The 17th amendment destroyed the republic. We are not a republic as founded anymore.
A heavy progressive or graduated income tax.Wonder what the ignorant supporters of the amendment thought they were doing? Woodrow Wilson knew the purpose.
… The thesis of the state socialist is that no line can be drawn between private and public affairs which the state may not cross at will; that omnipotence of legislation is the first postulate of all just political theory. Applied in a democratic state, such doctrine sounds radical, but not revolutionary. It is only an acceptance of the extremest logical conclusions deducible from democratic principles long ago received as respectable. For it is very clear that in fundamental theory, socialism and democracy are almost, if not quite, one and the same. They both rest at bottom upon the absolute right of the community to determine its own destiny and that of its members. Men as communities are supreme over men as individuals. …111 years of Wilson’s “democracy” really ripped the heart out of the country.
— Wilson, Socialism and Democracy, 1887