Food for Thought

To go forward in our quest for life, liberty, and happiness we must go backwards.

Food for Thought: The Bill of Rights was crafted to shield individuals from government overreach, born from hard lessons under British rule. But as later amendments responded to crises and shifting social pressures, they sometimes redefined liberty in ways that expanded government’s role rather than restrained it. Could this shift—however well-intentioned—have led to unintended consequences?

Take the 16th Amendment: it allowed direct federal income taxation, intended to create a fairer revenue system. Yet over time, it enabled a sprawling bureaucracy and complex tax code that few citizens fully understand, arguably weakening economic privacy and autonomy. When rights are reframed through urgency or appeasement, do we risk trading foundational protections for temporary fixes? And if so, how do we restore clarity without rejecting progress?

how do we restore clarity without rejecting progress?

Two paths 1) Constitutional convention. I fear no matter how well intentioned, it will cater to short term agendas

2) Slow, incremmental change through legislation. IMO LBJ & Nixon were our worst presidents and governmental eras. Nixon Revenue Sharing, which was an exapansion of the LBJ War on Poverty made state and local government addicted to Federal money.

a) Local governments cannot print money. The Feds can.
b) Local officials don’t want to beg the legislature for money when the Feds are eager to give money. The best example is FEC/HAVA. GA SOS took HAVA money because it was FREE MONEY.. all GA had to do was use FOD-Freiend of Dodd and subcontractors in India for a new un-American voter system. The GA SOS did not want to make enemies in the legislature by asking them for money.
c) Matching funds. Local government always wants to increase local spending because it does not want to leave federal money on the table.

That LBJ_Nixon legacy has to change for the US to survive.

intended to create a fairer revenue system

The direct tax in equal proportion, as mentioned in the constitution was the fair one. The 16th allowed DISproportionate direct taxation, meaning those with less income pay a lower rate.

So the founders said no direct tax unless it's a FLAT tax.

Imagine how the phones would be ringing off the hook from the millions of folks impacted by an increase in taxes due to a new program? It would be a rather "direct" control on government spending.

With what we have now, it's no skin off the poor's teeth if tax money is spent on a program when they don't have to pay it.

The fewer that are abused by direct taxation (income tax), the more the government can get away with.

So the progressive scale may have been marketed as "fair" but truly only a flat tax would be. Like socialism, a scam.

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