[TBP]

The first one:

Section 1 doesn’t make sense, and I’d rather just repeal the 16th Amendment. Limiting the percentage is good, but repealing it is better.

[OneWingedShark]

The first one:
Section 1 doesn’t make sense, and I’d rather just repeal the 16th Amendment. Limiting the percentage is good, but repealing it is better.

One of the reasons that people are complacent is withholdings — look at how people act when they get an income-tax return, not like they're getting back their own money but that they're getting money from the government. (ie they completely fail to realize they've made an interest-free loan to the government.)

Another reason for complacency is that because it's done out-of-sight, it's often out-of-mind — or to rephrase it, how pissed off would people be about government wasting tax-monies if they had to consciously pay the bill?

The reason I hesitate on repealing the 16th is because I no longer think that a sales tax would be good. With the continual miniaturization and pervasive computing it is quickly becoming feasible to have a progressive sales tax system where the rate you're taxed is a function of your income. (I, for one, see that as a fast track to chips embedded in the hand, which would handle the taxation question — DO NOT WANT.)

There's also moral objections to withholdings that should be raised:

• If it's before the money is paid to the worker, then it is forcing the employer to commit fraud.
• If it's after the money is paid to the worker, then it is theft.

And if you're a christian then James 5:4 ought to really make you crap your pants if the first is the case, because it's making virtually every employer guilty in God's sight:
Listen! The wages of the laborers who mowed your fields, which you kept back by fraud, cry out, and the cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord of hosts.