An outfit called the Liberty Justice Center, which, yes, is a conservative group, and a certain former Virginia governor and U.S. senator, George Allen, who, yes, also quite conservative, are involved in a legal challenge to the Trump tariffs, which, no, are not conservative.
“This dispute is not about the wisdom of tariffs or the politics of trade. It is about who holds the power to tax the American people,” reads a legal brief signed onto by Allen, who served as governor of Virginia from 1994-1998, and was a member of the U.S. Senate representing Virginia from 2001-2007.
Cue the social-media post from Trump calling Allen a “far-left lunatic.”
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I remember a national TV news crew following Allen around at a political event in Staunton in 2006 when he was running for re-election because there was talk about Allen gearing up for a run at the Republican Party presidential nomination in 2008.
Then the “macaca” thing happened, he lost, in a massive upset, in that 2006 Senate race, to Jim Webb, lost again in 2012 when Webb stepped down, and Tim Kaine was the Democratic Party nominee.
Allen is also a former UVA Football quarterback, back in the lean years – to clarify, since we’re also currently now in lean years, Allen played at UVA in the 1970s.
His father, also named George Allen, was the former Washington Redskins coach who famously took suggestions on play calls from Richard Nixon.
Point here being, George Allen is about as Republican as you can get, hates taxes, but hates tariffs even more.
Allen told The Richmond Times-Dispatch that the Trump tariffs are effectively “taxation by proclamation,” echoing the opposition of our nation’s founders in the 1770s to “taxation without representation” under British King George III.
Conservatives, on principle, Allen told the RT-D, “are not for taxes, but it you’re going to have taxes, they ought to be enacted by the legislative body to hold them accountable, not by the executive.”
“The members of Congress ought to get off their haunches and assert their authority, and not have it usurped by executive proclamation,” Allen said.
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Chris Graham
