I wouldn't go that far, but the 16th is certainly evil.
As for the 17th, whenever Congress does or does not act, I think freepers should ask themselves what the outcome would be, if we had a Senate of the States instead of the elected demagogues we have today. For instance, would judicial nominees with a history of hostility to state powers have a reasonable chance at all of confirmation?
You hit on what is the key problem which is hostility to state powers or simply outright disregard of them. The power of the centralized government over the states is fueled by the power to tax. I believe the moving of the funding control of federal government to the states is necessary to stop the insanity by separating the power among 50 states so that whatever laws the federal government passes the states can refuse to fund them essentially nullifying them. If this results in the fracturing of the United States then at least it can be a peaceful divorce than an outright tragedy. We have seen how the so-called separation of powers in 3 branches of the same centralized government has failed. What we need is 50 state governments acting in their own self interest to weaken the federal government but strengthen the nation. I think the reason we have the current mess is because we moved too far away from the confederation. What we have now is evil. It is a forced homogeneity of progressive liberalism enforced through federal strong-arming. Even if we hold the line for a time or in a region like the South the bad policies of the political class continues to erode the America we love growing the dependent class. I’d rather see some of it survive against the growing darkness than to lose it all.