It requires “taking”

But it is nonsense to find talismanic significance in the idea of taking money from the public as a whole. See Michelman, supra note 11, at 146-49 (arguing that within the liberal tradition Scalia's concession that general redistribution is permissible commits him to principles that justify affirmative welfare rights). Progressive taxes take money from some, high income earners, and transfer it through public assistance to others, low or no income earners. Indeed, the very definition of redistribution is to take from some to give to others. Taxes may be a good mechanism for redistribution because legislators may encounter difficulty in singling out one group for adverse, perhaps unfair, treatment. Justice Scalia is unconvincing, however, in his effort to demonstrate that the entire class of landlords is less likely to be unfairly singled out than, for example, the class of high income earners. See Note, Taking a Step Back: A Reconsideration of the Takings Test of Nollan v. California Coastal Commission, 102 HARV. L. REV. 448, 464 (1988) (challenging the claim that tax policy is more democratic than regulatory policy). In short, once redistribution becomes a permissible goal of government, the standard for unfair redistribution cannot be derived from mere allegations that the purpose of a statute is redistributional. See generally Rose, Mahon Reconstructed: Why the Takings Issue is Still a Muddle, 57 S. CAL. L. REV. 561 (1984) (characterizing the ambivalence of takings clause jurisprudence toward redistribution as the inevitable result of the tension within the American tradition between property as wealth and property as virtue).