Desperate Measures for Desperate Times.

Our founding fathers were brilliant men. They did so much more than give us a functional government, they institutionalized liberties that prior man had only aspired to and achieved in the smallest fragments. Our founding documents have endured longer than any other because they balanced the ambitions of government with three competing branches and limited the central government to certain enumerated powers, leaving all other matters to the state and local authorities. Most importantly the founders empowered the individual with sovereignty over his or her own life and destiny. We have fallen far.

Once bold men met and declared these words that could lead only two places: freedom or a noose. By God’s sovereign providence they achieved the former. Let us read those words again.

“When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.”

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

In light of the betrayal of the Constitution and of the American people by Chief Justice Roberts and the Supreme Court we can no longer argue against the notion that our form of government has ceased to do what the founders envisioned.  Our government has become an obstruction to liberty rather than its protector. Some will contend that this actually happened at one point or another in the past, others will say I’m a “dupe” for ever believing in the promises of American freedom to begin with. In the past, since before the constitution was ever written or ratified there has been an ebb and flow in the authorities of government. So concerned with the dangers of creating a new despotism that our founders first erred so far to the side of caution that our first governing document created an weak and impotent central government without the ability to safe guard the rights of the sovereign sates under its care. A reading of The Articles of Confederation is useful however because it reveals much about what our founders feared. http://www.ourdocuments.gov/doc.php?flash=true&doc=3&page=transcript.

We are well beyond the point of political ebb and flow, we have a government destructive to those ends and according to Jefferson it is our duty as well as our right to alter or abolish it.

I’ll let that sink in for a minute.

The choice between the two is not hard. We must choose to ALTER, even in its current state of “disrepair” our constitution still grants and secures more liberty then has any governing document in the history of the world. Besides it’s not as though we have never altered the constitution before. The founders provided for that eventuality, but they wisely did not make it easy. 27 times the constitution has been amended, the first 10, known as the “bill of rights” were essential to the ratification of the Constitution in the first place, the 12^th, 20^th, 25^t and 27th   deal with standardizing technical aspects of governance. The 13^th 14^th 15^th 19^th and 24^th corrected the shortcomings of the original text establishing the provisions of the bill of rights to 100% of the citizenry. The 11^th and 23^rd dealt with issues of jurisdiction. The 18^th was a well intended but ineffective attempt to do away with intoxicating drinks and the 21^st repealed it. (http://www.usconstitution.net/const.html)

Other than prohibition which was abandoned, the vast majority of the constitutional amendments did little to alter the basic relationship between the citizenry and the government other than to expand existing rights to neglected parties. The amendments we want to look at now are the ones that did, four of them in particular, the 16^th and 17^th amendment were the first two fundamental changes, and 16 the most dreaded of all, it established the income tax.

Is it hard to fathom that once the Government didn’t receive or even need income taxes?

Customs duties, excise taxes, and tariffs were sufficient. In fact prior to the expense of the War Between the States customs duties were all the Federal authorities needed to perform the necessary functions of government. During the War a graduated tax on income was put in place but a later attempt to collect taxes on individual income was thrown out as unconstitutional in 1894. You see chief Justice Roberts, the government’s power to tax was never meant to be unlimited, adding a new source of revenue required a constitutional amendment, but more on Chief Justice Roberts later.

In this matter the founder’s were wise they knew that the simplest most effective way to limit the power of government was to limit its funds. The 16^th amendment (  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.) did more than simply provide the government with a massive pool of money, it put the federal government in direct contact with the individual tax payer, something that actually was rare prior to 1913. It also opened a Pandora’s Box of “unintended” consequence. Remember, conservatives view taxation as a necessary evil to fund the essential functions of government, liberals, while they love the money and power that high taxes give them, see taxation as a means to an end, that end being he creation of a society that is “fair”. This is why when it was pointed out that raising capitol gains taxes historically lowered Federal revenue Sen. Barrack Obama replied, “it s about being fair”, or when the same Sen. and Presidential candidate Obama was challenged by “Joe the Plumber” he stated that the purpose of his tax proposals was to “spread the wealth around”. These neither are not free market ideas nor are the American, they are communist. (It is plank number two of the 10 planks of Marx and Engels blueprint http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Communist_Manifesto which calls for a heavy progressive income tax).

What do we do about excessive taxation? There are several proposals that are appealing. Mitt Romney’ tax plan would be a good start (http://www.mittromney.com/issues/tax) but over the long term it treats the symptoms, which could themselves be fatal to the economy, but the disease what John Roberts calls the unlimited power to tax, would be like a cancer in remission waiting for one bad election result to flair up again. In order to insure that the government tax policy returns to the limit envisioned by our founders we must define limits that the founders would never dream would have been crossed. We see that the 16^th amendment is loosely defined, intentionally so by the progressives who designed it, when the income tax was first implemented the top marginal rate was 7%, within 4 years that top rate was all the way up to 67% (War Revenue act of 1917).
One idea with appeal is that of former and often Presidential candidate Ron Paul- ditch the income tax altogether. It may however be impossible to fund a legitimate national defense without any tax on income, though I sure would love to see smart people crunch those numbers. Rep. Paul may be overly ambitious but this is the type of outside the box thinking we need.
Another outside the box example is Herman Cain’s 9-9-9 which drew a great deal of attention during the primary season. If you recall the current tax code would be scrapped and a 9% tax would be imposed on income both personal and corporate, as well as a 9% sales tax. This would require a constitutional amendment and I would support it if, and only if, one of these conditions were met. 2/3 majority to raise any of the rates in both houses; the rates were built in to the amendment and could only be changed in a time of crisis and any such increases would have a  sunset of 1 year to 18 months than would have to be actively renewed.
An idea I have not heard articulated outside of my own head, is to change the 16^th amendment to strictly limit what can be taxed and how much it can be taxed. For instance “the Federal government shall not have the authority to tax any individual or business at a rate of more than 20% in peacetime nor 25% in time of war or crisis.”  Or “congress shall be forbidden to lay any tax or duty upon any inheritance of any citizen received from any party related by blood.” Death to the Death Tax!

Sadly, and this is the fiscal madness of our day, limiting tax does not guarantee a limit on spending. The government must have the ability to borrow in crisis situations but the fact that we borrow $0.40 of every dollar is madness!

The popular fix is a balanced budget amendment and I would support it if it was the right one, there are some versions that allow the government to ramp up spending then require tax increases to cover it. Still it was always the clear intention of our founders that we balance our books. Such an amendment must focus on the spending issues and must place strict limits on the purposes for which the government can borrow.

For a long time I have opposed constitutional amendments in most cases. If they are going to ignore the constitution anyway why not ignore the amendments as well? now though we must fight fire with fire as they say. That which our founders intended which has been “reinterpreted” must be properly defined.

Next time we’ll look at the 17^th amendment as well as the overall concept that the several states retain their sovereignty.
Until then… keep on the firing line.