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"I would say 10% tax is reasonable for limited, small governance financing."

The 19th century Supreme Court had clarified that Congress is prohibited from taxing for anything that it 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.

This means that, military expenses aside, if a given federal spending program is not reasonably related to the US Mail Service, then patriots can bet that the program is unconstitutional and be right probably most of the time.

"Article I, Section 8, Clause 7: To establish Post Offices and post Roads;"
"10th Amendment: The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."
”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.

The reason that patriots are now being oppressed with unconstitutional federal taxes to pay for unconstitutional spending programs is this. Noting that the delegates to the Constitutional Convention had given the power to vote for federal senators uniquely to state legislatures, not to ordinary citizens, the delegates had established the Senate partly to kill House bills that not only steal state powers, but also steal state revenues uniquely associated with those powers.

The problem is that the Progressive Movement successfully spooked low-information voters into twisting the arms of their state lawmakers to ratify the ill-conceived 17th Amendment (17A), the popular vote for senators destroying one of the main firewalls against an unconstitutionally big federal government. State lawmakers caved and ratified that amendment, foolishly giving up the voices of the state legislatures in Congress.

Now, when crook politicians promise citizens constitutionally indefensible federal spending programs to get themselves elected to the Senate, citizens who have probably never been taught about the federal government’s constitutionally limited powers take the bait and elect them.

So citizen abuse of their 17A powers has effectively let corrupt Congress not only politically nullify the 10th Amendment, but also bypass the Constitution’s Article V requirement for the states to ratify new powers for Congress.

Are we having fun yet?