But let’s first consider that the largely wealthy delegates to the first Constitutional Convention actually put their money where their mouths were with respect to the Constitution that they had drafted. They did so by committing themselves and their rich friends to uniquely paying for the federal government to operate.
“The rich alone use imported articles, and on these alone the whole taxes of the General Government are levied [emphasis added]. … Our revenues liberated by the discharge of the public debt, and its surplus applied to canals, roads, schools, etc., the farmer will see his government supported, his children educated, and the face of his country made a paradise by the contributions of the rich alone, without his being called on to spend a cent from his earnings.” —Thomas Jefferson to Thaddeus Kosciusko, 1811.
H O W E V E R …
What protected the rich from high federal taxes in the early days of the Republic was the knowledge, evidently forgotten generations ago, of the following Supreme Court clarification. The Court had clarified that Congress is prohibited from appropriating taxes in the name of state power issues, basically any issue which Congress cannot justify under its constitutional Article I, Section 8-limited powers.
“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.
In fact, here’s a rough approximation of how much taxpayers should be paying Congress annually to perform its Section 8-limited duties.
Given that the plurality of clauses in Congress’s Section 8-limited powers deal with defense, and given that the Department of Defense budget for 2015 was $500+ billion, I will generously round up the $500+ billion figure to $1 trillion (but probably much less) as the annual price tag of the federal government to the taxpayers.
In other words, the corrupt media, including Obama guard dog Fx News, shouldn’t be reporting multi-trillion annual federal budgets without mentioning the Supreme Court’s clarification of Congress’s limited power to lay taxes in budget discussions.
The reason that we now have an unconstitutionally big, tax-hungry federal government on our backs is this imo. When the Founding States established the federal Senate, they gave control of the Senate uniquely to state lawmakers. Part of the reason for having state legislatures control the Senate was so that senators could protect their states by killing House appropriations bills which could not be justified under Congress’s Section 8-limited powers, such bills essentially stealing state revenues.
The problem is that the Progressive Movement spooked low-information citizens to pressure state lawmakers to ratify the ill-conceived 17th Amendment (17A). And state lawmakers caved in and ratified 17A, foolishly giving up the voices of the state legislatures in Congress.
So now, after voters elect their federal senators, they go home and watch football while corrupt senators rob their wallets. Senators do this by working in cahoots with the corrupt House to pass unconstitutional appropriations bills, bills which Congress cannot justify under its Section 8-limited powers.
As a side note to this discussion, please consider the following. If it wasn’t for 17A, state lawmakers might have built up a 2/3 conservative majority in the Senate by now. This means that Congress could have possibly impeached and booted lawless Obama from the Oval Office by now, along with activist justices.
Getting back to "balancing the federal budget,” the first step is to make 17A disappear imo, corrupt senators disappearing along with it. The Constitution should also be amended with Supreme Court’s clarification of Congress’s limited power to appropriate taxes.
There are likely more low-information voters now than ever before. Making Senators and Constitutional Amendments disappear, and passing new Constitutional Amendments are impractical in this day and age. The change you seek must come from within.