The Sixteenth Must Go

“In order to form a more perfect union”.

The founders and the framers knew that the Constitution they had written was not perfect and thus this specific phrase contained within the preamble is testament to their belief that subsequent generations would need to amend it and so they created the constitutional mechanisms necessary to do just that.

Throughout our history the overwhelming majority of the amendments to the Constitution have been instituted in the pursuit of that elusive goal of a more perfect union. There have been two specific amendments however have been so ill conceived that one has been repealed and one must be rescinded for the country to fully prosper as it moves well into its third century of being.

One of these two aforementioned amendments passed was intended to regulate conduct by passing legislation aimed at outlawing the creation of a specific item of commerce – alcohol. This led to a decade (1920 -1933) known popularly as Prohibition. The folly of using the United States Constitution for this type of social engineering was repealed and to date there have been no further attempts to amend the Constitution based upon personal conduct.

The second of these amendments is the only one that directly contradicts the intent of the framers and the founders and has become such a blight upon the nation that it must be repealed.

The founding fathers wrote the following very specific language into the Constitution ( Article 1, section 9 )

No Capitation, or other direct, Tax shall be laid, unless in Proportion to the Census or Enumeration herein before directed to be taken.

Their intent was clear: to distribute the required and necessary financial needs of government evenly amongst the states via their respective population. There was never a thought to taxing income, which mandates that the government will first attach your earnings and decide how much of what you have earned you may keep. This is not how the founders intended to fund the cost of democracy. In no way intended to be presented here as the definitive or thorough discussion on the arguments encountered during the debate on the Constitution, the following quote attributed to Thomas Jefferson nevertheless best encapsulates the founders’ firm belief on the nature of how their fledgling nation should be construed:

A wise and frugal government, which shall leave men free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned - this is the sum of good government.

In an act of legislative malfeasance which best exemplifies the dictum of unforeseen consequences, the Congress passed the sixteenth amendment which reads, in its entirety as thus:

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.

This completely reversed the intent of the framers of the Constitution. It has led to allowing the government to be first in line to take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned, and for generations to believe that such actions are a de facto part of American democracy.

This is not the American way.

There is no argument amongst the populace that there needs to be proper funding of the government, but an income tax is not the vehicle for that need.

The sixteenth amendment must be repealed.