“The US Constitution allows for Federal Taxation.”
Yes, it does, no argument there, section eight of the Constitution says so. But does it allow for all the many kind of taxes we currently have? That’s the real question. I found an interesting article on the history of our American taxation that I think is worth reading if you want to understand how our current tax system came to be, and here’s a quote:
“The tax mechanisms used during first 150 years or so of U.S. tax history bears little resemblance to the current system of taxation. First, the U.S. Constitution restricted “direct” taxation by the federal government – meaning taxes directly on individuals. Instead, the federal government relied on indirect taxes including taxes on imports (tariffs) and excise taxes. Tariffs were the major source of U.S. government receipts from the beginning of the nation up to the early 1900s.”
It goes on to say:
“The Constitutional framers were wary of a government’s power to tax. Taxation of the American Colonies by a distant and corrupt England was a driving force behind the American Revolution. Consequently, they believed in decentralized taxation and delegated most public revenue collection to localities, which relied primarily on property taxes. During peacetime the federal government met its expenses through relatively modest excise taxes and tariffs. During wars, such as the War of 1812, federal taxes were temporarily raised to finance the war or pay down the ensuing debts. Once the financial crisis passed, taxes were reduced in response to public opposition to high tax rates.”
I’ve railed against Ron Paul in the past, and now I’m actually going to post a quote of his(gasp) on income tax:
“The burden of complying with the income tax is tremendous. Since its inception in 1913, the tax code has gone from 400 pages to over 67,000. The Tax Foundation estimates that around $265 billion dollars and 6 billion hours are spent just on compliance. That expense amounts to about 22 cents of every dollar the IRS collects.
Aside from the direct loss of money and productivity, the funds from the income tax enable the government to do some very destructive things, such as vastly over-regulating economic activity, making it difficult to earn money in the first place. The federal government funds over 50 agencies, departments and commissions that formulate rules and regulations. These bureaucracies operate with little to no oversight from the people or Congress and generate around 4,000 new rules every year and operate at a cost of about 40 billion dollars. There are some 75,000 pages of regulations in the Federal Register that Americans are expected to know and abide by. Complying with these governmental regulations costs American businesses more than one trillion dollars per year, according to a study by Mark Crain for the Small Business Administration. This complicated system drives production to other countries and shrinks our job market here at home.”
–Ron Paul
Or as a friend put it, “even if they have the right to tax us as much as they are, if they were only using that money for what they are supposed to be using it, ie. following their Constitutional role, there would be no way for them to spend it all.” And even with our current over-taxation, our country is way into debt! Thomas Jefferson said “We must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt.” We have some serious mismanagement going on right now!
“Consider the magnitude of these problems or the sheer, dumb size of the institutions. Another phrase of financial usage familiar everywhere now is ‘too big to fail.’ But if something is too big to fail, isn’t it... too big? Look in any direction and what you see are institutions that are Too Big. Too big to fully understand, and thus too big to manage efficiently. Faced with Godzilla-sized problems, logic flees: If they’re too big to fail, the solution is... make them bigger! The big, fat government we know about, with its $2.942 trillion annual outlays. The problem of unmanageable public bigness is also seen in state legislatures in a condition of permanent nonperformance, as in New York, California or Michigan. We become numb to these outsized and failing public institutions, which grind in circles while the polls purport concern about massive, forward-crawling monoliths like Medicare, Social Security or public pension debt. By contrast, the starkness and hourly reporting of the financial crisis has made the dilemma of size impossible to duck.”
-Daniel Henninger
I don’t want to end up like a boiled frog:
"There are more instances of the abridgment of the freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations."
-James Madison (speech to the Virginia Ratifying Convention, 16 June 1788)
But I don’t want to be constantly negative either. God is in control of our nation and the world. It may be that we are headed for some hard times- I’m not sure. But doesn’t He cause all things to work together for good? Hard times make people think about their priorities and hard times bring revival as well. Think about how many times God rescued the nation of Israel when they kept insulting Him time after time. I’m not giving up on America.
