The law before the court in Butler was interpreted by the Court to be an unlawful extension of the federal government’s power to regulate intrastate commerce. The biggest problem with the law in Butler was not its arbitrariness, but quite the opposite- its very specific and transparent ploy to redistribute money from one group of people to another. The law was not struck down because it arbitrarily targeted one group. It was struck down simply because it acted upon one group in a manner that Congress had no right to act upon.

The Court had to engage in intent-based speculation in order to reach its end. It didn’t simply rule that a tax that furthered a particular end was unconstitutional, it held that the specific law in question furthered an position that Congress had no power to push:

The power of taxation, which is expressly granted, may, of course, be adopted as a means to carry into operation another power also expressly granted. But resort to the taxing power to effectuate an end which is not legitimate, not within the scope of the Constitution, is obviously inadmissible.

Therefore, we need to begin analysis on the rationale behind local government’s decision to enact legislation that grants senior citizens a certain tax-cap. I’m not qualified to speculate on why the local government decided to enact this legislation or what this specific legislation entailed and I’m not going to make any assertions that I can’t back up. Until you can find more information on this specific piece of legislation, I suggest you do the same.

The parallel I was attempting to draw, despite my half-cocked phrasing and argumentation, is that the arbitrariness observed in Butler is analogous to the arbitrariness observed today in Dallas. Therefore, the property tax code is not really a tax code at all, but a regulation of age. While regulating business as was examined in Butler may be reserved for the states, the 14th Amendment denies all levels of government the power to regulate how old you are.