Please read the plain language of this story by Montgomery and Shear at the Washington Post:
[T]he White House on Thursday broke the last major logjam blocking enactment of far-reaching health-care legislation, cutting a deal with organized labor on how to tax high-cost insurance policies.
The agreement, forged in a marathon negotiating session that included White House officials and seven prominent labor leaders, would exempt union members from a proposed surtax on expensive insurance plans until 2018, five years after the legislation would take effect.
This is extraordinary. If passed, the bill would establish different rates of taxation for citizens depending on whether they are members of a union. I know that we have established classes of citizens based on income. But I do not know of any example in which tax rates are based on membership in a bargaining collective.
So, to my attorney readers out there, would this pass Constitutional muster if it were brought before the Supreme Court?
[T]he White House on Thursday broke the last major logjam blocking enactment of far-reaching health-care legislation, cutting a deal with organized labor on how to tax high-cost insurance policies.
The agreement, forged in a marathon negotiating session that included White House officials and seven prominent labor leaders, would exempt union members from a proposed surtax on expensive insurance plans until 2018, five years after the legislation would take effect.
This is extraordinary. If passed, the bill would establish different rates of taxation for citizens depending on whether they are members of a union. I know that we have established classes of citizens based on income. But I do not know of any example in which tax rates are based on membership in a bargaining collective.
So, to my attorney readers out there, would this pass Constitutional muster if it were brought before the Supreme Court?