Two men hope to make Colorado the first state to redistribute income 

Two men hope to make Colorado the first state to redistribute income

March 14, 2018 By Sherrie Peif

DENVER
— Two Denver-area activists are looking to make Colorado one of the
first states to test a theory that the redistribution of income empowers
the poor and leads them to contribute positively to the economy.


Kevin Neal Patterson II, the son of Connect for Health Colorado Chief
Executive officer Kevin Patterson, and Eric Leveridge, a policy analyst
for United for a New Economy (UNE), have filed more than a dozen ballot proposals hoping to change the state’s constitution so that those earning above $300,000 per year will pay a much higher income tax.


That money would then be redistributed to anyone who qualifies for
the Earned Income Tax Credit, generally those who earn under $70,000.


UNE was involved in raising Colorado’s minimum wage.


The idea of direct cash payments, however, doesn’t belong to
Patterson and Leveridge, instead, the timing of the filings very closely
coincides with the release of Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes’ new
book, Fair Shot, which outlines his idea that wage earners in the top 1 percent should pay the way for those less fortunate.


Hughes calls the plan Guaranteed Income. Variations of the idea have
been put forth as far back as the 1960s by Martin Luther King Jr. and
economist Milton Friedman.


Hughes’ organization The Economic Security Project is currently funding a pilot project to test the idea in Stockton, Calif. known as Stockton Economic Empowerment Demonstration (SEED).


SEED will begin giving qualifying residents of Stockton $500 per
month later this year to help stimulate the economy and help low income
residents out of poverty, the projects website says.


Hughes said in a 2016 blog:


“Put simply, in a time when all other economic stimulus tools have
been tried or filibustered and median incomes have not budged, cash
transfers could be the necessary spark to improve the standard of living
of American households.”


The two Colorado men have their own histories of involvement in social causes. Leveridge’s biography on the UNE website
says he has a passion for “economic justice.” He is originally from
Oklahoma and started his career as an immigration law and policy and
international human rights attorney. He moved to Denver in 2015.


Patterson’s Facebook page depicts multiple Black Lives Matters protests and events across the county that he has either attended or helped organize.


All the proposals have either already had their titles set or are being reviewed by the Legislative Council staff.
 They are all similar in that the new taxes would pay for a tax credit
program outlining a $2,000 refundable tax credit — either monthly or in
one lump sum — for taxpayers who qualify for the Earned Income Credit.


The differences include:

• Changing the income tax amount from a flat 4.63 percent paid by all
  Coloradans to 9.87 percent for those earning more than $300,000.
• Changing the income tax amount from a flat 4.63 percent paid by all
  Coloradans to 11.8 percent for those earning more than $500,000.
• How much can be retained by the state to pay for the program.
• Allowing the tax credit to qualified caregivers.
• Allowing the tax credit to students.

Neither Leveridge nor Hughes returned requests for comment. Patterson II could not be reached.


Before his current idea of increasing taxes on the 1-percenters,
Hughes outlined a carbon tax to pay for the idea and pointed to the Bush
administration during the recession as inspiration and proof his idea
would work.


“Fortunately, in the United States there is recent precedent for
helicopter money’s effectiveness and bipartisan appeal,” Hughes said in
his blog. “In the spring of 2008 as the country teetered on the brink of
what would become the Great Recession, a bipartisan majority in
Congress approved a rebate plan that George W. Bush signed into law.
Over the course of the spring of that year, all American adults making
less than $75,000 received a check for $600 in the mail. While it wasn’t
enough to stave off the recession, research in following years showed
that it was a powerful boost to the economy with between 50 and 90
percent of the funds being spent by recipients, much of it on durable
goods.”


Hughes said on his Twitter account that abolishing income inequality
is a top priority for him: “I spend most of time thinking about how to
combat income inequality through the guaranteed income.”

The 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution

The 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution - Fourteenth Amendment - anchor babies and birthright citizenship - interpretations and misinterpretations - US Constitution

Original intent of the 14^th Amendment

The 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution reads in part:

"All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to
the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and the
State wherein they reside."

Babies born to illegal alien mothers within U.S. borders are called anchor babies
because under the 1965 immigration Act, they act as an anchor that
pulls the illegal alien mother and eventually a host of other relatives
into permanent U.S. residency. (Jackpot babies is another term).



The United States did not limit immigration in 1868 when the Fourteenth
Amendment was ratified. Thus there were, by definition, no illegal
immigrants and the issue of citizenship for children of those here in
violation of the law was nonexistent. Granting of automatic citizenship
to children of illegal alien mothers is a recent and totally inadvertent
and unforeseen result of the amendment and the Reconstructionist period
in which it was ratified.




Post-Civil War reforms focused on injustices to African Americans. The 14^th
Amendment was ratified in 1868 to protect the rights of native-born
Black Americans, whose rights were being denied as recently-freed
slaves. It was written in a manner so as to prevent state governments
from ever denying citizenship to blacks born in the United States. But
in 1868, the United States had no formal immigration policy, and the
authors therefore saw no need to address immigration explicitly in the
amendment.



Senator Jacob Howard worked closely with Abraham Lincoln in drafting and
passing the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution,
which abolished slavery. He also served on the Senate Joint Committee on
Reconstruction, which drafted the Fourteenth Amendment to the United
States Constitution. In 1866, Senator Jacob Howard clearly spelled out
the intent of the 14^th Amendment by stating:

"Every person born within the limits of the United States, and subject
to their jurisdiction, is by virtue of natural law and national law a
citizen of the United States. This will not, of course, include persons
born in the United States who are foreigners, aliens, who belong to the
families of ambassadors or foreign ministers accredited to the
Government of the United States, but will include every other class of
persons. It settles the great question of citizenship and removes all
doubt as to what persons are or are not citizens of the United States.
This has long been a great desideratum in the jurisprudence and
legislation of this country."

This understanding was reaffirmed by Senator Edward Cowan, who stated:

"[A foreigner in the United States] has a right to the protection of the
laws; but he is not a citizen in the ordinary acceptance of the
word..."

The phrase "subject to the jurisdiction thereof" was intended
to exclude American-born persons from automatic citizenship whose
allegiance to the United States was not complete. With illegal aliens
who are unlawfully in the United States, their native country has a
claim of allegiance on the child. Thus, the completeness of their
allegiance to the United States is impaired, which therefore precludes
automatic citizenship.

Supreme Court decisions

The correct interpretation of the 14^th Amendment is that an illegal alien mother is subject to the
jurisdiction of her native country, as is her baby.



Over a century ago, the Supreme Court appropriately confirmed this
restricted interpretation of citizenship in the so-called
"Slaughter-House cases" [83 US 36 (1873) and 112 US 94 (1884)]¹³. In the 1884 Elk v.Wilkins case¹²,
the phrase "subject to its jurisdiction" was interpreted to exclude
"children of ministers, consuls, and citizens of foreign states born
within the United States." In Elk, the American Indian claimant
was considered not an American citizen because the law required him to
be "not merely subject in some respect or degree to the jurisdiction of
the United States, but completely subject to their political
jurisdiction and owing them direct and immediate allegiance."



The Court essentially stated that the status of the parents determines
the citizenship of the child. To qualify children for birthright
citizenship, based on the 14th Amendment, parents must owe "direct and
immediate allegiance" to the U.S. and be "completely subject" to its
jurisdiction. In other words, they must be United States citizens.



Congress subsequently passed a special act to grant full citizenship to
American Indians, who were not citizens even through they were born
within the borders of the United States. The Citizens Act of 1924,
codified in 8USCSß1401, provides that:

The following shall be nationals and citizens of the United States at birth:

(a) a person born in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof;

(b) a person born in the United States to a member of an Indian, Eskimo, Aleutian, or other aboriginal
tribe.

In 1898, the Wong Kim Ark Supreme Court case^{10,11, 16} once again, in a ruling based strictly on the 14^th
Amendment, concluded that the status of the parents was crucial in
determining the citizenship of the child. The current misinterpretation
of the 14th Amendment is based in part upon the presumption that the Wong Kim Ark ruling encompassed illegal aliens. In fact, it did not address the children of illegal aliens and non-immigrant aliens, but rather determined an allegiance for legal immigrant parents based on the meaning of the word domicil(e). Since it is inconceivable that illegal alien parents could have a legal
domicile in the United States, the ruling clearly did not extend
birthright citizenship to children of illegal alien parents. Indeed,
the ruling strengthened the original intent of the 14^th Amendment.




The original intent of the 14^th Amendment was clearly not to
facilitate illegal aliens defying U.S. law and obtaining citizenship for
their offspring, nor obtaining benefits at taxpayer expense.
Current estimates indicate there may be between 300,000 and 700,000
anchor babies born each year in the U.S., thus causing illegal alien
mothers to add more to the U.S. population each year than immigration
from all sources in an average year before 1965. (See consequences.)




American citizens must be wary of elected politicians voting to
illegally extend our generous social benefits to illegal aliens and
other criminals.

For more information, see:

1.   P.A. Madison, Former Research Fellow in Constitutional Studies, The UnConstitutionality of Citizenship by Birth to Non-Americans (February 1, 2005)



2.   Madeleine Pelner Cosman, Ph.D., Esq., Illegal Aliens and American Medicine The Journal of the American Physicians and Surgeons, Volume 10 Number 1 (Spring 2005)



3.   Al Knight, Track 'anchor babies', Denver Post (September 11, 2002)



4.   Al Knight, Change U.S. law on anchor babies, Denver Post (June 22, 2005)



5.   Tom DeWeese, The Mexican Fifth Column (January 27, 2003)



6.   Anchor Babies: The Children of Illegal Aliens (Federation for American Immigration Reform)



7.   Tom DeWeese, "The Outrages of the Mexican Invasion" (American policy Center)



8.   P.A. Madison, Alien Birthright Citizenship: A Fable That Lives Through Ignorance The Federalist Blog (December 17, 2005)



9.   Dr. John C. Eastman, Professor of Law, Chapman University School of Law,
Director, The Claremont Institute Center for Constitutional Jurisprudence,
Dual Citizenship, Birthright Citizenship, and the Meaning of Sovereignty -
Testimony, U.S. House of Representatives, Committee on the Judiciary,
Subcommittee on Immigration, Border Security and Claims (September 29, 2005)




10.   William Buchanan, HR-73 -- Protecting America's Sovereignty, The Social Contract (Fall, 1999) - includes discussion of the related Wong Kim Ark 1898 Supreme Court case




11.   Charles Wood, Losing Control of the Nation's Future -- Part Two -- Birthright Citizenship and Illegal Aliens, The Social Contract (Winter, 2005) - includes discussion of the related Wong Kim Ark court case



12.   U.S. Supreme Court ELK v. WILKINS, 112 U.S. 94 (Findlaw, 1884)



13.   U.S. Supreme Court Slaughter-House cases ('Lectric Law Library, 1873)



14.   Jacob M. Howard, Wikipedia.



15.   A
Century of Lawmaking for a New Nation: U.S. Congressional Documents and
Debates, 1774 - 1875 Congressional Globe, Senate, 39th Congress, 1st
Session Page 2890 of 3840.



16.   United States v. Wong Kim Ark, 169 U.S. 649 (1898), Justia.com.

Birthright Citizenship: A Fundamental Misunderstanding of the 14th Amendment

Oct 30th, 2018 3 min read

COMMENTARY BY

Hans A. von Spakovsky @HvonSpakovsky

Election Law Reform Initiative and Senior Legal Fellow

Hans von Spakovsky is an authority on a wide range of issues – including civil rights, civil justice, the First Amendment, immigration.

The 14th Amendment doesn’t say that all persons born in the U.S. are citizens. vlana/Getty Images

Key Takeaways

Critics claim that anyone born in the United States is automatically a U.S. citizen, even if their parents are here illegally.

Its original meaning refers to the political allegiance of an individual and the jurisdiction that a foreign government has over that individual.

Birthright citizenship has been implemented by executive fiat, not because it is required by federal law or the Constitution.

Copied

What’s the citizenship status of the children of illegal aliens? That question has spurred quite a debate over the 14th Amendment lately, with the news that several states—including Pennsylvania, Arizona, Oklahoma, Georgia, and South Carolina—may launch efforts to deny automatic citizenship to such children.
Critics claim that anyone born in the United States is automatically a U.S. citizen, even if their parents are here illegally. But that ignores the text and legislative history of the 14th Amendment, which was ratified in 1868 to extend citizenship to freed slaves and their children.
The 14th Amendment doesn’t say that all persons born in the U.S. are citizens. It says that “[a]ll persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof” are citizens. That second, critical, conditional phrase is conveniently ignored or misinterpreted by advocates of “birthright” citizenship.

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Critics erroneously believe that anyone present in the United States has “subjected” himself “to the jurisdiction” of the United States, which would extend citizenship to the children of tourists, diplomats, and illegal aliens alike.
But that is not what that qualifying phrase means. Its original meaning refers to the political allegiance of an individual and the jurisdiction that a foreign government has over that individual.
The fact that a tourist or illegal alien is subject to our laws and our courts if they violate our laws does not place them within the political “jurisdiction” of the United States as that phrase was defined by the framers of the 14th Amendment.
This amendment’s language was derived from the 1866 Civil Rights Act, which provided that “[a]ll persons born in the United States, and not subject to any foreign power” would be considered citizens.
Sen. Lyman Trumbull, a key figure in the adoption of the 14th Amendment, said that “subject to the jurisdiction” of the U.S. included not owing allegiance to any other country.
As John Eastman, former dean of the Chapman School of Law, has said, many do not seem to understand “the distinction between partial, territorial jurisdiction, which subjects all who are present within the territory of a sovereign to the jurisdiction of that sovereign’s laws, and complete political jurisdiction, which requires allegiance to the sovereign as well.”
In the famous Slaughter-House cases of 1872, the Supreme Court stated that this qualifying phrase was intended to exclude “children of ministers, consuls, and citizens or subjects of foreign States born within the United States.” This was confirmed in 1884 in another case, Elk vs. Wilkins, when citizenship was denied to an American Indian because he “owed immediate allegiance to” his tribe and not the United States.
American Indians and their children did not become citizens until Congress passed the Indian Citizenship Act of 1924. There would have been no need to pass such legislation if the 14th Amendment extended citizenship to every person born in America, no matter what the circumstances of their birth, and no matter who their parents are.
Even in U.S. v. Wong Kim Ark, the 1898 case most often cited by “birthright” supporters due to its overbroad language, the court only held that a child born of lawful, permanent residents was a U.S. citizen. That is a far cry from saying that a child born of individuals who are here illegally must be considered a U.S. citizen.
Of course, the judges in that case were strongly influenced by the fact that there were discriminatory laws in place at that time that restricted Chinese immigration, a situation that does not exist today.
The court’s interpretation of the 14th Amendment as extending to the children of legal, noncitizens was incorrect, according to the text and legislative history of the amendment. But even under that holding, citizenship was not extended to the children of illegal aliens—only permanent, legal residents.
It is just plain wrong to claim that the children born of parents temporarily in the country as students or tourists are automatically U.S. citizens: They do not meet the 14th Amendment’s jurisdictional allegiance obligations. They are, in fact, subject to the political jurisdiction (and allegiance) of the country of their parents. The same applies to the children of illegal aliens because children born in the United States to foreign citizens are citizens of their parents’ home country.
Federal law offers them no help either. U.S. immigration law (8 U.S.C. § 1401) simply repeats the language of the 14th Amendment, including the phrase “subject to the jurisdiction thereof.”
The State Department has erroneously interpreted that statute to provide passports to anyone born in the United States, regardless of whether their parents are here illegally and regardless of whether the applicant meets the requirement of being “subject to the jurisdiction” of the U.S. Accordingly, birthright citizenship has been implemented by executive fiat, not because it is required by federal law or the Constitution.
We are only one of a very small number of countries that provides birthright citizenship, and we do so based not upon the requirements of federal law or the Constitution, but based upon an erroneous executive interpretation. Congress should clarify the law according to the original meaning of the 14th Amendment and reverse this practice.

Democrats have become the party of haters

Democrats have become the party of haters

Thousands protest the Trump administration's
separation of migrating families at the southern border during a rally
on June 30, 2018, in New York. (Spencer Platt/Getty)

Desiree Zapata Miller

In my lifetime I have never seen hate for
those who support a president the likes of which I see toward the
supporters of President Donald Trump. Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., is calling on people to publicly harass Trump staffers. Hillary Clinton
called us a basket of deplorables, accusing women of supporting Trump
only because their husbands told them to. A Virginia restaurant owner
and staff refused service to Sarah Huckabee Sanders
because she works in the Trump administration. In Charlotte, N.C.,
City Councilwoman Dimple Ajmera says Trump supporters have no place on
the council.

Is this what the Democratic Party
has become? A party of haters? Do Democrats condone this behavior?
Please tell me it isn’t so! Yet I see few Democrats calling to end the
behavior that causes such strife and division.

I must say,
however, that these tactics of the far left are not surprising to me. We
have their playbook: “Rules for Radicals” by Saul Alinsky. The left has
been playing by his rules for decades. Hillary Clinton praised Alinksy
in her thesis. President Barack Obama
taught Alinsky’s tactics to grass-roots organizations in Chicago.
Alinsky’s fifth rule states: “Ridicule is man’s most potent weapon. It
is almost impossible to counterattack ridicule. It infuriates the
opposition, who then reacts to your advantage.” The desired immediate
outcome is for those who voted for Trump to show fear and retreat.

I assure you that will not happen. We will not fear or retreat, because we have had enough. The Republican Party is emboldened.

Republicans
have continually supported and campaigned for dignified, collegial,
polite and yes, polished statesmen. Unfortunately, our Democratic
opposition has not offered the same dignified approach. Our candidates
from George Bush to Mitt Romney and many others since have not been
treated with respect or dignity by members of the Democratic political
machine or their comrades in the media. Trump isn’t always polite, but
he has no choice but to push back hard.

So we have Donald Trump, a
true fighter. He has taken off the gloves and applied the very same
fighting style against our opponents. He does not put up with lies. He
calls people out. We are fighting back in this war of words with the
truth, delivering it with the same hard-hitting rhetoric that our
opposition has been using for decades.

Is this the party you
Democrats want to become? The party of personal attacks and perpetual
lies? The party that has delivered 50-plus years of promises to help the
little guy, while continually making it worse?

To my Hispanic
friends, don’t be fooled by politicians on the left who pretend to care
for you. Democrats held both the presidency and the Congress when Obama
came into office, yet they did nothing to help you. As he departed,
Obama threw you a bone by signing an executive order for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, commonly referred to as DACA. He did nothing to reform immigration, a promise he made repeatedly.

If anyone can fix this immigration mess, it will be Trump, pressuring Congress to work with him.

There
was a time when those of us of differing political beliefs and opinions
could have a civil conversation, but now many of us don’t even attempt
to understand one another. I challenge you to have a cup of coffee with
someone who sees things differently than you see them, and seek to
understand where he or she is coming from. A little empathy and a little
respect will go a long way.