“The Congress shall have power to dispose of and make all needful rules and regulations respecting the territory or other property belonging to the United States....”
ARTICLE IV., SECTION 3.
Congress under Amendment XVI can take your income and have Leroy throw it into the back of a Waste Management truck, or give it to his sister, or her doctor.
Congress under Amendment XVI can take your income and have Leroy throw it into the back of a Waste Management truck, or give it to his sister, or her doctor.
In case you have not seen the material below concerning federal taxes, you might find it interesting.
Regarding the 16th Amendment (16A) versus the constitutionally very limited power (hint) Congress, consider the Madison Test which singles out the Constitution's wrongly ignored Article II, Section 8 which puts strict limits on Congress's 16A powers.
More specifically, consider that most post-17A ratification lawmakers discovered that they could promise voters who have evidently never really studied the fed's constitutionally limited powers every unconstitutional federal social spending program under the sun to get themselves elected. Constitutionally naïve voters eventually took the bait and elected these crooks, and then reelected them!
Then once in office, criminal-minded lawmakers abuse their 16A powers by simply fulfilling their campaign promises for unconstitutional federal spending, scandalously ignoring their constitutional Article I, Section 8 spending limits when doing so.
Regarding the Madison Test, note that the 14th Congress in the time of President James Madison (4th pres.), Madison generally regarded as the father of the Constitution, had found some EXISTING tax revenues and got all happy about spending it. So Congress drafted the Bonus Bill of 1817 to use the found taxpayer dollars to improve military readiness and commerce by authorizing the construction of roads and canals intended to facilitate moving troops and manufactured goods, let's throw agricultural produce in there too.
But Congress had based the bill solely on the General Welfare Clause (GWC) which turned out to be a BIG mistake.
Article I, Section 8, Clause 1: The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defense and general Welfare of the United States [emphasis added]; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;
More specifically, while Madison AGREED with Congress that the bill would improve transportation, he diplomatically clarified in his veto explanation that while the GWC authorizes Congress to tax and spend, he reminded Congress that the Constitution's drafters, Madison himself a major player, had intended for the clauses that followed it in Section 8 to limit what Congress could spend tax dollars for, no mention of roads and canals for Congress's purpose for the Bonus Bill. Madison also noted that the bonus bill didn't even pass Congress's traditional "wild card" excuse for justifying spending, the infamous "Necessary and Proper Clause."
The legislative powers vested in Congress are specified and enumerated in the eighth section of the first article of the Constitution, and it does not appear that the power proposed to be exercised by the bill is among the enumerated powers, or that it falls by any just interpretation within the power to make laws necessary and proper [emphasis added] for carrying into execution those or other powers vested by the Constitution in the Government of the United States. —President James Madison, March 3, 1817: Veto Message on the Internal Improvements Bill
Also consider that Thomas Jefferson's advice on interpreting Congress's limited powers compliments Madison's veto.
In every event, I would rather construe so narrowly as to oblige the nation to amend, and thus declare what powers they would agree to yield, than too broadly, and indeed, so broadly as to enable the executive and the Senate to do things which the Constitution forbids. —Thomas Jefferson: The Anas, 1793.
In fact, note that the Constitution's drafters appropriately required the peacetime Congress to meet only once a year so that they could approve artwork for new postage stamps. But let's also include military readiness as one of Congress's once a year meeting chores.
Article I, Section 4, Clause 2: The Congress shall assemble at least once in every Year [emphasis added], and such Meeting shall be on the first Monday in December, unless they shall by Law appoint a different Day.
Article I, Section 8, Clause 7: To establish Post Offices and post Roads;
Article I, Section 8, Clause 7: To establish Post Offices and post Roads; It is one of a few government agencies explicitly authorized by the Constitution of the United States. (non-FR)
Congress is not empowered to tax for those purposes which are within the exclusive province of the States.—Justice John Marshall, Gibbons v. Ogden, 1824. (Abuse of 16A)It is one of a few government agencies explicitly authorized by the Constitution of the United States. (non-FR)
If the tax be not proposed for the common defence, or general welfare, but for other objects, wholly extraneous (as for instance [all emphases added], for propagating Mahometanism among the Turks, or giving aids and subsidies to a foreign nation, to build palaces for its kings, or erect monuments to its heroes,) it would be wholly indefensible upon constitutional principles. — Justice Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution 2 (1833).
The congressional record shows that Rep. John Bingham, a constitutional lawmaker, had clarified the federal government's constitutionally limited powers as follows.
Simply this, that the care of the property, the liberty, and the life of the citizen [all emphases added], under the solemn sanction of an oath imposed by your Constitution, is in the States and not in the federal government. I have sought to effect no change in that respect in the Constitution of the country. —John Bingham, Congressional. Globe. 1866, page 1292 (see top half of third column)
From the accepted doctrine that the United States is a government of delegated powers, it follows that those not expressly granted, or reasonably to be implied from such as are conferred, are reserved to the states, or to the people. To forestall any suggestion to the contrary, the Tenth Amendment was adopted. The same proposition, otherwise stated, is that powers not granted are prohibited [emphasis added]. —United States v. Butler, 1936.
16th Amendment: The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived [emphasis added], without apportionment among the several States, and without regard to any census or enumeration.
Cherish, therefore, the spirit of our people, and keep alive their attention. If once they become inattentive to the public affairs, you and I, and Congress and Assemblies, judges and governors, shall all become wolves [emphasis added]. It seems to be the law of our general nature. —Thomas Jefferson (Letter to Edward Carrington January 16, 1787)
The 16th Amendment is the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow for organized crime, front-ended by deep state Congress, and desperately needs to be repealed. The 17th Amendment, popular voting for federal senators, needs to disappear too.
Note that a resolution to repeal 16A was introduced in 2021, but was unsurprisingly ignored.