On Repealing the 16th Amendment

The Constitution originally required that any direct tax levied by the federal government had to be levied proportionally to the population of the several states.  Essentially, any direct federal tax was to be a truly flat dollar amount per person.  So, if you think about the “flat tax” which so many are calling for (i.e. taxing income at some flat percentage rate), even that flat tax is a progressive tax in that, the higher your income, the more tax you would pay.  Having a tiered income tax is actually a hyper-progressive tax.  (If you’ll allow me a self-indulgent aside, I am amused by the hypocrisy of unions on the issue of a progressive tax code; hypocrisy…because most, if not all of them, charge a flat percentage on their dues, not a “hyper-progressive rate”.)

The 16th Amendment reads thusly:

    The Congress shall have power to lay and collect
    taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived,
    without apportionment among the several States,
    and without regard to any census or enumeration.

The 16th Amendment was intended to allow, for the first time, a direct federal tax on individual income and is almost surely more subversive of Constitutional principles than most people realize.  Can we, now, even imagine a United States in which there was no direct taxation of the people or where any direct taxation of a family was on a per capita basis (i.e. some set amount per family member)?  But… The income tax, itself, may not even be the most harmful aspect of the Amendment.

The second half of that Amendment (“…without apportionment among the several States, and without regard to any census or enumeration”) essentially gutted Article 1, Section 9, paragraph 4 of the Constitution, which says:  “No Capitation, or other direct, Tax shall be laid, unless in Proportion to the Census or enumeration herein before directed to be taken.”  It is the 16th Amendment which has become an insidious tool for social engineering and which has empowered our federal government to pick winners and losers in the consumer market as well as punish success in the labor market.

To establish a little background… There was a time when much of the federal budget was paid through duties or tariffs on imports (…and it could be once again).  I, for one, believe in America!  I believe that we are completely capable of being a self-sustaining nation without any importing or exporting.  This is NOT to say that we SHOULD become so isolated from the economies of the world.  What it says, instead, is that “…doing business in America is a privilege and foreign businesses need us more than we need them.”

Despite the cries of “protectionism”, one impact of a revenue system based more heavily duties/tariffs is that it levels the playing field somewhat for American workers who may have to compete against what could essentially be called a foreign “slave labor” market.  But the real motivation for duties/tariffs is more fundamental…  Why should we tax the American worker at all when we could be taxing others for the privilege of doing business with us?  By allowing Congress the power to tax our own workers, our own corporations, or our own economy, we are, in fact, assuring that foreign labor markets have an enormous advantage over our own people.  Also, understand that every consumer dollar we spend on foreign merchandise is another dollar drained from our own economy.

All of these unhealthy economic conditions inexorably stem back to our form of taxation and ultimately, therefore, to the 16th Amendment.  A lot of people hate the IRS and hate income taxes and would like to repeal the 16th Amendment for those reasons alone, but even those are not the primary reason for such a repeal…

When the 16th Amendment was passed, the whole taxation dynamic was changed.  Congress was basically given the power to tax without considering fairness in any way.  Congress was given the power to socially engineer through taxation!  We would like to think that “it could never happen”, but there is nothing to prevent Congress from taxing any income above, say, $20,000 at a 100% rate, then giving back to us some small portion of those funds…as Congress sees fit.  I’ve often complained (as Congress has raised taxes and fees back through the years) that they wouldn’t be happy until they are taxing us at 100%…and where do you go from there?  Flatly, the 16th Amendment needs to be repealed.

Then, what should our tax plan look like?  While I really like Herman Cain, I hate the 9-9-9 tax plan.  The Ryman tax plan is much better!  It is the 0-0-0 tax plan!  “Makes no sense!  Where would we get our revenue?”  The Ryman tax plan would be revenue neutral and yet no individual or corporation would pay any direct federal tax.  Intrigued?  For more info on the best tax plan you’ve never heard anything about, I would encourage you to read my “de-centralized tax plan” blog in: “On Taxation…”