[TexasAg1996]

Our taxes used to be much higher. Remember the "pre-Reagan" tax rates?

And don't forget, we fought the war of independence because of taxation without representation. You can't use the same justification when it's our elected representatives raising the taxes. I don't know if violence would be justified when it is our elected representatives setting the tax rates or otherwise doing something we don't like but that is otherwise Constitutional. That's just an invitation to anarchy. (And yes, I'm assuming the 16th Amendment is valid as held by our Constitutionally-embodied court system throughout the years).

[metesky]

And don't forget, we fought the war of independence because of taxation without representation. You can't use the same justification when it's our elected representatives raising the taxes.

Yes, you can. It has long been my contention that once Congress capped their own numbers in the House that our representation has been steadily slipping.

Never mind that the Founders wanted 1 Rep for every 50,000 constituents (It was the 1st Amendment presented to the new Congress in the BOR. It was not adapted because the Founders thought that having just fought a war over representation, it would always be foremost in the minds of citizens.), and look at the fact that when they did cap their numbers the population was about 90 million. It doesn't take much to see that as individual citizens, we have about 1/3 the representation we had less than a century ago.