This upcoming Monday is a bleak day for many Americans — April 17, the day of reckoning with the Internal Revenue Service. While many reading this have already filed their tax returns and already received their refunds, there are many more taxpayers waiting until the final dreaded day because they must give up even more of their own hard-earned money to the federal government.
Yes, soon, we as a country, recognize our state of servility to the government. Servitude? How can that be? We are a free country.
We are so free that among income taxes (federal and state), sales taxes, property taxes, car registration fees, telephone taxes, cable taxes and various excise taxes, we pay 45 percent of our income to some governmental body. That means that in a 40-hour work week, 19 of those hours are spent working for the government.
It is absolutely inhumane that someone can spend so much time and resources to have such a large portion of his or her income taken away. Realize that 45 percent is an average, so even those with lower incomes still have a substantial fraction of their lives’ toil taken from them. And for what in return?
Among other things, the federal government has made the following appropriations in 2006: $1,300,000 for berry research in Alaska; $2,045,000 for the Appalachian Fruit Laboratory in West Virginia; $6,435,000 for wood utilization research in several states.
These are just a few examples of government fiscal abuse. Never mind the Ponzi scheme labeled Social Security (broke in 2038 unless taxes are raised), or the fleecing of the young and middle-aged known as Medicare (broke in 2019, again unless taxes are raised).
We’ll just casually forget about the hundreds of billions the government has spent to clean up its mess in Iraq. And of course we won’t worry about the millions of taxpayer dollars that go to arrest and prosecute over 700,000 people each year for the simple possession of marijuana.
This may not concern many readers now, but in about 10 years all of the current administration’s bills (i.e. deficits) will have to be paid. This will come at a time when many who are now in college will have just paid off student loans and have begun to raise a family.
Most of this wouldn’t even be possible if not for the federal income tax. With a very few wartime exceptions, the federal government did not have direct taxation powers before the passage of the 16th Amendment in 1913.
Even then the maximum tax rate was 7 percent, and one had to make over $4,000 — a handsome sum in 1913 — to be required to pay the tax. Today the minimum federal tax bracket is 10 percent.
Before 1913, the federal government had to reply upon “Duties, Imposts, and Excises” as authorized by Article I, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution, thus keeping its size and power in check. However, as soon as a direct head tax (income tax) was imposed, the federal government could use that money as a string with which to manipulate the states in any fashion it chose.
The national speed limit of the 1970s and ’80s was a result of the federal government threatening to withhold highway funds from states that did not comply. It is for the same reason that the drinking age is uniformly 21. Welfare, Medicaid, and a host of other social programs are all mandated to each state and only partially federally funded — leaving taxpayers to pay for the same program a second time through state taxes.
The merits and virtues of these laws can be debated in another forum, but the key issue is that it should be up to the states to decide what their speed limit is (thankfully, now they can), what their drinking age is, and what, if any, social programs they will compel their citizens to support. Small, local governments will always serve their people better than a massive bureaucracy like we have in Washington.
The key to ending this stranglehold the federal government has over state government and citizens is to cut off its source of power. The debate should not be focused on whether or not the “rich” or the “middle class” get a cut, but whether we should have a federal income tax at all.
It is only proper to allow people to keep what they earn, even if they just happened to make some good decisions and amass a large amount of wealth. However, it is cruel to withhold from people (think lower income here) that which they have earned before they even have a chance to use it. The time of direction federal taxation must come to an end if we are to survive as a free people.
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