Since President
Obama took office, Republicans have shrouded their agenda of opposition by
wrapping it in the flag and the Constitution.
Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) even went so far as to label her radical
anti-government views “constitutional conservatism.” Yet, for
all of their constitutional pablum, the GOP’s agenda is nothing less than a
direct assault on America’s founding document. Time and time again,
Republicans have called for basic constitutional freedoms and fundamental
aspects of our constitutional government to be repealed either by amendment or
by activist judges:
REPEALING CITIZENSHIP: Numerous
GOP lawmakers, including their Senate leader and the most-recent Republican candidate for president, are
lining up behind a “review” of the 14th Amendment’s grant of citizenship to
virtually all persons born within the United States. Such a proposal
literally revives the vision of citizenship articulated by the Supreme Court’s infamous pro-slavery decision in Dred Scott v. Sanford. It
has no place in the twenty-first century.
REPEALING CONGRESS’ POWER TO
RAISE MONEY: The
Constitution also gives Congress broad authority to decide how to distribute the tax burden. Thus,
for example, Congress is allowed to create a tax incentive for people to buy
houses by giving a tax break to people with mortgages,
and it is allowed to create a similar incentive for people to buy health
insurance by taxing
people who have health insurance slightly less than people who do not.
Nevertheless, the frivolous assaults on health reform would eliminate this
Constitutional power. Many Tea Party Republicans go even further, calling
for a full
repeal of the 16th Amendment, the amendment which enables the income
tax. Paying taxes is never popular, but it would be impossible to function
as a nation if America lacked the power to raise the money it needs to pay our
armed forces, among other things.