receives a majority of votes November 2, the newly elected
House of Representatives will pick the president from the top three
Electoral College vote getters. In that case, each state's delegation
would pick a candidate as a bloc. The winner would require at least 26
votes to be elected.
Under the same
scenario, the Senate would choose the vice president - from the top two
Electoral College vote getters for that office -- with each senator
casting one vote. That leaves open the possibility that the president and
vice president could be from different parties.
There is also
the chance that an Electoral College voter could cast a ballot for a
different candidate. Most of the time that is not a problem because of the
great measures the parties go through to select the electors.
The two most
common ways to choose the nominees to the college are by state party
convention (36 states use this method) or by state party committee (10
states and the District of Columbia use this method).
There have
been times when a so-called "faithless elector" bucked the
system.
In 2000, one
of the District of Columbia voters turned in a blank ballot. Barbara Lett-Simmons
told The Washington Post "it is an opportunity for us to make
blatantly clear our colonial status and the fact that we've been under an
oligarchy."
Lett-Simmons
was required by D.C. law to vote for the candidate who received the most
popular votes. Twenty-six states have similar laws. In 24 states, electors
may vote for any candidate.
On a few
occasions, a "faithless elector" has voted for another
candidate. In 1988, a voter from West Virginia cast a ballot for Lloyd
Bentsen instead of Michael Dukakis. In 1976, an elector from Washington
voted for Ronald Reagan instead of Gerald Ford.
Although some states threaten "faithless electors" with penalties, no one has ever been prosecuted.
Frank C.
Hassett, Merrimack
Published:
Tuesday, Dec. 21, 2004
There is a lot
of stated and implied confusion in columns and in letters to the editor
regarding election results with respect to margin of victory. The
contention of these writers is that Bush had a “narrow” victory, and
should not think of it as a mandate.
This is certainly true. But it is also true that no mandate can be called
for any of the last four elections, if popular vote is the criterion.
Reviewing:
1992 Clinton won with 43 percent of the popular vote.
1996 Clinton won with 50 percent of the popular vote.
2000 Bush won with 48 percent of the popular vote.
2004 Bush won with 51 percent of the popular vote.
Somewhat unappreciated is the fact that, by popular vote, Bush’s first
term results beat Clinton’s first term results (48 percent to 43
percent), and the same is true for their respective second term results
(51 percent to 50 percent).
The Bush vs. Gore election holds another misconception; namely that, in
2000, Bush lost the popular vote to Gore. This is only true within some
particular margin of error. The actual figures were:
Bush 48.45 percent of the popular vote.
Gore 48.97 percent of the popular vote.
These differ by about one-half of 1 percent! Any national recount (if that
were even possible) would most likely change these numbers by much more
than this percentage difference. It is clear that, in actuality, this was
a statistical tie.
Our system has difficulty with ties. That is one of the reasons why the
Electoral College system is better than a popular vote system. Imagine
having to recount the entire nation to resolve the popular vote!
We have trouble recounting even one state.
By Dennis
Cauchon,
USA TODAY
MIAMI — Former
vice president Al Gore would not have picked up many new votes in Miami-Dade
County — and might have lost ground in the county — if the hand count of
ballots that he requested had been completed, according to an independent study
done for USA TODAY, The Miami Herald and Knight Ridder Newspapers. Gore
would have had a net gain of 49 votes if the most-lenient standard — counting
even faintly dimpled chads — had been used, the study found. If the standard
had been more stringent, George W. Bush probably would have gained votes. The
results are a blow to Democratic claims that Gore would have won the election if
a hand recount had occurred. Democrats had expected to net about 600 additional
votes in Miami-Dade. That would have been enough to overcome Bush's 537-vote
margin.
The Florida Supreme Court had ordered a hand count of under votes, which are the ballots that didn't register a preference when votes were counted by machine. However, the U.S. Supreme Court stopped the hand count, making Bush the next president.
USA TODAY, The Miami Herald and Knight Ridder hired the national accounting firm BDO Seidman to examine all 60,000 under votes in Florida's 67 counties. The results from Miami-Dade are the first released by the news organizations. Full results are expected within weeks.
BDO Seidman reported that 4,892 of 10,646 under vote ballots in Miami-Dade had no mark whatsoever. It found that 1,555 ballots had some indication the voter wanted Gore and 1,506 indicated Bush. The remainder were either marked, but not on a candidate's name, or were for other candidates.
Dimpled chads accounted for 1,202 of the 1,555 potential Gore votes and 1,092 of the 1,506 potential Bush votes.
If the most-lenient standard had been used to judge votes, and dimpled chads had been counted, Gore benefited slightly. When stricter standards applied, Bush won the county.
KEY EVENTS IN THE CREATION OF THE CONSTITUTION
APRIL, 1775,
American Revolution begins in Massachusetts, at Lexington and Concord.
JULY, 1776,
Declaration of Independence is proclaimed
NOVEMBER, 1777,
Articles of Confederation are adopted by the Continental Congress
MARCH' 1781,
Articles of Confederation are ratified by the states.
SEPTEMBER,
Treaty ending the Revolutionary war is signed in Paris.
APRIL - 1784,
Congress ratifies the Treaty of Paris
AUGUST, 1786 - 1787,
Shay's rebellion takes place
MAY - SEPTEMBER 1787,
Constitutional Convention drafts and adopts the Constitution of the US>
JUNE 1788,
Constitution of the US. is ratified
MARCH 1789,
Congress meets for the first time, in New York
APRIL 1789,
George Washington is inaugurated as president, in New York,
SEPTEMBER 1789,
John Jay becomes the first chief of the Supreme Court.
Congress proposes the Bill of Rights
DECEMBER 1791,
The Bill of Rights is ratifies.
NATIONALIZING THE BILL OF RIGHTS
SUBJECT, CASE, AND YEAR
FIRST AMENDMENT
Freedom of speech (1925)
Gitlow v. New York
Freedom of press (1931)
Near v. Minnesota
Free exercise of religion (1934)
Powell v. Alabama
Assemble and petition (1934)
DeJonge v. Oregon
Establishment of church and state (1947)
Everson v. Board of Education of Ewing Township
FOURTH AMENDMENT
Unreasonable searches and seizures (1949)
Wolf v. Colorado
Exclusionary rule (1961)
Mapp v. Ohio
The right of privacy is not enumerated in the Bill of Rights, but the Supreme Court found it in the "penumbras" or shadows in the provisions of the first, third, fourth, Fourth, and Fifth amendments.
FIFTH AMENDMENT
Eminent domain (1897)
Chicago, Burlington & Quincy railroad v. Chicago
Compulsory self-incrimination (1964)
Malloy v. Wainwright
Double jeopardy (1969)
Benton v, Maryland
SIXTH AMENDMENT
Rights to counsel in capital cases (1932)
Powell v. Alabama
Public Trial (1948)
In re Colorado
Public trial (1948)
In re Oliver
Right to council in all criminal cases (1963)
Gideon v. Wainwright
Confrontation of witnesses (1965)
Pointer v. Texas
Trial by impartial jury (1966)
Parker v. rights
Right to a speedy trial (1968)
Klopfer v. North Carolina
Jury trial in non petty criminal cases (1968)
Duncan v. Louisiana
Right to counsel in all cases involving a jail term. (1972)
Argersinger v. Hamil
EIGHTH AMENDMENT
Cruel and unusual punishment (1962)
Robinson v. California
Check out the U.S. Supreme Court. Complete resources to the nation's highest court, including briefs, orders, docket, case index, schedules and a lot more. Just go to:
http://supreme.usatoday.findlaw.com/supreme_court/resources.html
Find out all kinds of interesting facts about the judiciary that will be helpful in my classes.
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