The 16th Amendment is rarely in the news, a mere stepchild to the oft-mentioned 1st, 2nd, 14th, and 5th, the latter given renewed life by the spate of Donald Trump acolytes who have evoked its privilege hundreds of times. For those who don’t want to run and fetch their pocket copies of the Constitution, the 16
I still have some hope (maybe misplaced!) that this might end up a consensus opinion that’s very narrow.
I know oral arguments are like tea leaves, but at least only Alito and Gorsuch seem willing to entertain the petitioners’ “income needs to be realized to be taxable” argument.
I agree. The bigger issue is how far right the Court is willing to go in the face of its lowest approval ratings in history. They've already pulled back somewhat on their attacks on voting rights and I've thought since they were confirmed that Kavanaugh and Barrett are sensitive to the widespread belief that their appointments were illegitimate. (See my earlier post, Supreme Court Math: 3x3=5). Historically, the Court's rulings, even the terrible ones, like Plessy and Korematsu, have generally followed public opinion. It will be interesting to see how this Court deals with it after Dobbs blew up in their faces.
I still have some hope (maybe misplaced!) that this might end up a consensus opinion that’s very narrow.
I know oral arguments are like tea leaves, but at least only Alito and Gorsuch seem willing to entertain the petitioners’ “income needs to be realized to be taxable” argument.
I agree. The bigger issue is how far right the Court is willing to go in the face of its lowest approval ratings in history. They've already pulled back somewhat on their attacks on voting rights and I've thought since they were confirmed that Kavanaugh and Barrett are sensitive to the widespread belief that their appointments were illegitimate. (See my earlier post, Supreme Court Math: 3x3=5). Historically, the Court's rulings, even the terrible ones, like Plessy and Korematsu, have generally followed public opinion. It will be interesting to see how this Court deals with it after Dobbs blew up in their faces.