Taxation by regulation is taxation without representation (Opinion)

Often overlooked by conservatives throughout the country is the extent to which we are taxed without a single vote having been cast by an elected official. While we fight to lower income taxes and eliminate death taxes, unelected bureaucrats are employing another method to grow their government operation: regulation.

It’s an easy process for them. Suppose a government agency wants to implement a policy initiative and extract revenue from the population even though it knows the policy is so unpopular that it will never pass a legislative body of elected officials. Well, all they do is hand down regulations or rules that accomplish the same objective for them. A recent example of this involves Michelle Obama’s desire to require our children to eat only what she believes is good. Under her plan, the USDA implemented rules resulting in a school lunch tax that will cost taxpayers in local school districts an estimated $3.2 billion.

If you thought that was an infringement on your freedom, the story gets worse. These become permanent taxes. A recent article in The Hill makes the following point when discussing what options Congress has to expire the school lunch program:

“Working in her favor is the fact that the standards imposed [by the USDA] carry the force of law and will remain in place, even if the program technically lapses.”

This means that Michelle Obama will continue to collect tax dollars from us so that she can tell kids what to eat.

Possibly the most egregious example of taxation by regulation in decades is the energy tax being implemented by Obama’s EPA. The unelected bureaucrats at the EPA have implemented an energy tax that will cost American taxpayers and our economy $1.4 trillion. And, similar to the school lunch tax, the rules creating the tax will have the force of law regardless of outcome. That is because states and energy producers cannot wait for long, drawn-out lawsuits to wind their way through the court system. That takes years, and the costs of compliance become immediate.

Even more troublesome is the recent development where a court finds that the rule creating the tax was not properly implemented, and yet this will have no effect on the impact to taxpayers. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the EPA had improperly developed and implemented some of the regulations creating the energy tax because they failed to outline its costs. First of all, a significant portion of the costs have already been laid at the feet of taxpayers. Secondly, the EPA will simply amend the rule to outline the costs and pick right back up where they left off pilfering American wallets.

In Washington, the bottom line is that once a regulation gets into the Federal Register, it is never coming out – and taxpayers lose.

This practice is not unique to Washington, either. Only recently, we joined with conservative legislators to successfully fight the implementation of a TV tax by the Alabama Department of Revenue. In order for us to grow jobs and allow our children and grandchildren to truly know economic freedom, this practice of taxation by regulation must stop.

Our call to action should be the words of Ronald Reagan, “Every once in a while, someone has to get the bureaucracy by the neck and shake it loose and say, ‘Stop what you’re doing.’”