actually speak to the issues on the ground. in san francisco, it is more complicated. there was a whole bunch of outside money that came into this. in san francisco, there is a debate about whether the mayor is engaged in a power grab. these three would go up for election in november. we begin to chart the money. we see the money is not necessarily local. it is part of a concerted campaign around the country by folks who are targeting school boards, who are connected to crt. mind you san francisco though. this is not birmingham, alabama. you re right. it is outside money. there s some power grab stuff in there. it s the issues also. i was going to say where i was going with the issue, i would only add this to eddie s analysis. not only do you have those who think going to the 15th amendment, 16th amendment or whatever is too far, you have those that undercut those of us
jobs that would be shut down. you wouldn t be concerned about the federal jobs that would be lost? of course i m concerned about them, but i m more concerned about 20% to 30% of jobs in kansas being lost. this is a temporary thing. we understand the clock is going to roll out on us probably by monday and we end up at the same place. just to be clear, if there is an agreement to pass the vote tomorrow night by the 16th amendment, you would vote for that? that would be okay. they want a threshold on his amendment so it would pass here, but he said he would object to that. it could lead to a procedural shutdown unless they cut a last-minute deal here. once again we re seeing lawmakers going to the brink and possibly causing a shutdown. i m so used to this 11th hour stress that it s having a little
morning it s not just the politics of this billionaire tax proposal, there s also this question of whether it s constitutional. unpack your reporting for us. absolutely. and one thing about what manchin said, it didn t sound that definitive to me either. there s a little wiggle room, it doesn t mean he would vote against it in the final package. there are really two questions. if you go back to the original constitution it says congress can only have taxes in a way that s proportional among the states. then the 16th amendment said they could do income taxes in addition to that. the question is for these unrealized gains of billionaires, financial assets, stocks, things like that, are they income before those assets have been acquired? so they re just carrying these on paper. the other question is can an income tax be conditional on someone s wealth. that s another constitutional question. none of this has been resolved by the supreme court yet.
you can t have an income tax. that s not constitutional under article 1. congress responded before world war i by passing the 16th amendment which said you can have an income tax. but the question is, is taxing unrealized gains, even on very, very wealthy people. this of course would only apply to people with great many assets, is that income, is that covered by the 16th amendment? i don t think anyone knows for sure. now we have a conservative court not favorably disposed toward the biden administration. so the question is would the supreme court uphold a tax on unrealized capital gains under the 16th amendment. i don t pretend to know the answer to that question at this point. but it is certainly a legitimate issue to be explored before this tax is passed, if it s passed at