Equal Rights and Protection

The Equal Protection Clause, part of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, provides that "no state shall ... deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws". - Wikipedia

In the article I found in the Los Angeles Times, “Millionaire tax sought by Obama is panned by GOP as ‘class welfare,’” there is an attempt to fulfill the democratic principle of Equal Rights. This article describes how Obama had planned to put a new tax on people who made over $1 million a year. This tax would make people who made $1 million a year or more pay at least the same rate as middle-class workers do.

[According to White House talking points on the proposal circulated to lawmakers, "no household making over $1 million annually should pay a smaller share of its income in taxes than middle-class families pay."] This is a direct quote from the article that shows the position on the proposal from someone who agreed with the proposal.

A statistic from 2009 showed that 22,000 people making more than $1 million a year had paid less than 15% of their income taxes. The article also states how Congress has considered higher taxes for millionaires previously, but the measures did not make it into law.

I think Obama’s objective here is to make taxes equal for everyone, which is an acceptable request on his part. But a lot more comes with raising taxes than some think. The article states that the White House did not give detail on the proposal. The article also had claims from various people inquiring that the tax raise was not a viable option for the time being; that there were other more important things to take care of in the immediate future.

This article relates directly to Equal Rights and Protection because there should not be any exceptions for people that make more money than middle-class people. Any working individual should have to pay the same amount of taxes that any other working individual does. That is my opinion.

I notice that Marcus read this article too. We used different democratic principles to express our understandings of the article but I agree with his view on the article. Separation of powers and popular sovereignty come into effect as well. I also found Nate’s article on inter-racial marriage interesting, since you don’t hear much about those issues any more. Equal Protection is an issue in the United States that is continuing to improve day by day.

Atricle:

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/washingtondc/sc-dc-tax-millionaires-20110919-9,0,2726012.story