No Taxes- No Vote

In my journeys through the blogosphere, I ran into this article. It is an editorial, however, I personally do not trust the facts cited in the article to be reliable enough to quote. However, the central tenant is sound. The author's argument is that the 30% of America who does not pay taxes(actually 40+% when you add in those who do not even file) tend to poll for Mr. Obama. He cites numbers which cannot be verified, since he doesn't disclose his research. I have yet to find a set of polls which is sorted by income. (If anyone knows of any, please comment) However, it would seem likely that lower income voters would tend towards Mr. Obama. Due to lack of statistics here, let us step back, and look at the issue more remotely. (Side note: this does illustrate the lie of one of Mr. Obama's constant refrains, that 95% of people would get a tax cut under his plan. If half of those people don't pay taxes, you can't cut their taxes. You can give them a government subsidy, or back-door welfare, but that's not a tax cut.)

Isn't it only fair that so long as any income group pays income taxes that paying taxes be a prerequisite to voting? After all, if a group pays no taxes, and especially if that group receives government aid, what right do they have to vote taxes onto others? They have no incentive to relieve the tax burden of the taxpayers, as they get all the rewards and none of the expense. Indeed we see how this has already happened, with the top 1% paying more and more each year and the bottom 80% paying less and less. Those who do not have success punish it greatly.

Of course, there should be some option for those who would not pay taxes to vote. Let them pay an optional tax of say, the highest rate on $1000 per bracket of gross income.(To preempt the inevitable, I personally would support a corresponding plan for war and the draft.) So if their gross income was in the third bracket, they would pay 35% of $3000, or $1050. In this way, they share the pain of taxation if they wish to vote. No representation without taxation.