[diogenes ghost]

"William Howard Taft thought that ~ it's not new with me."

I don't much care WHO originated it.

It violates the Constitution's mandate for equality.

How in hell can you justify 2% paying taxes while 98% don't?

No damned way.

No more than you can justify the 50% or so today that pay no taxes.

[muawiyah]

You must be confused about which Constitution is in power here. There's no mandate for "equality" when it comes to taxes. It has to do with "equality before the law" ~ not what tax we collect.

The Founders in 1909 where, they thought, highly intelligent Progressives who know much more than the Founders in 1790 so they FIXED A PROBLEM ~ and that problem was, to them, the idea that tax rates, or amounts, had to be equal across the board from state to state.

They wrote the 16th so that would no be a problem with Income Taxes. They therefore treated the entire United States like a single opportunity !