ERD50
Give me a museum and I'll fill it. (Picasso) Give me a forum ...
OK, now that we've decided that the penalize vs. tax and deduct protocols are essentially equivalent, would that be a reasonable argument:
Advocate: Your honors, if you would approve a tax and deduct protocol, and you agree that it is equivalent to a penalize protocol, shouldn't you approve it?
Justice: But it is worded as a penalty.
Advocate: But it's equivalent.
Justice: It's the principle of the thing.
I follow you, but we do have three branches of Gov't with separation of powers. Compare this to a typical Mega-Corp:
Say I submit a purchase req for Good Companies Model XYZZY Gimbal Wabilizer and get it approved and it goes to purchasing.
The sales guy calls me and says they just came out with a new model, that's better and is the same price. Great, but I can't just say 'ship it!'. I need to go back through the approval process, which means send the req back to me, cancel it and write a new one (or amend it, if allowed) and send it through the process for signatures again.
Inefficient and bureaucratic? Yes, but it also protects people from over-stepping their authority. You take the good with the bad.
Congress can pass an amendment if they want to change the terminology used in the Constitution. That is not easy, and it's not supposed to be.
-ERD50